So much for the (writing) holiday. No sooner had the wheels touched the tarmac in Athens than the push appeared on my phone that BBC’s director general, Tim Davie, and head of news, Deborah Turness, were to resign – ostensibly over, of all things, a minor Panorama edit on a programme broadcast a year ago, concerning events half a decade ago. I know better than anyone the BBC’s propensity to screw itself, but considering the litany of real calamities to befall the corporation recently, this seemed mind-bogglingly banal.
The substance of the “scandal” is limited. Its effects are not. Because we all know, this isn’t really about a Panorama edit. It’s about an effort from within the corporation and without to do something very simple – to scare its journalists from doing their job.
This will be made worse by the prospect of a Trump lawsuit. But a lawsuit could also be the BBC’s salvation: a means of projecting to its staff and the world that there is still life in this century-old beast. Donald Trump does not care about the Panorama edit. This is just the latest broadside against media organisations that threaten him. Like the old mafia political boss he can be, he seeks to cow and frighten. US media company after US media company have submitted to the old don, usually because they had other commercial or regulatory interests which mattered more to them than the cost of some modest tribute money and bowing and scraping. The BBC has no such concern; the only thing at stake is its reputation. It should apologise for the edit, but go no further, for one very important reason: impartiality. The irony of this absurd dossier incident is that it has inadvertently drawn the BBC into US politics, which has a deeply partial effect.
By overemphasising the edit, by pretending it was fundamentally unfair to Trump, the British media has helped legitimise a narrative long desired by Trump and his movement: that the president was inert on 6 January, that he had no part in the riots and the attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s election, when in fact he was central. They seek to change history, at least in the public’s mind.
The BBC should use the threat of legal action to set the record straight and stick to its journalism. It should make clear that, though in a minor way it slobbishly altered what Trump said in a handful of sentences, this did not change what Trump did. That on matters related to 6 January, he has no reputation to defend. That though the public absolved him politically in re-electing him, nothing can absolve the historical deed. He attempted to delay certification and encouraged violence – no one would have been there that day if it were not for him, and they would not have acted as they did if not for him, something many of the 6 January rioters themselves attested. Facts are facts – and what is the BBC about, what is impartiality about, but facts?
According to every legal analysis I’ve seen, the BBC would win on this basis. They would strike a blow for press freedom everywhere and send a message that although US media giants will kiss the feet of power, Auntie won’t. It would also send a message to its enemies at home, inside and outside the corporation. It wouldn’t hurt the BBC’s commercial prospects in the US either.
I suspect this won’t happen. There are forces within the BBC who have been waging a campaign for some years to pressure its journalists on spurious impartiality grounds. I know this because I myself was subject to it at the corporation. I was routinely told that the board member (and former Theresa May comms chief) Robbie Gibb was complaining to executives about my output. This made my life difficult, to say the least, despite the fact that I had never broken impartiality rules in my broadcasting. I was even subject to a series of extraordinary complaints by a Newsnight colleague alleging partiality where there was none (a process cleared me).
When I left, a story was leaked alleging I was let go to solve “left-wing bias” – which wasn’t true. I was leaving to go to a better job (surprise surprise, this was leaked to the Telegraph, also the paper handed the Prescott dossier which started this whole fiasco). I would have much more time for the Prescott dossier if it raised partiality questions across the spectrum – complaints about Reform over-representation, Green and Lib Dem under-representation, a tendency to follow orthodox economic analysis and the like. BBC staff express bewilderment as to the remit of and oversight on these inquiries, which act, Inquisition like, over all other BBC journalists.
At an all-staff meeting this week, BBC staff peppered the corporation’s chairman, Samir Shah, with questions about Gibb’s overreach, only to be slapped down as “disrespectful”. As one insider put it to me: “I’ve been at the BBC 25 years so seen a few crises, but this one feels the worst.” Another told me that many of those who Gibb had criticised for perceived bias over the years were experienced BBC journalists with an “ingrained sense of impartiality”. Whatever you think about the risk of liberal groupthink (and people in the BBC are very alive to that danger), these are absolutely not ideologues. The only ideologue here seems to be Gibb himself.” Others have pointed to Labour appointees, but no one can remember a member of the board acting in this way.
As one senior BBC figure put it to me: “Maybe it is not realistic to say anyone appointed to the board should be politically neutral. But they have to be able to demonstrate they can leave their politics at the door and sign up to collective judgements, rather than undermine them.” As another BBC journalist has confided in me, the effect is already being felt. On all of the matters contained in the dossier, regardless of their merit or otherwise, there will be a chill wind in the corporation’s coverage: of Trump, Gaza, gender rights and the rest. Too often, as it was for me, the question will not be is this journalism fair and accurate, but will it satisfy the perception test of others, some of whom are entirely partial and have their own agenda?
The BBC and Keir Starmer’s Labour government share much in common. They are easily bullied and too often afraid, as non-populists too often are, of exercising their own power. They then appear weak and ineffectual. They think they can appease and accommodate a now transatlantic radical-right movement and political project that seeks their destruction. They cannot. This is an era in which fights must be picked. This one has been foisted on the BBC. They should contest it with the all the might they can, all the same.
[Further reading: Inside Labour’s briefing fiasco: “Morgan has lost the plot”]
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