Don’t let them fool you, the impartiality police don’t care about the BBC ...Middle East

It was only a matter of time. After a series of high-profile controversies and a concerted campaign of attacks by the right-wing press, somebody very senior at the BBC was always going to have to fall on their sword. And so Tim Davie, the director-general, and Deborah Turness, the chief executive of BBC News, have handed in their resignations. Those who have long sought to undermine the BBC have won a major victory. We should all be concerned about what happens next.

First, some undeniable truths: the BBC has had a torrid few years. From the handling of allegations about major stars to the decision to broadcast Bob Vylan’s hate-filled set at Glastonbury, to serious failings in its coverage of the Middle East and, most recently, the revelation that a clip of Donald Trump was edited by a Panorama programme in a way that made it sound like he was endorsing violence on Capitol Hill, major mistakes have been made and too often the BBC’s response has been sluggish, dismissive and defensive.

The initial refusal to comment on the dodgy Panorama clip looked like obfuscation. There have been too many mistakes, suggestive of real underlying problems, that BBC bosses need to address. Nobody can deny that.

And yes, the recent criticism over the Panorama clip is justified. Editing footage or audio in a way that changes the context of what is being said is poor journalism. Shockingly poor. A programme as high-profile as Panorama should not be making such basic errors. Changes must be made to ensure it does not happen again, and those responsible for the mistake should be held accountable.

But come on. Is this poorly-edited, 12-second clip worthy of days of news coverage? Is it the national outrage we are being told it is rather just a sloppy bit of journalism? Was it really a sinister act of left-wing manipulation rather than merely a lapse of editorial standards? To answer these questions, ask whether that clip would have been the subject of so many column inches had it been edited in a way that depicted Donald Trump more favourably, rather than less? Of course it wouldn’t.

That is because many of the politicians and commentators who scream from the rooftops about BBC bias do so not from a place of genuine, well-intentioned concern but because of their own deeply partial opinions about the national broadcaster.

While they pretend to be objective observers, concerned only with upholding journalistic standards, the truth is that the sustained attack on the BBC has been driven by right-wing politicians and a crusading right-wing press that has long wanted to destroy the national broadcaster in its current form. And bit by bit they are succeeding, gradually eroding the foundations on which the BBC’s success lies: public support, its reputation for impartiality and funding from the licence fee.

Those who lament the BBC’s apparent bias only when it suits their agenda are, more often than not, participants in a co-ordinated, ideological assault on the BBC. Fuelled by a combination of Thatcherite ideology and an anti-establishment populism that depicts the BBC as part of a woke, metropolitan elite that needs tearing down, they have succeeded in making the BBC and its journalism another front in the UK’s culture war.

Some of those trying to destroy the BBC are honest about their motives: they simply don’t believe in the existence of a national broadcaster. They want free market competition driven by private enterprise, not state subsidies for one media organisation that give it an unfair advantage.

That is an entirely reasonable view – one that must be debated and engaged with by those who want to maintain the status quo. But more of those who hold that opinion should have the courage to make their case openly, rather than disingenuously hiding behind the laughable insistence that they do, really, honestly, genuinely, I promise you, want the BBC to succeed – even as they do everything in their power to damage it.

And while genuine editorial failings must be called out and condemned, we should all be wary of the increasing attacks by those in power on the people and organisations that seek to hold them to account.

In the US, the Trump administration has launched an unprecedented assault on media freedoms, banning journalists from the White House, threatening to defund outlets perceived as critical and launching multi-billion lawsuits against national newspapers in an attempt to intimidate them.

The BBC has not been spared: Trump responded to the Panorama row by accusing BBC journalists of corruption and is now threatening to sue the organisation for $1bn (£760m). His press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, called the BBC “total, 100 per cent fake news that should no longer be worth the time on the television screens of the great people of the United Kingdom”.

None of this is surprising – it is part of an effort by Trump and his allies to remove the limits on his presidential power. But those of us on this side of the Atlantic should be concerned by how commonly these types of attacks are now being repeated in the UK.

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Nigel Farage, for example, claimed on Monday (without providing any evidence) that the BBC has been “institutionally biased for decades”. Kemi Badenoch echoed the allegation, accusing the broadcaster of “institutional bias” and warning ominously that it “should not expect the public to keep funding it through a compulsory license fee unless it can finally demonstrate true impartiality”. While concerns about specific incidents are legitimate, we should be very wary of politicians trying to undermine trust in the media overall – a trend that stands to benefit them far more than it does the UK public.

The BBC must change. Its leadership needs to get to the bottom of what has gone wrong and change the processes and cultures that have led to major mistakes. But it must be very careful not to try to appease its enemies by over-correcting, by neutering its reporting or watering down its coverage of sensitive issues in an attempt to stop the ideological attacks from Trump, the right-wing of the Conservative Party and the owners of certain newspapers.

Most of its opponents will never be satisfied because it is not really the BBC’s coverage that they have a problem with, it is the very existence of a national broadcaster funded by taxpayers that irks them most. No change in leadership or redrawing of editorial guidelines, no number of resignations or apologies, will change that.

Ben Kentish presents his LBC show from Monday to Friday at 10pm, and is a former Westminster editor

Perspectives

I worked at the BBC – it is blase about how it spends your money

The BBC needs to stop being cowardly – and stand up for itself

I’ve received the threatening letter and seen the cruelty behind the TV licence fee

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