It's a pretty bad crisis. The BBC is now headless.
It's been decapitated. The motive of some of the
people, not all of the people, some of the people attacking the
BBC, it has in the last week been completely hysterical.
So they're they're seizing on this because they basically
don't think the BBC should exist.
Because the BBC, rightly so, holds itself up to those very
high editorial standards. It's all the more shocking when
some of the issues in this Prescott letter are bought to
the 4th. Hello and welcome to the
forecast. The BBC is in meltdown.
Both the director general and the head of news have quit in
the same weekend after a leaked memo accused the corporation of
systemic political bias. The flashpoint was an edit of
Donald Trump's speech ahead of the January 6th riots.
And the president is now piled in threatening a billion dollar
lawsuit. So what's really going on?
Was this a right wing coup against public service
broadcasting as some have suggested, or the consequence of
genuine bias inside the BBC or a bad mistake, badly handled?
And could this crisis now reshape the future of impartial
news not just at the BBC but across British public service
broadcasting? With me, the political editor of
the Sunday Telegraph, Camilla Turner, and the editor of
Prospect magazine, Alan Rusbridger.
Alan first of all, I mean, how big a crisis for the BBC?
What is this? It's a pretty bad crisis.
The BBC is now headless. It's been decapitated at a time
when it is coming into a very crucial period of renegotiating
the charter. For some reason BBC charter has
to be renewed every 10 years. Unlike other royal charters,
it's got to agree a funding formula for the future and we're
we're sort of 3 1/2 years off from a general election where a
populist right could get in. And the the lesson from around
the world is populist right wing governments tend to try and
capture the media and they certainly don't have much time
for public service broadcasting. But as as more details come out,
it does seem as though the BBC has shot itself in the foot
pretty badly. I mean, this was an obvious
mistake in the edits that was defended by BBC News executives
months ago, only now for them to admit it was wrong.
You you obviously know more than I do it.
It was a bad mistake. I don't know when it was first
pointed out or to what extent it was defended by BBC executives
when the Telegraph came out with their story last week.
It would have been better to admit that mistake, to correct
it and in my view, to put the Panorama program back up.
If you watch the rest of the Panorama program, it's
absolutely fine, nothing wrong with it at all.
But according to Nick Robinson today, the BBC board itself
prevented the news executives from apologizing in the way that
they would have liked to. So do you think there is
something bigger going on about the structural governance and
the people in power in the BBC and the pressures outside who
are trying to bring it down? Well, the BBC, it's a statement
of fact to say that it's got many, many enemies.
People on ideological or commercial grounds would gladly
see it dead, and that includes Rupert Murdoch and his newspaper
staple, the governance of the BBC.
It sounds very nerdy, but, but you have to get into it.
It's got a board of directors, five of whom are appointed by
the government, including the chair.
When I looked at the the the board most recently, I could
only find 3 people who'd only who'd ever had a recent
experience of, of practice in journalism.
And that makes a little committee, the editorial
Standards and Guidelines committee, a very powerful
committee. And that to my mind is a
complete mess. It's got 5 people on it, three
of whom are insiders, two of whom are outsiders.
Of the outsiders, until recently only one had any experience of
journalism and that was a political appointee, it was Sir
Robbie, Sir Sir Robbie Gibb. He he, he doesn't make any
pretence of impartiality. He was until fairly recently a
Conservative Party spin doctor. And so the BBC has got itself
into this extraordinary position, one of the great news
organisations in the world of having this tiny little
committee in which there was until recently only one
independent arbiter, and we're expected to take his word as
gospel. As gospel as as to what
constitutes impartiality or bias.
I mean, Robbie Gibb says that he was impartial when he was ABBC
producer, then he went into politics and now his job at the
BBC is again to defend impartiality.
You're saying that's not really possible?
Well, he he would say that. I note that when he tried to
stop someone else getting a job in the BBC News department, he
wasn't prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt that they,
like him, could apparently put his, their their views, leave
them at the door. The trouble about these
arguments about impartiality is right wing people tend to think
the BBC is too left wing. Lots of left wing people think
the BBC is too right wing and that extends to Israel, trans
issues, etcetera, etcetera. And it's rather fruitless to
have a lot of people chipping in saying that in their view the
BBC is biased. And I would include Sir Robbie
Gibbon that the the the one body that is charged officially with
deciding whether the BBC is in battle or not is Ofcom.
And if you go back and read their reports, as I have done
over the years, I think I'm right in saying I'm not sure
I've read the most recent one in every year.
They've given the BBCA pretty clean bill of health in terms of
impartiality. Camilla, let me bring you in.
I mean, isn't the Telegraph jumping a quite quite away,
going from an obvious error of editing in that panorama to
accusations of institutional bias?
Well, I think the revelations we had from the Telegraph starting
off last week with that Panorama documentary, the the editing of
Trump's speech and then going on on on to the other days of, of
last week. We also touched on the issues
that the the BBC board had been made aware of to do with BBC
Arabic, to do with reporting of trans issues, to do with
reporting of the Israel Gaza war.
So. I think these are all just
opinions. They're not, I mean, they, they
happen to be Michael Prescott's opinions of those things.
They're not open and shut in the way that the Panorama is.
Opinions were very much backed up by fact that he cites in his
In his letter he talks about these UMM contributors who had
been advised on to BBC Arabic dozens and dozens of times
despite UMM expressing very UMM, in some cases outwardly
anti-Semitic views, praising October the 7th UMM.
These are the sorts of contributors that any media
organization might think twice before UMM inviting onto their
shows, let alone the BBC which we are told UMM holds up the
highest possible standards UMM in its reporting.
So I think the reason why we've ended this week with Tim Davey
himself resigning, as well as the BB CS head of news, is just
because these issues in the leaked letter were quite so
serious. Had it just been someone's
opinion or something that was kind of arguable either way we
probably wouldn't be in the situation we are now, with the
BBC in complete crisis and it's top executives resigning over
it. Well, I mean, in fact, the BBC
chairman has said that there was nothing in the Prescott's letter
that was was telling them anything new and that the only,
the only issue that they've really capitulated on is the
editing of that one clip in Panorama.
All those other things were issues that the BBC was looking
into. And they disagree or, you know,
or agree with the the broad criticism to differing levels.
I mean, what I'm saying is we've gone from a mistake to a a vast
accusation against a whole organization employing more than
20,000 people, towering them with this, with this claim of
institutional bias. What?
What do you mean by that? Well, I think the institutional
bias is something for the BBC to look at itself really.
But what is it I think? Well, if you can, if you look at
the certain areas that the press got letter touched on, there was
the Trump documentary and then reporting around Trump, there
was the Israel Gaza war, there was BBC Arabic, there was
reporting around trans issues. These are quite a few different
controversial areas, of course, for any media organization to be
reporting on. But for the BBC to get things
right and to report without fear or favour, to report without
bias, to report in a way that doesn't seem like they've been
captured by anyone side or other.
It's just of the utmost importance.
And I think it's because the BBC, rightly so, holds itself up
to those very high editorial standards.
It's it's all the more shocking when some of the issues in this
Prescott letter are brought to the fore.
And I think also the fact that this letter had gone to the BBC
Trust many months ago and the reason for its leak was because
it was felt that none of these issues had been properly
addressed. There was nothing had been done
about the documentary and none of these issues, umm had had
been addressed in a way that those who were upset about them
felt were satisfactory. And I think the reason why we've
ended this week with Trump threatening to sue the BBC with
Tim Davies resignation is not only the BBC's handling of these
these issues, but because these issues go to the very core of of
what the BBC should be doing. And I think it's it's right that
they are looked at properly and that the BBC looks itself at
whether there are broader institutional problems that need
to be addressed here. Alan, how do you get to a point
of impartiality in a world where, you know, people in
Camilla's organization accuse the BBC of anti right wing bias
and anti Israel bias and anti Trump bias and people on the
left, as you say, accuse the BBC of being too pro Israel, too pro
conservative, of giving Nigel Farage too much airtime.
I mean, is there such a thing now as impartiality that
everyone would recognize? Yeah, that's a really good
question. And I don't know what the answer
is. I, I don't know what body you
could have that would satisfy everybody that the BBC is always
going to be straight down the middle on everything.
I mean, on Israel, Gaza, there was a report about two or three
months ago from a perfectly respectable monitoring group
that claimed the BBC was biased towards Israel.
That didn't get much airtime because it goes against the
conventional narrative of the BBC.
So again, it slightly depends where you're starting with.
I just think the BBC's governance arrangements, if
you've got a Board of Governors who are mainly business leaders,
hedge fund managers, private equity people and so forth.
And somebody has got to reach decisions about whether the BBC
is, is meeting its own standards.
The the current arrangements aren't, aren't very good for
that. I think in, in, in days past
there was a board full of people imbued in BBC values who could
take reasoned decisions on that. And I, I go back to the, the,
the problem that if you've got a, a tiny committee with a
government appointee on it who is clearly making a lot of the
running in all this, then that that seems to be a sub optimal
way of deciding anything to do with these, these highly
contentious issues. So you think we need to go into
a whole new review of how the BBC is governed?
I, I think that should be on the list of things that that that
should be sorted out. I mean, I, I think it's common
ground between, you know, all, all, all sides, both the
attackers and the, and the defenders of the BBC that things
aren't working very well at the moment.
And that would be my, my 2 penny worth that anybody coming to do
that job. Brackets.
Who on earth is this person that is, I think it has to be a
journalist. I think Tim Davy was at a
disadvantage because he, he didn't have a journalistic
background. But who is this tough, impartial
journalist with a real spine who can also simultaneously run a £6
billion corporation and who's going to have their back?
And if you've if, if, when they turn around and look at the
board and the board is arguing about whether they're, they're
free to issue the kind of defence they want to issue, then
it's a very unsatisfactory position all round.
Camilla I mean, it's obviously in the Telegraph's commercial
interest that the BBC be diminished and other commercial
news websites like like yours because you will, you will
benefit. Is, is that part of the story
here? I mean, is, you know, how, how
upfront is the Telegraph about what it really wants for the
BBC? I'm not sure that's interesting
point. I'm not sure how much that plays
into things because what people come to the BBC for is of course
it's news. But and I think the BBC can't
really do like opinion and, you know, kind of op eds and
commentary, which is does kind of occupy a slightly different
space. Obviously the BBC is a
broadcaster, the Telegraph is a newspaper.
So I'm not sure how much our audiences are directly in
conflict. We do both provide the news that
is correct. But I think this story isn't
really about one media organization trying to criticise
another. It's, it's much bigger than
that. The BBC is our our public
service broadcaster here in the UK.
It's taxpayer funded, everyone who pays their licence fee, it
goes to the BBCI think what this Prescott letter has showed us is
that there are certain instances and certain areas where there
are serious concerns that have been brought to the BB CS Board
and felt by some to have not been properly addressed and
therefore put out into the public domain.
I don't think this is a kind of intermedia discussion here.
It's it's about what license fee payers should expect from the
BBC and what the public should expect from the BBC and I think
if it's falling short of that, there are questions to be
answered. But do you accept that everybody
needs to feel that the BBC is fair, not just Telegraph
readers, so Guardian readers and trans activists and Green voters
and, you know, every and reform voters and everybody needs to
have some level of trust in that broadcaster.
And that's a pretty tall order right now.
Absolutely. And there are there's criticism
of the BBC from from all quarters, from the right, from
the left. I listened to Sonia Soda earlier
this week or on the weekend, you know, a prominent journalist
from the left talking about her issues with the BBC's coverage
of of trans reporting. These are complex issues that
are difficult to get right. But that doesn't mean that the
BBC shouldn't be held up to those very high standards that
the public and the licence fee payers should expect.
And yes, of course there are difference of opinions on on how
to go about reporting these things from across the political
spectrum, but I think that's not really an excuse to to not get
it right. Right, but how much of A tragedy
do you think it would be if the BBC was fatally damaged?
I think the BBC is a hugely important organization.
It's part of our kind of national public life.
It's it's, it's got a deep history.
It, it does really important work.
I'm a, I'm a huge fan. I listen to Radio 4 all the
time. I watch a lot of its programmes.
I think it's has has a really important part to play in public
life. But I think it does need to get
things right. And when serious concerns are
raised about its coverage, there aren't just a one off.
These are concerns that have been going on for quite some
time and aired in different areas.
This Prescott letter I think brings them to the fore in quite
a a shocking way. And I think that's why it's had
the impact that it has with Tim Davies resignation, with Trump
threatening to sue the BBC. It's having a big ripple effect
now. But that's because these aren't
just issues that are in isolation.
This isn't the first time we've heard of them.
These are ongoing concerns people have around the BB CS
coverage in certain areas and I think it's in the BB CS interest
to to get it right. People do respect the BBC and
listen to them and think of them as a kind of beacon of high
quality journalism. And so it's all the more
important that when they are criticised, they they address it
head on and and try to do their best to to look at where they
can do things differently. Alan what One of the BB CS
biggest and consistent problems is the way it handles problems
and complaints in that it it is always very slow.
It tends to kick things into the long grass and have reviews and
hope that things will go away. I think somebody called it sort
of playing dead when there when there's a when there's a
problem. I mean, is that, is that what
one of the reasons they got into this mess?
Well, it clearly hasn't been brilliant at the last week.
I agree with that. And I think that's a little
unfair. The BBC knows that it's under a
huge scrutiny all the time and we can all think of many times
where the BBC has been placed under the spotlight, sometimes a
judicial or quasi judicial spotlight.
And the BBCI think is far more transparent in its operations
than than many of its critics are.
So but it clearly hasn't handled this one well.
I mean, I think the problem with some of the criticism, clearly
there were some concrete things that Michael Prescott raised.
Samir Shah says that some of those have already been
addressed so that they're, they're slightly historic.
But you can tell the motive of some of the people, not all of
the people, some of the people attacking the BBC has in the
last week been completely hysterical.
So they're they're seizing on this because they basically
don't think the BBC should exist.
Yeah. And some of the criticism and
and commentary is, is just nakedly been people
opportunistically trying to attack an organization that if
we did have a sense of proportion, we would have to
acknowledge, acknowledge is easily the the most trusted by
by by huge margin the most trusted certainly against
newspapers, news news provider in this country.
A big piece in Columbia Journalism Review that came out
only about a week ago saying that it's now the second most
trusted news organization in the US behind The Weather Channel,
believe it or not. So nobody should be citing
Donald Trump and his attack on the BBC as evidence that
anything is wrong with the BBC. Of course, Donald Trump,
whenever he sees a credible news organization, he tries to
discredit it, sue it, and pursue it.
And and generally rubbish it. So Donald Trump taking trying to
take revenge against the BBC, however justified in terms of
the mistake, should count for nothing.
As should his press secretary telling Brits that they should
be watching GB News rather than the BBC.
This stuff is laughable. Right.
But I mean, the, the, the Trump threat does change things,
doesn't it? In that, I mean, first of all,
if the BBC is pushed into settling the way a lot of
American channels have with Donald Trump, this is license
fee payers money. And it could be 10s of millions
of of pounds. But also the in order to settle
the admissions that the Trump team seem to be demanding in
their initial letter to the BBC go way beyond what the BBC could
possibly admit because the Trump team were alleging this is this
is sort of deliberate defamation, deliberate
misrepresentation, when the BB CS position is it was a mistake.
Well, they, they shouldn't settle.
We've, we've seen Trump suing the New York Times, one of the
greatest news organisers, news organisations, the world.
He's suing the Wall Street Journal for a billion dollars.
He's sued ABC, he's sued CBS, he's, he's even suing the
Pulitzer Prize committee for giving a Pulitzer Prize to
someone he doesn't like. I mean, this is vexatious
nonsense and the BBC should stand firm.
There's, there's a, there's a doctrine in, in America called
New York Times versus Sullivan, which holds that if you're,
you're criticizing or writing about a public figure, unless
you can show actual malice, there's the words actual malice,
then you have a complete defence.
And even this Supreme Court has not overturned that.
So I very much hope the BBC will say this was an honest error.
There's no evidence of actual malice.
And they could be. They could take the lead in
showing some spine and taking on this Donald Trump assault on the
press, which none of us, from The Telegraph to the Guardian to
whoever to Channel 4 News, should welcome.
Camila, what do you think about that?
Well, I think the yeah, obviously it's a, it is a
difficult position to put the BBC into it.
And as Alan Rusberger just said, Donald Trump does have form of
suing or threatening to sue media organisations in the past
when they've sort of rubbed him up the wrong way for whatever
reason. I mean, I think if we just go
back to journalistic basics here on that Panorama documentary in
particular, clearly editing or splicing someone's remarks such
that the meaning is materially different from what they meant
to say. Had the full quotation been
included. That is, you know that there is
a case to answer for, for that kind of editing and that kind of
selective quoting. And I think on on that point
particularly, it's, it's a difficult defence from the BBC.
They they might say, yes, this was a mistake, but then why
didn't they correct it when press got first through it to
that to the attention of the board?
So there is. The question is sort of what
happens in law, isn't it? I mean, you know, if you know
it. Of course, Trump isn't
attempting to sue in Britain, he's attempting to sue in
America. And, and, and the sort of the
pattern when he's suing American channels is that the threat of
tying them up in legal knots and wasting millions of dollars in
legal fees and the threat of disclosure of documents means
that they end up settling. The BBC could be pushed into
that here as well. I mean you, you don't want to
see license payers money surely going to Donald Trump and his
lawyers. But this is the glory of the BBC
and you're making the case for the BBC here because the reason
that these organisations have tended to settle with Trump is
because the owners need favours from Trump.
It's usually because they are trying to take over another
media corporation, although they want a favour on on in terms of
mergers and acquisitions. The BBC has no dog in any of
those races. It it's owned by a, by a public
institution, it has no reason to settle.
And as, as I've tried to explain, the New York Times
versus Sullivan doctrine is exactly meant for this
situation. I mean, what turned on this
editing? Clearly the editing was a
mistake, but I don't think surely no one is making the case
that Donald Trump wasn't inciting the crowd on that
January the 6th because then we're rewriting the whole of
history. The congressional hearing that
looked into that decided that he was.
The Senate decided with 7 Republicans voting with the
Democrats that they that he was. The only court that has come to
a ruling on it decided that he was.
So yes, it was a bad and stupid error and has opened up the BBC
to attack but it it but I think Donald Trump would have a a job
persuading people that he was completely innocent in what he
did on January the 6th. Yes, I mean Kim, the
Congressional committee after I don't think it used, I don't
think it concluded on the word insight, but it did say, you
know, aiding or betting what what happened and it was a
pretty conclusive result. Yes, that's right.
And I think it just comes back to that issue of, you know, you
write an article and then your top line gets kind of ramped up
by the editor to a point that it doesn't really make sense
anymore. And you say, we don't need to,
you know, make this more extreme than it's already is.
It's, it's already shocking. You know, you don't need to make
an edit to to make it kind of worse than it is.
If you look at the the basic error made in that Panorama
documentary, it was just a bad edit.
And it's quite hard to to argue anything else.
Camille What? What do you want for the future
of the BBC? I think what what I want and
what any kind of licence fee payer taxpayer would want is
ABBC that is able to uphold the good that the best possible
editorial standards to to report on what are difficult issues.
But without being biased in in one way or another.
And to have a news operation that functions in a way that
where where kind of clear standards are set for
journalists to follow. So that the public and the
viewers are are watching or reading or listening to the BB
CS output in a way that they can rightly feel confident that
they're getting the best possible information in a just
kind of straight, straight down the road sort of way.
With no kind of interest group or, or no worry that it's been
captured by one side or another. Just that it's good impartial
reporting, which is I think what everyone would expect to see.
Yeah, and, and do you acknowledge Alan's earlier point
that the BBC is the most trusted broadcaster?
Yeah. I mean, if that's if that's what
the sort of surveys and and what the news are saying, then yeah,
there. There are two notable surveys
that go on most years done by Ofcom and the Reuters Institute,
and they generally put the BBC out there at the top and Channel
4 is usually very closely behind.
And we argue over whether we we are most trusted or they are
most trusted because they have slightly more people who
distrust them and we have fewer. But but I think that's what the
numbers say. I think it's great that the UK
has this incredible tradition of, of public service
broadcasting that not just in the UK, but I think around the
world, people look to the UK as having good sources of, of
information that can be trusted. If you compare us to other
countries around the world where there's much more state
interference of, of media, you know, we're incredibly lucky to
live in a country where we have, um, really strong traditions of
both broadcasting and print journalism that can really
report properly and hold the government to account.
But I think given the BB CS particular set up that it's
anyone who wants to watch television has to pay the BBC
licence fee. I think when there are questions
over its impartiality, I think it needs to look at these very
carefully, not just kind of hide under the table, pretend it's
not happening, ignore concerns. They need to address these head
on because it's great that it's so trusted and it needs to
continually, every day earn that trust and make sure it's doing
the best job it possibly can. We'll leave it there.
Thank you very much indeed. Camilla Turner, Alan Rusbridger,
thank you both very much for joining us on THE FORECAST.
Well, that's it for today. The story is going to rumble on
over the next few days and we'll see what else comes out.
But for now, bye bye.