Who’s to blame for the BBC’s latest crisis? In part, you.
Prepare yourself for a shock. Almost everything you see on the news has been edited. Even this introductory paragraph has been re-written multiple times.
There has never been a rule that you cannot edit speeches, or cut together different sections of a longer speech, when reporting the news. What you cannot do is use that editing process to mislead audiences, to make someone say something they didn’t.
Which is why Panorama’s blunder, splicing together two separate sections of Donald Trump’s January 6th 2021 speech, has caused so much trouble.
It did not materially mislead audiences, but it did breach a fundamental rule of journalism.
Trump was convicted of inciting insurrection by the House of Representatives. And while he was not convicted at his Senate trial, Senators voted against him 57-43.
He told crowds to “fight like hell,” and did nothing for hours when they smashed up the Capitol, threatened to hang the Vice President, and tried to forcibly overturn the result of a democratic election.
But, in merging two separate sections of Trump’s speech without making clear there had been an edit, Panorama acted unethically. It doesn’t matter that no-one complained at the time. It was wrong.
Trump has responded entirely as you would expect — like a toddler with a machine gun and a lawyer on speed dial.
Is all this proof that one of the world’s largest broadcasters is institutionally biased? We should perhaps look carefully at the personal biases of those making that claim.
The BBC’s perma-crisis
The Daily Telegraph says the BBC is facing its “biggest crisis in more than a decade.” In part, of course, because of the Telegraph.
It jumped on Michael Prescott’s leaked dossier of complaints, which range from the Panorama edit, through questions about editorial processes in BBC Arabic, to moaning there were too few push notifications on the subjects like immigration.
There’s no doubting the newsworthy nature of the dossier, and the BBC’s response to it, but there is a certain irony in a newspaper that seems to have moved from biased to radicalised, now trying to present itself as a model of journalistic probity.
From GB News to The Sun, perpetually outraged commentators have been happy to pile in, offering ten times more bluster than evidence.
This is not to say that the Corporation is blameless. From the Gaza documentary to Glastonbury, via Huw Edwards and endless rows about Gary Lineker’s tweets, it has made plenty of mistakes, some very serious.
Each of those mis-steps has emboldened critics who seek to undermine trust, not in individual reports but in the whole of the BBC. The organisation at times appears determined to put rocket boosters on that campaign.
Time for a wider clear-out?
In an organisation with more than 20,000 staff, and hundreds of hours of output every day, there are going to be mistakes. What matters is how you respond to them. The BBC’s response, as usual, was glacially slow.
It’s widely reported bosses in BBC News wanted to apologise for the Panorama edit a week ago, but the board wouldn’t let them. Why? What possible good has it done the Corporation to let its critics lob grenades for a week without ever responding?
This lends credence to the extraordinary suggestion that there are people on the BBC board actively working from within to weaken the BBC.
The departures of Tim Davie and Deborah Turness come at a dreadful time for the BBC, about to begin formal negotiations on its future, and its funding.
Surely it is also time to dispense with the services of Robbie Gibb, former Downing Street spinner, appointed when Boris Johnson was prime minister, and seemingly roaming around Broadcasting House as if were an extension of his own home.
It is worth remembering the BBC does not belong to politicians, or the transient generation of seemingly sub-par leaders. It belongs to the public it was set up to serve. Some of the people treating it like a personal train set appear to have forgotten that.
OK, but how is this your fault?
Around the world, broadcasters like the BBC struggle for relevance in an age of TikTok and Instagram Reels, and struggle to counter accusations of bias, frequently from rivals who themselves have never knowingly been fair or impartial in their own coverage.
Never before have such a wide range of voices had such easy access to vast audiences. This is a mixed blessing. Not all those new voices think there’s any need to reflect a broad range of opinions, or even to check their facts before publishing.
It’s easier than it’s ever been to spend your time in the cosy embrace of people who share your world view, repeatedly reminded that you are right and “they” are not just wrong, but dangerous, morally suspect.
If you rarely encounter an opinion that challenges your preconceptions, a traditional news bulletin, from the BBC, ITV, CNN etc is like a slap in the face. How dare you make me listen to people who think I am wrong.
Which makes it easier for partisan players to open up a gap between the public and the broadcasters who serve it. It has never been easier to misconstrue balance as bias.
Do we want to live in a society where those with political power are able to constrain the journalists who are meant to hold them to account? Do we want TV channels and radio stations to become cheerleaders for one group over another, tilting the table, distorting reality to make it fit the chosen narrative?
Some people cannot be convinced that is not what the BBC has been doing, and no amount of evidence will persuade them otherwise. But it doesn’t mean they’re right. Are we going to hand control to the loudest, least credible arbiters of truth?
