The chair of the BBC, Samir Shah, struck a defensive tone in his interview to explain the mess the broadcaster has found itself in. The impression was of an organisation under siege rather than one confidently self-correcting. Mr Shah will be busy. He must find a new director general after Tim Davie resigned. Gone too is the CEO of news, Deborah Turness. Both resigned after an exhausting rightwing campaign which cried bias at every turn and was energised by an absurd transatlantic attempt to paint the BBC as part of a global liberal conspiracy.
A giant like the BBC will make mistakes. The failure is not owning them fast enough and moving on. The corporation remains one of Britain’s few genuinely national institutions – and ministers say it is a “light on the hill” for people here and abroad. The BBC is the most trusted source of news in the UK, and among the top five worldwide. Yet awareness of that value has faded as the broadcaster struggled to articulate a clear civic mission. This is a strategic blunder in the face of competition from US big tech, which wants to monetise outrage rather than the truth. Viewed from that perspective the current row over the editing of Donald Trump’s speech for Panorama is a sideshow. The real fight is over what impartiality means – and who gets to decide.
