The resignation of both Tim Davie, BBC’s Director General, and Deborah Turness, the head of news, yesterday was an extraordinary moment in BBC’s history, which can change the direction of the most important and the most trusted broadcaster in the world.
As someone who worked for the BBC for over 20 years and ended up as Editor for the Middle East and North Africa, the news is alarming and smacks of political interference in the workings of the BBC. As the Observer Editorial stated today: “This is seismic. To lose both the director general and the CEO of BBC News at the same time is unprecedented. It’s an extraordinary moment in the history of the BBC. It can’t be overstated.”
Like many people, I have some criticism of the BBC, but I still believe that it is by far the best broadcaster in the world, and its journalists try very hard to be impartial and unbiased in their coverage of news. This is why many Americans get their news from the BBC. There is an increasing downgrading of US media, as both the broadcast and the written media are controlled by a few oligarchs and special interest groups, whose main aim is to make money or push their own special agenda.
Most American media are cutting back on their news coverage and have become mainly sources of entertainment. Social media is also owned by a few oligarchs with their own agenda. As a result, the public is subjected to a cacophony of voices and does not know which one to trust.
For those who do not know how the BBC works, it is composed of a chairman and a governing Board, whose members are appointed by the government, and an editorial board or the Executive Committee that manages day-to-day operations. There has always been a certain amount of tension between the two, with the journalists trying to safeguard their independence and the government-appointed board trying to implement government policies.
The latest developments have been mainly due to the board’s decision to stop an apology by the director general and the News CEO from being released, thus turning a relatively minor editorial mistake into a crisis. The former Sun editor, now BBC presenter, David Yelland, has called it “nothing short of a coup”. He claims the BBC Board has been undermined and “elements close to it have worked with hostile newspaper editors, a former PM and enemies of public service broadcasting”.
If the BBC is undermined or controlled by special lobbies and interest groups, the country will lose a great asset which it cannot replace later.
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F Jahanpour 