Is time running out for BBC chair Samir Shah after latest resignation?
Shumeet Banerji is not a household name.
During her three years, 10 months and 14 days on the BBC board, Banerji kept her opinions on BBC affairs strictly out of the public eye.
Now it’s making headlines. His resignation is the latest blow to the company and appears timed to increase the pressure.
Banerji’s term on the board was already due to end on December 31 but instead she resigned early, three days before other board members faced a committee of MPs and almost two weeks after the BBC lost its chief executive and news chief executive.
The resignation, fair or not, appears to be a direct criticism of BBC chief Samir Shah.
Banerji was known to be angered by Shah’s lack of ability to challenge some other board members and their claims about systemic bias at BBC News, the insider said.
In this characterization, the four political appointees to the board (the Shah is the fifth) coalesced around the view that the BBC often suffered from liberal groupthink and that the chairman was either unable or unwilling to steer the board towards a point of real consensus.
All the drama of the last few weeks — the leaked memos, the resignations, the apology over the Panorama edit, and Donald Trump’s threat to sue for defamation — finally boils down to one simple question. Is BBC News institutionally biased?
Deborah Turness and Tim Davie deny this. So is the Shah. “The BBC News DNA and culture is to be impartial, to deliver the best news we can and the most reliable news we can,” he told me, while admitting that mistakes were made.
BBC News remains the most trusted news source in the UK.
But if some members of the board believe the BBC suffers from systemic bias and others do not, where does this end?
The Shah “inherited a divided house, but this board is dissolving, which is very sad,” a senior TV executive told me. They added: “This is a matter of leadership.”
When I interviewed him after the resignations of Davie and Turness, Shah said the board “has a diversity of views, as does the public, as does the country… I want robust conversations, I want debate.”
However, Banerji claimed that she was not consulted about the events that led to these separations.
If true, this will fuel the narrative in some circles that what happened was a coup by some members of the board.
Liberal Democrats leader Sir Ed Davey has called on the government to remove former BBC executive and Theresa May’s former Downing Street communications director Sir Robbie Gibb from the board.
The Shah told me that the idea of a coup was “imaginary.” “It is unfair and disrespectful to tell board members that just because they feel strongly about something, it somehow relates to their background,” he added.
But Sir Craig Oliver, former editor of the BBC’s Six o’clock and Ten o’clock News and later Number 10’s communications director under David Cameron, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The stakes were already high for Samir Shah and they’ve just gotten higher.”
“All eyes will be on Samir Shah on Monday,” he added.
“The questions I really think need answers are: Is it true that you chaired a BBC meeting many months ago where the Panorama issue was on the table and decided to take no action? If so, why didn’t you take action then – especially after what you’ve said now?”
“And I think the next question he’ll really face is this: When Michael Prescott’s report was leaked to the Telegraph, why did you preside over the BBC not coming out for so long, especially when the executive wanted to come out and cauterize the problem as cleanly as possible?”
Over the past few days, before Banerji’s resignation, I spoke to people inside and outside the BBC who told me Shah would remain chairman, whatever his perceived shortcomings. As one person told me, “You can’t get the CEO, News CEO and president to resign.”
Would Banerji’s resignation change her ability to continue in office? This certainly makes it all the more critical that Shah will appear before the Culture Media and Sport Committee on Monday alongside board members Sir Robbie Gibb and Caroline Thomson.
MPs on that committee expressed reservations about his suitability for the post when he was appointed chairman last year.
He will need to show MPs, the industry, BBC audiences and corporate staff who will be watching that he has the capabilities and support needed to steer the BBC through these turbulent times.
