The news cycle moves at a punishing clip these days. It is barely more than a week since BBC director general Tim Davie and CEO of news Deborah Turness resigned after the leaking of an internal report by Michael Prescott that criticised editorial failures, accusing the corporation of an overall political bias.
For a few days, the story dominated headlines, followed by the usual flurry of think pieces, debates and partisan skirmishes.
By Sunday, enough time had elapsed for the customary opinion columns from former employees recalling their own experiences in what, depending on which one you pick, was either a woke echo chamber or a flawed but essentially fair organisation.
Unsurprisingly, most of these recollections fitted the pre-existing beliefs of the writers. Veteran presenter John Humphrys declared that the BBC had surrendered to fashionable orthodoxy and lost touch with the views of mainstream working-class Britons.
Lewis Goodall, who left the corporation to co-present the independent podcast The News Agents, argued claims of bias were overstated. Former Woman’s Hour presenter Jenni Murray described how she was “banned” from discussing a trans issue on the programme.
But as the dust settles (for the moment), and with the appointment of Davie’s successor still some way off, several questions remain unresolved.
Will Trump sue, and could he win?
The misleading edit in a Panorama programme that spliced together two parts of Donald Trump’s speech on January 6th 2021, making it appear as though he had directly called for the violent attack that later took place at the Capitol, elevated the row from a domestic drama to a global one.
First came an attack from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. Then Trump himself signalled his intention to sue for defamation in a Florida court, reportedly seeking damages of up to $5 billion (€4.3 billion).
This is new and uncharted territory for the BBC. Whether it ultimately amounts to anything is another matter.
Most legal experts believe Trump’s chances of success are slim. The bar for defamation is much higher in the US, and while the edit was clearly a serious editorial failure, it is unlikely to meet that legal threshold.
It is also hard to argue that the president experienced any measurable reputational damage. Plus the Panorama programme was never broadcast on any of the BBC’s US platforms. Were Trump to win, it would set an unsettling precedent, suggesting that plaintiffs could use American courts to sue any media organisation anywhere in the world.
Trump may simply be following the playbook he has successfully used against domestic networks such as ABC and CBS, which have chosen for reasons of corporate self-interest to settle cases they could have won in court.
For the BBC to settle in similar fashion would be a shattering blow to the corporation’s reputation.
Is this all a right-wing plot?
Prescott is a former Sunday Times political editor whose appointment had been instigated by BBC board member Robbie Gibb, himself a former BBC editor with close ties to the Conservative Party. The report was then leaked to the Daily Telegraph.
You do not need to be a conspiracy theorist to notice the ideological and commercial alignments. And the report’s criticisms focused solely on alleged left-leaning bias. Complaints from the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party and others about skewed coverage did not feature at all. It is fair to say, then, that a document claiming to expose institutional bias was itself ideologically skewed.
So, is the BBC institutionally biased?
Whatever the leanings of the report, it did uncover significant editorial failures, some of which might be described as systemic.
Humphrys and others claim the corporation has drifted away from its founding principles. Murray’s complaints about censorship of dissenting views on gender identity and women’s rights are borne out by reports last week that several women in editorial roles had their protests on the matter ignored by senior management.
Goodall offers a more nuanced interpretation. The BBC, he argues, is a cautious institution that seeks to remain close to what it perceives as the respectable centre. That tendency may explain a swing towards censorship of gender-related debates at the height of the progressive identity politics era, but does not, he believes, support the idea that the corporation is the bastion of irredeemable wokeism its critics describe.
How is this different from previous controversies?
As my colleague Laura Slattery noted recently, the BBC’s current turmoil, while larger in scale, resembles the difficulties facing public service broadcasters everywhere, including RTÉ.
The concept of the public service broadcaster was created in a vanished era of linear, analogue broadcasting, limited spectrum and high barriers to entry. In a digital landscape defined by abundance, fragmentation and infinite choice, the old mission demands a fundamental rethink.
It is not at all clear that the BBC, RTÉ or any other public service broadcaster has reached a workable definition of what that should involve. Instead, their instinct is often to stretch themselves thinner while cautiously retreating from controversy.
[ The Irish Times view on public service media: a principle worth defendingOpens in new window ]
On a recent New Statesman podcast, Goodall criticised the BBC for trying to be simultaneously “everywhere” and “invisible”. The implication is that a successful redefinition requires stepping back from some services while adopting a more challenging editorial posture. Judging from the current state of both broadcasters, this looks highly unlikely.
There are deeper forces at play. The instinct to cling to the centre becomes less tenable in a polarised environment where newer platforms actively encourage both left and right to retreat into their own narratives of victimhood.
Amid all the anger and denunciations, it’s easy to lose sight of a simple truth. The BBC remains the most trusted source of information in the UK by a considerable margin, well ahead of the commercial rivals who so enthusiastically attack it on behalf of “the people”.
Perhaps it needs to find its own brand of populism to mount a fightback. A legal battle with Donald Trump might not be the worst place to start.
