on media


BBC needs to take a hard look at itself


Managers’ actions risk popular support, warns Raymond Snoddy In the new world of WhatsApp


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ometimes you just have to feel sorry for the BBC as traditional enemies and erstwhile friends are brought


together across a wide battlefront. In the past few weeks, the corporation has been rocked by the story over the banning of Gary Lineker, the scandal surrounding the appointment of BBC chairman Richard Sharp and the mishandling of the ‘reform’ of local broadcasting and subsequent job losses and strikes. Along the way there was also the plan to cut the number of orchestral musicians employed by the BBC and close down the BBC Singers, the UK’s only professional choir, after 99-years. That decision was then paused after a public outcry.


The epitome of public service broadcasting obviously? For good measure, there was the


leak of messages showing how 10 Downing Street under Boris Johnson tried to control the line-up in television news bulletins and even the use of words such as “lockdown” during the pandemic. Scarcely surprising, then, that David


Jordan, BBC director of editorial policy and standards, received unsolicited expressions of sympathy during breaks at the Society of Editors’ media freedom conference. Jordan, who has seen it all, was in a phlegmatic mood. BBC rows come in waves, often after


relatively quiet periods. Jordan batted away the importance of the stories about Number 10 trying to interfere with BBC News. They have always tried to do that. It’s only a story if they succeeded and editorial integrity was compromised in return for access to the top.


leaking on the Hancock model, the truth will almost certainly emerge before long.


Most of the BBC’s travails break down


into two distinctive categories – political cock-ups mishandled by management and management making a mess of trying to live within the budget restraints imposed by this government. The BBC deserved all it got by trying


to take on a national treasure such as Gary Lineker over tweets that were not too dissimilar to the truth. The mishandling of the issue by BBC director general Tim Davie was enough to persuade Greg Dyke to break his silence on the performance of his successors since he was ousted. Dyke explained he had remained


silent for so long because he knew how difficult the job was. But Davie had simply got it wrong on this occasion, he told the Today programme. Some good might yet emerge if the planned independent review is able to provide some clarity on where the line should be drawn on impartiality and the use of social media by freelance contributors to the BBC. The appointment of Conservative donor Richard Sharp as BBC chairman at a time when he acted as a go-between in the arrangement of a £800,000 loan for Johnson is a scandal that refuses to go away. The Sunday Times has pushed Sharp further into the mire with new allegations that he helped a friend to become a paid adviser to the BBC on editorial standards and impartiality. The next chair should be appointed by an independent body, perhaps even communications regulator Ofcom. The days when prime ministers appoint to the post should now be over.


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The future of BBC local broadcasting, local radio in particular, looks bleak and a lot less local. Local speech radio,which truly serves communities and often the elderly, should be at the heart of what the BBC does, not at the centre of cuts. As usual, reduced services are dressed up as embracing modernity with inappropriate moves online. Have they forgotten already how similar arguments were used to put BBC Three online, only for it having to be brought back as a broadcast channel? Time for a rethink, not least because the BBC is targeting some of its less well paid younger staff – the very people who did a better job on Liz Truss than their more highly paid London cousins. Perhaps the biggest scandal and risk to the BBC’s reputation was the planned closure of the BBC Singers. As acting co-directors Jonathan Manners and Rob Johnson put it: “A recurring narrative of toxic culture now exists at the BBC, reflected in the working environment from the director general downwards”. They claimed ‘seismic decisions’ were


A recurring narrative of toxic culture exists at the BBC, reflected in the working environment from the director general downwards


taken at speed with no proper analysis or consultation and that only one key executive had heard the choir perform before the closure was announced. It is hard to imagine more deserving


manifestations of public service broadcasting than local radio or historic choirs. Unless the BBC management has a


serious rethink across a wide front from political scandals to managerial misjudgments it is in existential danger. If it doesn’t, in the face of attacks


from the right wing of the Conservative Party and their tabloid backers, loyal BBC supporters will have little to say in its defence and little enthusiasm for making its case.


theJournalist | 09


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