‘BBC Under Fire’? That’s what it’s there for
I joined the BBC as a graduate trainee journalist in 1969. I didn’t stay long, as political activism infected me at an early age and the BBC and I parted company, though I still get a tiny pension.
The current right-wing attack should be resisted by all-comers. Details are now emerging and names being revealed of the men involved in what David Yelland, a former editor of the Sun, not a home to many BBC lovers , calls a “plot.”
But if your enemy is Boris Johnson, Charles Moore, or Donald Trump, the BBC will probably survive.
The accusation that the BBC is left-wing is laughable. I was left-wing. I know what left-wing journalism is. I worked in BBC local, regional radio and national radio and television. All I can report is that the presence of lefties in the BBC was not very evident.
In 1974 I carried out a survey of all the editorial staff on Radio 4’s “The World Tonight”. All but one of them had voted Liberal in the October 1974 election. Liberals, today LibDems, are not socialists and never Labour supporters as Nick Clegg proved in 2010. The Guardian lay unopened on BBC newsroom desks. Everyone knew what the Guardian thought, so why read it?
The preferred papers were the Sun which landed with a splash in 1973 and above all the Daily Mail. Two of the best BBC Director-Generals, Hugh Carleton Greene and Ian Trethowan, came from the Daily Telegraph and The Times.
BBC journalists know their viewers and listeners. They represent middle England. They like Gardeners Question Time, Thought for the Day, The Archers, live cricket commentary, and Question Time — on which Nigel Farage appeared 30 times in the run up to the Brexit vote with no MEP opposed to Brexit permitted to challenge his fabulations.
The BBC was always best-run when headed as DG by an experienced journalist. The DG is the BBC’s editor in chief. The Corporation has a global status which does more to make Britain a voice and influence in the globe than all the Traitors, or Strictlies or even Wolf Halls put together.
When I worked in Bush House writing overseas news bulletins, the journalists were forbidden from inserting a line in a bulletin unless it had three sources – different news agencies, a respectable overseas newspaper, a report from the BBC Caversham Unit that monitored what was being broadcast by radio stations in the Soviet empire or from struggles for freedom from dictatorial or colonial rule in Asia, Africa or Latin America.
It made perhaps for news that was not instant but these checks and balance ensured that when the BBC spoke it was believed.
The Trump Panorama programme — which no-one had ever heard of as Panorama like Newsnight is no longer necessary viewing — was a stupid blip. But given that the US Congressional report agrees that the current President was involved in instigating the riots on Capitol Hill in January 2000, it seems a venial not a mortal sin.
On Gaza, I seem to have heard more Israel government spokespersons on the Today programme than I knew existed. The problem could be solved by Israel allowing BBC and other reporters to report from Gaza. On trans issues, the concern of feminists amongst whom there are few Conservatives, is justified, but Women’s Hour and social media allow corrections. It was not the BBC who made life difficult for the Canterbury MP Rosie Duffield, but her own Labour Party and leader, Keir Starmer, who refused to take seriously her concerns about the ideology that lay behind ultra trans positions which denied women safe space.
If there is a failure of BBC news it has been its refusal to reflect any of the reports by responsible economists and academics on the damage cutting links with Europe is doing to the growth and prosperity in Britain. The Brexit omerta on Today or TV News and Current Affairs is shocking. But the BBC’s rightist critics think that is one area of BBC journalism which toes their line.
The Royal Family has opened up more questions about its use and service to the nation following the King’s treatment of his first wife and now the Andrew Mountbatten Windsor scandal.
The Church of England is looking to lose its world religion status over the appointment of a woman as its leader.
The Royals and the CoE have survived 1,000 and 500 years respectively. The BBC has recently celebrated its 100th birthday. Of the three quintessential British institutions the BBC delivers the most valued service even if its compulsory tax annoys some.
The appointment as DG of Tim Davie was a mistake. Davie was deputy Chair of the Conservative Party in West London and a Tory candidate when a Proctor and Gamble salesman before he joined the BBC as Director of Marketing in 2005.
It reflects the modish views of Blair-Brown era Britain that only men and women who had worked in private sector commerce were fit to run any national institution. The BBC is part of Britain’s identity. It is not a profit or loss organisation. Its name and reputation depends on its historic achievement of telling the truth to the nation and the world about the events of the day.
The BBC should return to having a leader who understands the challenges of the deontology of truth-telling. In a world of AI, Donald Trump, Nigel Farage and Chinese contempt for truth, Britain should cling to the best truth-teller the world has ever seen.
A Message from TheArticle
We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an important contribution to make, one that’s needed now more than ever, and we need your help to continue publishing throughout these hard economic times. So please, make a donation.
