‘Not for the faint-hearted’: is running the BBC an impossible job? | BBC

When the BBC’s senior editors arrived at New Broadcasting House headquarters in central London on Monday, the most pressing question was what had convinced the company’s chief executive, Tim Davie, to abruptly resign. Like any good BBC drama, this was a plot twist no one saw coming.

As he considered the brutal pressures that had finally become too much for Davie, a second question soon arose. Was running the BBC now an impossible task?

“That’s what’s being talked about in this newsroom,” a BBC source said. “That’s one of the sad things, the brutal nature of these roles. They’re big jobs, but… God.”

Davie has had a number of controversies since the start of the year, from former star sports presenter Gary Lineker’s social media posts to various issues related to Israel and Gaza news. But last week he appeared to be thinking about the future as he took part in a staff discussion on the impact of artificial intelligence.

But for the BBC lieutenants who were once grooming Davie’s successor, this latest crisis has exposed deep problems that make the job now so dangerous.

The Guardian spoke to sources at the BBC about events that have emerged since allegations of systemic liberal bias were made by a former external adviser in a memo leaked to the Daily Telegraph and reviewed over several days.

Views differ on the seriousness of the problems raised by public relations executive Michael Prescott, who was once the political editor of Rupert Murdoch’s Sunday Times newspaper.

Many point to the most serious mistake as the company’s editing of the Trump speech, in which the Panorama program stitched together two parts of the president’s speech on the day of the Capitol riots. The BBC personally apologized to the president, who threatened to sue.

The crisis has also highlighted long-standing concerns about domestic political repression. As an indicator of unemployment, some at the company see Prescott’s memo as the culmination of a “coup” by right-wing forces seeking to distort the company’s reporting.

Concerns have centered on the role of Robbie Gibb, a self-described “quintessential Thatcherite Conservative” who served as communications chief during Theresa May’s premiership. He was placed on the BBC board by Boris Johnson and given a new term by the last Conservative government.

Some point to an alignment between Gibb’s and Prescott’s complaints. The pair were reportedly friends, but the Guardian has since found that Gibb was on a panel that gave him an advisory role. Prescott said his concerns “have nothing to do with any political agenda.”

A meeting of the BBC board on 6 November to discuss how to respond to Prescott’s allegations became a microcosm of increasingly worrying internal tensions. This story featured a news crew at odds with board members, board members at odds with each other, and a weakened president, Samir Shah, who was unable to find a solution for days.

It ended with the departure of Davie and Deborah Turness, the head of BBC News. For the former, this was a crisis so advanced that Turness concluded that his job had also become impossible.

While sources said Gibb was at one end of the spectrum criticizing the BBC’s bias, a wider group on the board that day was concerned about how far BBC News was prepared to go in expressing regret over Panorama’s editing of Trump’s speech.

Many insiders saw this as the result of a steady stream of bias allegations supported by a cadre of Gibb’s board members. It appears Gibb’s concerns are shared by Michael Plaut, a relatively newly appointed addition to the board by the Conservative government before the last election. Plaut is not a member of any political party.

Shah described the idea of ​​a right-wing operation to attack the BBC from within as fanciful. He also said it was okay to have different opinions. BBC figures state that Gibb was just one of more than a dozen board members and one of four who selected Prescott.

But following the resignations, some within the BBC discovered that Gibb had additional power thanks to his seemingly opaque role on the editorial guidelines and standards committee (EGSC).

As a member of this committee, Gibb had the right to commission special investigations from David Grossman, senior policy adviser, long-serving BBC correspondent and Gibb’s former BBC Newsnight colleague. It was Grossman’s memory of a story that led him to realize that Panorama had spliced ​​together Trump’s speech. He previously covered the White House as a reporter.

Since Gibb is one of five EGSC members (the others include the busy Davie, Shah and Turness) insiders said this gave him significant scope to build a stream of evidence of liberal bias.

This is controversial. It is generally understood that Grossman’s main research topics were determined by the full committee, and that editorial leaders were aware of research commissioned by Gibb and then discussed by everyone on the committee.

One of them said that Gibb took exception to a story about railway strikes that was dominated by comments about the inconvenience experienced by passengers, without reference to the arguments of striking workers. However, Gibb has publicly stated that his biggest concern at the BBC is liberal bias.

Gibb’s defenders say he wants to protect the BBC. In fact, he did not want Davie to resign and supported the license fee, the mandatory fee that financed the company.

Roger Mosey, former head of BBC TV news, said: “You need people from a wide range of political views. I would prefer them not to be Theresa May’s former press secretary, because that sounds more official. The BBC is sort of centre-left liberal if you’re not careful.”

But critics who believe there is pressure from the right said Prescott’s memo did not address allegations of bias from other political orientations, such as the treatment of Palestinian voices. Gaza reporting in general or their reports on issues related to transgender rights.

“The concerns about bias always seem to be the same,” said Lewis Goodall, the former BBC reporter and podcaster who has previously clashed with Gibb and Grossman. “If they had a lot more time for Prescott or Gibb [trying] to create a veritable list of a wide range of eclectic violations of impartiality.

“It assumes that violations of bias only go in one direction. For these people, they do, because the truth is that they are as biased as the people they are trying to fix.”

Some of Davie’s potential successors are said to be uncomfortable with Gibb’s presence. BBC staff, unions and politicians are now calling for him to be removed from the board to make life easier for the next director general. The work of the EGSC is also being reviewed.

As well as internal squabbles and external noise, the incoming director-general will have to deal with shaky talks with the government over the renewal of the BBC’s charter – essentially a debate about the BBC’s existence, funding and purpose.

The new chief executive will hold these discussions against the backdrop of the rise of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, which says it wants to abolish the license fee.

Pat Younge, the BBC’s former chief creative officer, is among a group of people who believe the Labor government should act now to put a steel ring around the BBC’s independence.

“The BBC needs a permanent charter that will insulate it to some degree from the goings-on of day-to-day politics,” he said. “Appointments to the BBC board must be made through a fully independent public appointment process.”

So who will do Davie’s job? His remit has expanded so much that many are pushing for the creation of an acting position staffed by a well-known journalist.

Many agree it’s time for the first female chief executive, but Turness, one of the obvious candidates, has now been ruled out. Recently departed chief content officer Charlotte Moore was often seen as his successor but had no background in reporting. Some see RTÉ chief executive Kevin Bakhurst as a safe pair of hands, helping the Irish broadcaster get through tough times.

There was a prophetic moment at a recent staff meeting in Cardiff when Davie was asked whether the chief executive would soon be revamped, like the BBC’s Doctor Who. Although he said he loved the role, he admitted it was “not a job for the faint of heart.”

Having seen how last week’s events derailed their boss, many in his shadow are hoping they don’t find themselves exiting the Tardis.