Will Tim Davie’s resignation be enough to restore public trust in the BBC? | BBC
There is a joke regularly made by BBC staff that “chairmen should review big mistakes” because these mistakes rarely seem to have any impact on those at the top of the organisation. That all changed on Sunday when Tim Davie and Deborah Turness quit their jobs.
Davie has faced no scandals in his five years as director-general – in recent months they have included controversy over the Gaza documentary and coverage of Glastonbury – and has been nicknamed “Teflon Tim” by people at the BBC because nothing seems to go right.
But that’s what happened this week.
But it was strange that the trigger for this crisis was a largely forgotten report by the Panorama program on the US elections, published more than a year ago.
The Daily Telegraph, never a friend of the BBC, has leaked a report by Michael Prescott, a former adviser to the BBC’s editorial standards committee.
Prescott’s report suggested that Panorama edited Donald Trump’s speech to make it appear as if he was openly encouraging the Capitol riots.
Prescott accused the company of “serious and systemic” bias in its editorial reporting. Perhaps predictably, some sections of the right immediately jumped on the report.
Boris Johnson told the Telegraph that Davie “must either explain or resign”. Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch said “heads should roll”. The story was picked up in the US, where the White House described the BBC as “100% fake news” and a “propaganda machine”.
Senior BBC staff were appalled.
Recognizing the important role the company played in national life, they confessed genuine concern about its susceptibility to major editorial errors. But he also had deeper fears: that the attacks were part of an ongoing political and ideological campaign by those seeking to undermine the organisation.
But the government has its own concerns about the BBC. Culture minister Lisa Nandy said on Sunday – before the resignations – that she had had “countless meetings with senior leaders, too many to name and more than I would like” since the election. There seemed to be little trust between him and Davie.
Nandy warned that it was “a very, very dangerous environment in this country where people cannot trust what they see.” With its broad reach at home and abroad, BBC News plays a key role in tackling disinformation in an increasingly polarized media landscape.
Nandy is understood to privately share the concerns of many BBC staff that some of the attacks on the corporation have been politically planned and that there is a lack of people at the top of the organization who can successfully navigate the culture wars.
Many within the government and progressive parties share the view that, for all its faults, the public service broadcaster’s role is vital in protecting democracy, which is under threat from the rise of the populist right.
“The BBC is not perfect, but it remains one of the few institutions that stands between our British values and the takeover of our populist, Trump-style politics,” Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey said on Sunday.
But whatever politicians think of the BBC, its fate depends on public opinion and whether the British public has confidence in its future. Ultimately, this depends on fair and accurate reporting, free from political or ideological bias from either side.
The BBC regularly tops media trust rankings in the UK. But the latest debate comes at a particularly sensitive time as the government reviews the royal charter before its current term ends in 2027.
Senior figures within the government hope to use the charter review process to “future proof” the BBC by putting in place structures that protect the BBC’s independence, while also making the corporation more accountable.
It will be up to the BBC to repair the broken trust it has with politicians, some of its own journalists and, importantly, some of the public.
