Peter Jukes returns to his article from 2018 criticising coverage of Vote Leave and Cambridge Analytica wrongdoing, and asks our readers how the public service broadcast can be saved
The only way to guarantee its independence is to remove Govt appointees and the right to appoint the board or chairman and also remove its hegemony over the licence fee.
The Electoral Commission has been undermined to the point where it's almost useless.
"Mainstream media" is largely under the thumb of oligarchs, many of whom have no interest in maintaining anything like democracy in the UK.
It's so ironic that a sports commentator / former footballer has done more than any current politician to create an atmosphere where it's conceivable that BBC news might just be restored to some sort of credibility, and that the politically appointed "leadership" might some day be replaced by genuinely impartial & properly qualified people.
Bring on Leveson 2 - and make sure it covers the BBC.
I voted for guaranteed independence, I am just not sure how the BBC’s independence can be guaranteed when so many mechanisms have either been weakened or did not take the necessary action (in some cases even colluding in cover ups) and failed us throughout this period (ElectoralCommission; Ofcom; the police, etc). Were the role of government in appointments to be removed, and it should be, it is still possible for those with particular views to get themselves appointed to key roles, even without government help, and then push their own viewpoints. News output should be based on verifiable facts and juxtaposing those facts with other opinions, or even bare faced lies as we have with the current government, is not balance, it just creates an alternate reality and often that alternate reality manipulates existing public misconceptions and anxieties, hence the reprehensible small boats campaign. Viewers then don’t know what to believe or swallow the nonsense. Perhaps even unwittingly sometimes, the BBC is amplifying opinions to a false equivalence with facts, especially by omission, as it is doing by not covering the damaging effects of Brexit. We are in a dark place and I think we need a reset to fact-based reporting at the BBC with strong evidential and journalistic standards (like the Bylines movement) rather than every news bulletin becoming a series of multiple choice options. Impartiality is not independence, it is fence-sitting when we need a truly independent organisation to stand up for the truth, not include a disclaimer in every report that “this might not be the truth”, that is what brought us Brexit and the carnage that has followed.
I feel that Janet Dowling's eleqoquent remarks amply mirror mine. i hope she does not mind but I have repeated them for the sake of the comon good.
Janet Dowling
25 min ago
I voted for guaranteed independence, I am just not sure how the BBC’s independence can be guaranteed when so many mechanisms have either been weakened or did not take the necessary action (in some cases even colluding in cover ups) and failed us throughout this period (ElectoralCommission; Ofcom; the police, etc). Were the role of government in appointments to be removed, and it should be, it is still possible for those with particular views to get themselves appointed to key roles, even without government help, and then push their own viewpoints. News output should be based on verifiable facts and juxtaposing those facts with other opinions, or even bare faced lies as we have with the current government, is not balance, it just creates an alternate reality and often that alternate reality manipulates existing public misconceptions and anxieties, hence the reprehensible small boats campaign. Viewers then don’t know what to believe or swallow the nonsense. Perhaps even unwittingly sometimes, the BBC is amplifying opinions to a false equivalence with facts, especially by omission, as it is doing by not covering the damaging effects of Brexit. We are in a dark place and I think we need a reset to fact-based reporting at the BBC with strong evidential and journalistic standards (like the Bylines movement) rather than every news bulletin becoming a series of multiple choice options. Impartiality is not independence, it is fence-sitting when we need a truly independent organisation to stand up for the truth, not include a disclaimer in every report that “this might not be the truth”, that is what brought us Brexit and the carnage that has followed.
I did select Guarantee Independence, but I feel the powers would state this is already the case. The rot is so entrenched in the BBC it's hard to see how to proceed. Somehow its core skills and abilities need to be preserved and enhanced whilst cutting out the pervasive interference and inability to properly understand impartiality. It does seem the upper echelons are not suitable people to carry this forward.
Regrettably, I can't see a way forward that will be allowed or will work, so I'm resigned to the BBC being solely an entertainment organisation. This pains me deeply. I would have defended the BBC to the death, but this has been ebbing away for some years. Recent events have established beyond doubt that they are lost as a trusted organisation.
The BBC need to be dismantled entirely and replaced with a a new organisation that run on the very same license principle, retains many of its greatest shows and radion channels but loses its entire hierarchy in favour of peope who are voted in, and are not fat cat Tory lickspittles who care not about the British working man's interests but aim at your average Tory voter- from Buxton shall we say - who collects antiques, loves canal boats and steam trains, reads the Mail,has a home abroad, loves the endless documentaries about the Stuarts,Tudors, Windsors and considers East Enders a freak show. The BBC is out moded out of touch and riddled with nepotism so has to go and should have after it was discovered how they'd allowed Savile, Hall, Glitter and a host of other paedophiles ( who everyone knew they were such) to continue working and actually presenting shows. It is a nonsense that needs replacing and renaming as the BBC name just reeks of sleaze and corruption. We need an elected governing body drawn from all classes who decide on the programming , an incentive scheme for producers who, as they now get a fixed wage, feel that to discuss content over big lunches is enough ( I worked with them and saw the massive abuse of License payer money) while aslong as they make any old rubbish with their mates who are the same directors ,producers and presenters,actirs , dramatists etc they will remain in work. I refuse to pay my license as the fare on offer is so so awful so do not watch live TV ever. I loved the BBC once upon a time.
It's nuts that this was your first article. I found Tim Fenton historical reporting invaluable understanding YBF et al. You did one of my top 3 threads. It was no 1. But Carole owns Twitter now lol
Which news outlet have broken most important Brexity Tory Govt related corruption since 2016 I wonder who are the super scoopers?
The BBCs interference and biased behaviours were in force and still are in Scotland. Have been since it was given a referdum on independence circa 2012 /13. One sided, obviously, the establishments preferred, omitting / ignoring important information. Particularly around Scottish success and leaning heavily into any minor diversion or Scot gov bad stories.
By the time the Brexiteers took hold this practise had shown success so continues in Scotland and now used for Brexit silencing and diversion.
It needs to be fully independent, with long-term guaranteed funding and protection from external interference. An absolute requirement should be the open publication of all contacts with politicians. Any and all attempts to influence its programming and editorial policy should be broadcast loud and clear, as should any threats of legal action against it.
The BBC literally made Farage. He was a politician that repeatedly failed to get elected. Nobody wanted to know him yet the BBC platform him, repeatedly, presumably under their misguided balanced argument policy. This allowed him to raise his profile and become slightly relevant and he has bothered us ever since.
Has anything changed? Have they learned from this?
Hmmm, I note Richard Tice is getting the same treatment at the moment....
I'm only 66 years old so I can't speak for the early days of the BBC but, like many (I suspect) I thought the BBC was the main reason to proud to have been born British. To me it represented a sense of caring and fairness which I hoped (maybe even presumed) was mirrored by the vast majority of British people and of British government. I'm afraid that all slipped with the Iraq war. I sensed the BBC increasingly becoming filtered by the government of the day - first by Blair-ite Labour and certainly no less by successive Conservative governments. Once the Beeb is tainted, what have we left to believe in?
There must be an independent panel which leads a public consultation on a governance and operational framework for the future BBC. The remit and scope of the panel must be clear, transparent and part of the consultation. The findings of the consultation must be binding within the constraints of the law. Ongoing the BBC should evaluate its performance through customer surveys and adopt a 'you said, we did' approach to its activities.
The license fee paying population of the U.K. are the paying customers of the BBC and the BBC board must be responsible and accountable to them, not politicians or any other body of influence.
In my view it will be vital for the BBC to employ investigative journalists who can properly inform the news and current affairs without fear or favour. It has been very sad to see the decline of the BBC. especially over the last 30 years. It can recover its place as a credible organisation, but the above points I have made are at least a subset of the way forward.
The BBC's governance should be completely removed from government interference, from whichever party. It's board of governors should be elected by a licence fee payers' assembly, drawn annually to represent that population, as per citizens' assemblies. The same assembly could arbitrate on any issues of impartially which the board or executives cannot or should not deal with. They should also decide on licence fee levels, which should reflect the payees' income levels, rather as National Insurance do now. This will stop the BBC licence being a clearly inequitable poll tax, as it is now, thus attracting much criticism. Thereafter, the only government input to the BBC would be to set up this tax-taking and vouchsafe it will never interfere with it, unless scandal necessitated this.
Whatever happens, the BBC must never be broken up and all its intellectual property, owned and paid for by generations of British licence fee payers, sold off, along with its branding (one of the few remaining British brands which is still recognised the world over) to some, likely American, behemoth.
The only way to guarantee its independence is to remove Govt appointees and the right to appoint the board or chairman and also remove its hegemony over the licence fee.
It's not just the BBC, though, is it?
The Electoral Commission has been undermined to the point where it's almost useless.
"Mainstream media" is largely under the thumb of oligarchs, many of whom have no interest in maintaining anything like democracy in the UK.
It's so ironic that a sports commentator / former footballer has done more than any current politician to create an atmosphere where it's conceivable that BBC news might just be restored to some sort of credibility, and that the politically appointed "leadership" might some day be replaced by genuinely impartial & properly qualified people.
Bring on Leveson 2 - and make sure it covers the BBC.
I voted for guaranteed independence, I am just not sure how the BBC’s independence can be guaranteed when so many mechanisms have either been weakened or did not take the necessary action (in some cases even colluding in cover ups) and failed us throughout this period (ElectoralCommission; Ofcom; the police, etc). Were the role of government in appointments to be removed, and it should be, it is still possible for those with particular views to get themselves appointed to key roles, even without government help, and then push their own viewpoints. News output should be based on verifiable facts and juxtaposing those facts with other opinions, or even bare faced lies as we have with the current government, is not balance, it just creates an alternate reality and often that alternate reality manipulates existing public misconceptions and anxieties, hence the reprehensible small boats campaign. Viewers then don’t know what to believe or swallow the nonsense. Perhaps even unwittingly sometimes, the BBC is amplifying opinions to a false equivalence with facts, especially by omission, as it is doing by not covering the damaging effects of Brexit. We are in a dark place and I think we need a reset to fact-based reporting at the BBC with strong evidential and journalistic standards (like the Bylines movement) rather than every news bulletin becoming a series of multiple choice options. Impartiality is not independence, it is fence-sitting when we need a truly independent organisation to stand up for the truth, not include a disclaimer in every report that “this might not be the truth”, that is what brought us Brexit and the carnage that has followed.
Thank Goodness Channel 4 covered Analytica so thoroughly. I must confess, I rely on C4 for news
I feel that Janet Dowling's eleqoquent remarks amply mirror mine. i hope she does not mind but I have repeated them for the sake of the comon good.
Janet Dowling
25 min ago
I voted for guaranteed independence, I am just not sure how the BBC’s independence can be guaranteed when so many mechanisms have either been weakened or did not take the necessary action (in some cases even colluding in cover ups) and failed us throughout this period (ElectoralCommission; Ofcom; the police, etc). Were the role of government in appointments to be removed, and it should be, it is still possible for those with particular views to get themselves appointed to key roles, even without government help, and then push their own viewpoints. News output should be based on verifiable facts and juxtaposing those facts with other opinions, or even bare faced lies as we have with the current government, is not balance, it just creates an alternate reality and often that alternate reality manipulates existing public misconceptions and anxieties, hence the reprehensible small boats campaign. Viewers then don’t know what to believe or swallow the nonsense. Perhaps even unwittingly sometimes, the BBC is amplifying opinions to a false equivalence with facts, especially by omission, as it is doing by not covering the damaging effects of Brexit. We are in a dark place and I think we need a reset to fact-based reporting at the BBC with strong evidential and journalistic standards (like the Bylines movement) rather than every news bulletin becoming a series of multiple choice options. Impartiality is not independence, it is fence-sitting when we need a truly independent organisation to stand up for the truth, not include a disclaimer in every report that “this might not be the truth”, that is what brought us Brexit and the carnage that has followed.
Liked (3)Reply
I did select Guarantee Independence, but I feel the powers would state this is already the case. The rot is so entrenched in the BBC it's hard to see how to proceed. Somehow its core skills and abilities need to be preserved and enhanced whilst cutting out the pervasive interference and inability to properly understand impartiality. It does seem the upper echelons are not suitable people to carry this forward.
Regrettably, I can't see a way forward that will be allowed or will work, so I'm resigned to the BBC being solely an entertainment organisation. This pains me deeply. I would have defended the BBC to the death, but this has been ebbing away for some years. Recent events have established beyond doubt that they are lost as a trusted organisation.
The BBC need to be dismantled entirely and replaced with a a new organisation that run on the very same license principle, retains many of its greatest shows and radion channels but loses its entire hierarchy in favour of peope who are voted in, and are not fat cat Tory lickspittles who care not about the British working man's interests but aim at your average Tory voter- from Buxton shall we say - who collects antiques, loves canal boats and steam trains, reads the Mail,has a home abroad, loves the endless documentaries about the Stuarts,Tudors, Windsors and considers East Enders a freak show. The BBC is out moded out of touch and riddled with nepotism so has to go and should have after it was discovered how they'd allowed Savile, Hall, Glitter and a host of other paedophiles ( who everyone knew they were such) to continue working and actually presenting shows. It is a nonsense that needs replacing and renaming as the BBC name just reeks of sleaze and corruption. We need an elected governing body drawn from all classes who decide on the programming , an incentive scheme for producers who, as they now get a fixed wage, feel that to discuss content over big lunches is enough ( I worked with them and saw the massive abuse of License payer money) while aslong as they make any old rubbish with their mates who are the same directors ,producers and presenters,actirs , dramatists etc they will remain in work. I refuse to pay my license as the fare on offer is so so awful so do not watch live TV ever. I loved the BBC once upon a time.
It's nuts that this was your first article. I found Tim Fenton historical reporting invaluable understanding YBF et al. You did one of my top 3 threads. It was no 1. But Carole owns Twitter now lol
Which news outlet have broken most important Brexity Tory Govt related corruption since 2016 I wonder who are the super scoopers?
The BBCs interference and biased behaviours were in force and still are in Scotland. Have been since it was given a referdum on independence circa 2012 /13. One sided, obviously, the establishments preferred, omitting / ignoring important information. Particularly around Scottish success and leaning heavily into any minor diversion or Scot gov bad stories.
By the time the Brexiteers took hold this practise had shown success so continues in Scotland and now used for Brexit silencing and diversion.
It needs to be fully independent, with long-term guaranteed funding and protection from external interference. An absolute requirement should be the open publication of all contacts with politicians. Any and all attempts to influence its programming and editorial policy should be broadcast loud and clear, as should any threats of legal action against it.
We scrap the licence fee and watch it sort itself out
The BBC literally made Farage. He was a politician that repeatedly failed to get elected. Nobody wanted to know him yet the BBC platform him, repeatedly, presumably under their misguided balanced argument policy. This allowed him to raise his profile and become slightly relevant and he has bothered us ever since.
Has anything changed? Have they learned from this?
Hmmm, I note Richard Tice is getting the same treatment at the moment....
I'm only 66 years old so I can't speak for the early days of the BBC but, like many (I suspect) I thought the BBC was the main reason to proud to have been born British. To me it represented a sense of caring and fairness which I hoped (maybe even presumed) was mirrored by the vast majority of British people and of British government. I'm afraid that all slipped with the Iraq war. I sensed the BBC increasingly becoming filtered by the government of the day - first by Blair-ite Labour and certainly no less by successive Conservative governments. Once the Beeb is tainted, what have we left to believe in?
There must be an independent panel which leads a public consultation on a governance and operational framework for the future BBC. The remit and scope of the panel must be clear, transparent and part of the consultation. The findings of the consultation must be binding within the constraints of the law. Ongoing the BBC should evaluate its performance through customer surveys and adopt a 'you said, we did' approach to its activities.
The license fee paying population of the U.K. are the paying customers of the BBC and the BBC board must be responsible and accountable to them, not politicians or any other body of influence.
In my view it will be vital for the BBC to employ investigative journalists who can properly inform the news and current affairs without fear or favour. It has been very sad to see the decline of the BBC. especially over the last 30 years. It can recover its place as a credible organisation, but the above points I have made are at least a subset of the way forward.
The BBC's governance should be completely removed from government interference, from whichever party. It's board of governors should be elected by a licence fee payers' assembly, drawn annually to represent that population, as per citizens' assemblies. The same assembly could arbitrate on any issues of impartially which the board or executives cannot or should not deal with. They should also decide on licence fee levels, which should reflect the payees' income levels, rather as National Insurance do now. This will stop the BBC licence being a clearly inequitable poll tax, as it is now, thus attracting much criticism. Thereafter, the only government input to the BBC would be to set up this tax-taking and vouchsafe it will never interfere with it, unless scandal necessitated this.
Whatever happens, the BBC must never be broken up and all its intellectual property, owned and paid for by generations of British licence fee payers, sold off, along with its branding (one of the few remaining British brands which is still recognised the world over) to some, likely American, behemoth.