Why BBC News needs a radical overhaul after Fran Unsworth

The Sunday Times headline only told part of the story: “BBC boss ‘delighted’ to lose news chief.” Director-General Tim Davie may be pleased to see the departure of Fran Unsworth, the BBC’s Director, News and Current Affairs since January 2018, but her legacy also leaves him with a number of headaches.

First, there are the losses. Who will replace Andrew Neil? No one did the big political interview better. He gave credibility to the BBC’s coverage of the big set-piece occasions, from budgets to elections. Neil also brought a mix of humour and incisive analysis that no one else at the BBC can match. Who will replace David Dimbleby? Not Fiona Bruce or Huw Edwards, clearly. These are both huge gaps to fill.

Then there are the problems with the BBC’s coverage of all key parts of the world: the Middle East and America, Russia and China. Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s Middle East Editor, much criticised by Jewish viewers for his anti-Israel bias, and Lyse Doucet, the Chief International Correspondent, are both in their early sixties and John Simpson, the World Affairs Editor of BBC News, is almost 80. Their age matters because the world of international news is changing fast. Bowen is meant to cover everywhere from Egypt and Israel to Iraq and Iran; Lyse Doucet has reported from Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan since the 1980s. This might have made sense 30 years ago, but these are now hugely important parts of the world, and to keep on top of any of them requires extraordinary levels of energy and huge back-up teams. Falling back on human interest stories, interviews with Afghan interpreters, young women anxious about the Taliban, the occasional Middle Eastern diplomat, simply won’t do any more — as the past few weeks have shown.

In the 1980s, the BBC’s main competitors, apart from ITN, were newspaper journalists, who weren’t much more on top of their briefs than Bowen and Simpson. But now British viewers, at least those who might be interested in proper international news, have access to US cable news and to a new world of online platforms such as Unherd, Tortoise and TheArticle. The New Statesman’s recent hiring of the historian, Adam Tooze, was significant and not just for the Statesman. Together with the weekly’s in-house political philosopher, John Gray, Tooze will offer long, insightful pieces on a fast-changing world which make Bowen and Simpson look like dinosaurs from another world.

Then there are modern historian/columnists. Niall Ferguson, Mark Mazower, and the journalist Andrew Sullivan, like Tooze, are Britons who have gone to America and take a broad view, sharing American perspectives with British audiences.

BBC news veterans will argue that there’s room for both. TV news offers human interest stories and moving images of crises as they unfold, while people who want something more analytical or highbrow can read analysis and opinion in more depth if they want. There’s no either/or, they say. You can enjoy both. The problem is: what is there really to enjoy in the reporting of Bowen and Simpson? What do they actually bring to the party in their two- to three-minute mini-reports? BBC TV news should be able to offer a more mixed diet, but despite the best efforts of Ros Atkins on the News Channel, they don’t. That’s what Newsnight used to be there for — until it became so shrill and partisan.

The other main news story is America. Again, there is a problem with losing key figures. Nick Bryant, the BBC’s excellent New York correspondent, and Katty Kay, who hosted Beyond One Hundred Days with Christian Fraser during the Trump years, a must-watch nightly review of British and especially American news, have both gone. After seven years as the BBC’s North America editor, Jon Sopel will presumably leave soon. These three departures will badly damage the BBC’s US coverage.

Then there’s the coverage itself. Think of Alistair Cooke’s homely letters from America during election year, when he would reminisce about past election campaigns in snow-swept Vermont. That is a long time ago, admittedly, but Jim Naughtie’s reports on the 2020 presidential election campaign for the Today programme or Emily Maitlis, covering it for Newsnight, were not so different. No data-crunching or serious social or economic analysis. Going on about Biden and Trump, the heroic days of personality politics, just won’t cut it any more.

Look at the recent BBC coverage of the 20th anniversary of 9/11. There was so much nonsense about how divided America is today compared with earlier in 2001. Really? What about the bitterly contested battle for Florida which decided the 2000 election between Bush and Gore? What about the toxic world of the Bush/Dukakis campaign or Roth’s brilliant evocation of the Clinton years in The Human Stain? There was little or no historical perspective to enable viewers to decide whether the present polarisation really is unprecedented.

And what about China? Can you even name the BBC’s China correspondents? What kind of news can the BBC offer about Russia and China when two of their four correspondents are no longer even allowed in these countries? And how can four (now two) correspondents be expected to cover such huge countries and stay on top of issues, from Wuhan to the treatment of the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang region, from Putin’s government to Belarus and Ukraine?

Online news and social media are faster, smarter, more nimble. They can offer you clips of TV news footage and links to smart academics and top journalists. Then there’s the new generation of substack newsletters and podcasts, who are not slowed down by having to edit commentary over hastily cut together pictures for the Ten O’Clock News or Newsnight, which go out here at 5pm or 5.30pm US time, before many big news stories break in America.

Fran Unsworth didn’t even begin to tackle any of these problems. Some are about taking on sacred cows in BBC news who have been around for 30 years. Others, more important, are about radically re-thinking the purpose of BBC News.

I haven’t even raised the issue of bias: anti-Johnson, anti-Brexit, anti-Israel, pro-BLM, pro-woke. There is much talk about Jess Brammar, former deputy editor of Newsnight, replacing Fran Unsworth, despite opposition from Robbie Gibb and from the Government. That would be a problem for the BBC, but it is small beer beside the real problem facing BBC News. What (and who) is it for? Is it fit for purpose in the 21st century?

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 the pandemic. So please, make a donation.