You wait weeks for BBC scandal reports to come along…
Opinion
…then two arrive at the same time. What the organisation does with these findings is crucial to its credibility and future.
The first and second items on Monday’s BBC One lunchtime news were, remarkably, both about BBC scandals.
You wait weeks for BBC scandal reports to finally come along and then, as if by magic, two appear within minutes of each other.
In the scandal line-up battle, priority was given to the unfortunate case of the teenage Palestinian presenter and his undisclosed father — the Hamas deputy minister for agriculture.
As a result, the unacceptable language and sexual jokes of former MasterChef presenter Gregg Wallace were beaten to second place.
With so many scandals at the BBC, the only sensible way forward is to deal with one at a time.
In the case of the Gaza: How To Survive a Warzone documentary, Peter Johnston, director of editorial complaints, found only a single breach of the BBC’s editorial guidelines on accuracy.
The breach related to the fact that the occupation and connections of the narrator’s father was not disclosed.
Three people at Hoyo Films, independent maker of the documentary, knew about the 13-year-old’s father but did not tell BBC supervisors, who were nonetheless criticised for not being “sufficiently proactive” in assessing the programme.
It was broadcast in February and then pulled from iPlayer by director-general Tim Davie when the row erupted.
There was talk of daggers to the heart of trust by Dr Samir Shah, chair of the BBC board, and culture secretary Lisa Nandy jumped up and down and called on people at the BBC to be sacked.
Time to be decisive
What was not found was rather more intriguing. No breaches of impartiality were found.
The presenter’s narration was scripted and, after a review of 5,000 documents and 150 hours of film material, the report found no evidence that outside interests had “inappropriately impacted on the programme”.
As is well-known, the Israeli government does not allow independent journalists outside Gaza to report on what is happening there and this was a brave attempt to film the often hellish life of children in the territory.
There is no evidence that there was anything false in what was said or shown — apart from the initial lack of disclosure.
In fact, almost everything has got worse for the children of Gaza since the film was made, with multiple violent deaths of those merely trying to queue up for food or water.
The most telling sentence in the BBC announcement came from Hoyo: “Our team in Gaza risked their lives to document the devastating impact of war on children. Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone remains a vital account and our contributors deserve to have their voice heard.”
Indeed — and a Royal Television Society award might follow, despite the obvious flaw. But the BBC has no plans to show the programme in its entirety. Maybe a few edited bits and piece. Nothing more.
As every aspect of the programme’s content, which we can believe has been subject to the most detailed scrutiny, has passed muster, there can be no reason why it cannot now be shown again in full with the obvious disclaimer.
People can then make up their own minds.
Davie got it right by pulling the documentary and investigating the full circumstances.
Now, it is time to be decisive and courageous.
He has a lot of lost ground to make up. From that documentary, the BBC blundered on in what is possibly an even worse scandal by trying to suppress the next BBC Gaza documentary on the launch pad. That, too, was a Davie decision.
Gaza: Doctors Under Attack was successfully shown on Channel 4 without the sky falling in. As with the children, things have just got worse for Gaza’s doctors. A senior Palestinian surgeon was killed this week walking to work.
For his part, Davie has this week admitted that the BBC “is not perfect” but it still “deserves backing”.
Slow to take action
By comparison, Wallace is pretty much a low-level scandal involving few great matters of principle other than a middle-aged man of little formal education failing to notice, mainly, how linguistic mores have changed.
The report substantiated 45 allegations against him, most involving language, but examples of him being in “a state of undress” were also found to be true. And there was the usual stuff about the BBC being slow to take action.
It is obviously right that Wallace has been sacked as a MasterChef presenter. It is equally obvious that the last series — already filmed but without Wallace in the finale — should be shown.
We will all get over any embarrassment.
It should be so, mainly for the contestants. They should not be denied the show’s impact on their possibly career-enhancing opportunities because of the low-grade comments of Wallace.
Meanwhile, on Laura Kuenssberg’s programme, Dame Melanie Dawes, CEO of Ofcom, said the BBC needed to “get a grip quicker” when controversies break out.
Well, yes — but this is a bit rich coming from an organisation that has done very little to stop Tory MPs from interviewing each other on GB News or prevent it from becoming the Nigel Farage/Reform channel.
Attempt at interference
Then, finally, there’s the problem of the under-pressure culture secretary.
There have been reports that Nandy’s job is on the line, that her department may be abolished and that, as a result, she may be in the market for being seen to be doing something — anything.
In an interview with The Times, Nandy expressed exasperation with delays over the response to the first Gaza documentary and admitted she asked the BBC board why no-one has been fired.
In a serious shot at the Beeb, she added: “What I want is an explanation as to why not. If it is a sackable offence, then obviously that should happen. But if the BBC, which is independent, considers that it is not, I think what all parliamentarians want to know is why.”
Such a comment moves close to an attempt at interference in the running of the BBC.
But then, with the next BBC scandal likely to break out some time soon, it is more than possible that neither Nandy nor Davie will be involved next year, when negotiations start for a new royal charter.
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.