The BBC

This is a very bad day for the BBC. It is an organization that I have grown up with and has informed my cultural and intellectual development ever since my earliest years with Listen with Mother, until just a few minutes ago listening to Melvyn Bragg on In our Time on BBC Sounds, a peerless masterclass of information on the arts and sciences. Perhaps the most infuriating thing I heard today was the quite breathtaking hypocrisy of Charles Moore, sometime editor of the Daily Telegraph, a so-called news-paper, lecturing the BBC on impartiality…

The doctoring of Trump’s speech was unforgiveable. Those responsible should have been immediately dismissed, and an unflinching and entirely uncompromising apology offered. After all, Trump’s utterings and actions are so outrageous that no editing is necessary. It doesn’t matter that the BBC’s detractors use lies, innuendo, bias, and half-truths to attack it. It must always remain balanced, even to a sometimes absurd degree. By doing what was done in a serious current affairs programme, the BBC provided its detractors and enemies a golden opportunity to destroy it.

It is clear to me that the deafening silence from the BBC board as I write this—11:15 am, 10 November—signifies chaos. Whatever the reason, and there are rumours of a conspiracy which I do not intend to pass on, the BBC is very troubled. It could not have come at a worse time on the run up to the negotiation on the charter.

My experience of BBC programmes over a period of seventy-five years, both on radio and television, is that they absolutely do succeed in their objective to inform, educate, and entertain to a very high standard. Clearly, reform is needed and it seems to be the top that needs it most. But we must be very careful that we do not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Our main public service broadcaster must be protected at all costs from the free-market jackals that wish its demise.

Note added 4:00 pm, 10 November. I read—on the BBC website—that Trump is threatening to sue them for a billion dollars, and has given them until Friday to respond. And the ghastly truth is, that he is entirely justified in doing so! I don't know how we get out of this one. It is the most frustrating thing when you're in serious trouble, and you know that the only person responsible is yourself. I am actually quite close to despair.