Here’s a cack-handed idea the BBC could do without
Opinion
The Beeb is facing accusations that it is altering content to win over Reform voters. At a time when there was never a greater need for proper journalism, the BBC cannot make another serious misjudgement.
Not for the first time the BBC is facing serious questions about its approach to journalism.
In fact, this time the reports are much more serious than usual — that one of the world’s leading news organisations is considering altering its story selection and other forms of output to try to win the “trust” of Reform UK voters.
There is always trouble with the perception of balance of news coverage of the BBC. Some refuse to believe it seeks the impossible goal of true impartiality and sees coverage as either pro-Palestinian or pro-Israeli; part of a socialist conspiracy or beholden to the Tories.
But there have been significant failures by the BBC in recent years that have led to great damage to the country.
The greatest of all was the broadcaster’s failure to properly scrutinise the Brexiteer’s case that took the UK out of the EU by adhering to the theory of false equivalence.
This was best expressed by examples such as that 80 or more economists’ warning of the negative economic impact of leaving the EU was “balanced” by comments from a single eccentric economist such as Patrick Minford or, even worse, classics scholar Boris Johnson.
Over the years, the BBC has routinely given extensive, mainstream coverage to tiny, unrepresentative right-wing think-tanks based in Tufton Street that are often reluctant to say who finances them.
Then there has been the endless uncritical promotion of Nigel Farage, now leader of Reform UK.
Self-fulfilling prophecy
Reform is — at least for the moment — ahead of Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives in the polls.
As such, the party cannot be ignored. But the key approach of journalism, particularly at the BBC, should be to hold Reform to account at every conceivable opportunity.
After all, it is a party with no track record of running anything successfully and has the luxury, for now, of making outlandish, uncosted offers to the public.
What journalism — and, indeed, democracies almost everywhere — is now facing is large sections of disaffected voters being deliberately fed simplistic “solutions” to complex and intractable problems.
It’s at its most extreme in the Maga politics of the US. The danger is such politics will increasingly migrate to the UK.
Often such populist policies can be distilled down to fear of the new and unknown while looking for scapegoats to blame, such as immigrants.
The fear is that, without sufficient rigour, the BBC will in effect be helping to create a self-fulfilling prophecy by tailoring special news agendas and content for the mainly poorly informed and disaffected.
Multiple misjudgements
According to Byline Times, the minutes of a March meeting shows that BBC News CEO Deborah Turness gave a presentation discussing plans to alter “story selection” and “other types of output such as drama” to try to win the trust of Farage voters.
The meeting involved the Editorial Guidelines Committee, which itself has raised concerns in the past because of the membership of Robbie Gibb. He was described in the past by former Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis as “an active agent of the Conservative Party”.
Does the BBC give such thought to tailoring its coverage to supporters of Labour, the Conservatives, Lib Dems or the Greens? Byline Times actually asked the BBC for examples of such activity in the past and answer came there none.
Unfortunately, there have been other telling examples of misjudgements by Turness, backed by director-general Tim Davie, who has no background in journalism.
Under their watch, Newsnight has given up on its tradition of investigative journalism and turned into an upmarket talk show. An even greater scandal was the closure by Turness of HardTalk and making its illustrious presenter and interrogator Stephen Sackur redundant.
At a time when there was never a greater need for investigative journalism or detailed examination of people of power, Turness is placing a greater emphasis on rolling 24-hour news — or, as Sackur describes it, “churnalism”.
The BBC has not denied the Byline Times report and instead points to the fact that its royal charter requires the organisation to represent all communities and take into account different political parties.
Key responsibility
Yes, indeed there is such a responsibility — but there is also an overriding responsibility to report what is true and what is fair in the overall public interest, not bow to sectoral interests.
It is a very different thing to even suggest fixing running orders and story selection and the content of dramas and other types of programming to pander to the cult of Farage — a cult that could easily implode over the next four years when confronted with reality.
The Editorial Standards Committee has promised to report on further progress at a later meeting. They would be well-advised for the sake of all concerned to bin such a cack-handed idea entirely.
The committee did have one useful insight and that was the importance of local news reporting.
Unfortunate, then, that the BBC has seriously cut the amount of detailed, live, local coverage on its radio stations.
Those who have escaped redundancy now have an important responsibility to hold Reform councillors to account in the 10 councils they control.
But that should have absolutely nothing to do with altering story selection or tailoring content to Reform voters.
Raymond Snoddy is a media consultant, national newspaper columnist and former presenter of NewsWatch on BBC News. He writes for The Media Leader on Wednesdays — bookmark his column here.