Imagine you are director-general of the BBC. You are coming to the end of another gruelling week, having put your annual report to bed, and looking forward to one of the few perks of the job: entertaining guests in the BBC box at Wimbledon. It should be a brief moment of relaxation before hosting a press conference the following Tuesday when you know most questions will be about what its highest-paid presenters, such as Huw Edwards, earn, and not about how efficient the organisation is and how it is coping with a significant drop in income.
And then you get a call from the Sun about your best-known news presenter, who has had a wonderful 12 months, hosting the BBC’s coverage of great state occasions such as the funeral of Queen Elizabeth and the coronation of King Charles.
Then, of course, your own news division swings into action, determined to show that it reports as fiercely and independently about the corporation as it would on any other organisation. But in fact, it goes into overkill, to the point of self-obsession, forgetting that the future of the BBC is not necessarily the most important story of the day. (Hottest day of all time, Ukraine, Israel, mortgage rates etc.)
You must feel rather like St Sebastian, with arrows being fired at you from all directions, and you can’t fight back.
You scrabble to discover who knew what when. You are reminded of the privacy laws and your duty of care to all BBC employees involved. And then you hear politicians saying, “The BBC should put its house in order”, and rightwing MPs leap in to kick the BBC yet again without bothering to find out the facts. “Name him, name him.”
All around there is a rush to judgment. Even the prime minister has to answer a question about the story before he can discuss the future of Nato and the scariest war in Europe since 1945.
Eventually Huw Edwards’s wife, Vicky Flind, issues a dignified and shocking statement. The family must be going through hell.
Surely now there will be a pause, particularly as the police say they have no evidence that would warrant a criminal investigation.
And then Newsnight publishes further claims of allegedly inappropriate texts, to which, of course, Edwards cannot reply, and which you have not yet had the opportunity of investigating.
(Oh, and you do not have an experienced chair to talk to. Richard Sharp has had to resign earlier this year after concerns about the way he was appointed.)
Still, you wanted the job and you are paid a lot of money, though far, far, less than you could earn outside, or as chief executive of Channel 4, which is a mere frigate compared with the BBC aircraft carrier.
While the police say you are now free to resume your internal inquiry, what have we learned so far about this “great BBC scandal”? Well, in my view – that there isn’t one. There is no cover-up.
At worst, the BBC was slow to examine the initial allegations, whatever they were. (Although we should bear in mind that it says it routinely has about 250 allegations about various things going on at the same time.)
We have learned that the behaviour of the Sun newspaper is, shall we say, strange. As many baffled former tabloid editors have pointed out, it has not provided any detailed evidence to back up its allegations, no blurred photos, receipts, bank statements etc. It has been asking the BBC to do what it was not prepared, or able, to do, and no Sun representative has made themselves available for interview. The solicitors for the young person at the centre of the paper’s allegations say they are “rubbish”.
We have learned that social media puts great pressure on the mainstream media to continue to speculate when they have little or nothing to say.
We have learned that BBC News has done an admirable job in scrutinising its own organisation, but has become almost obsessive about the story, giving it greater prominence than it should have.
That certain parts of the media get a kick out of kicking the BBC, perhaps partly for commercial reasons.
That there is so much that we do not know, and we have a right to know it, but not necessarily now.
When the BBC finishes its internal inquiry, it should publish the results in full, and then we can come to a final, considered, judgment about how it has handled this extraordinary episode, and whether Edwards should have a future with the organisation.
Above all, let’s remember the tragedies involved for the various families drawn into all of this.
And while thinking about this, think, too, about the even greater problems ahead. Deep-fake videos and AI will result in very convincing material appearing on the internet that is in fact totally fabricated. The dangers of defamation will increase, and users of social media should be aware that they are involved in a form of publishing and could be sued for their comments. The message there is: stop speculating, investigate and don’t rush to judgment.
Roger Bolton is a former BBC executive and presenter who now presents the Beeb Watch podcast
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