Even as the venerable BBC was convulsing with one of its worst weeks ever, it was also celebrating a remarkable anniversary. On November 14, 1922, a man named Arthur Burrows went on the air for the Beeb’s first radio bulletin. He delivered news of a speech by the Conservative leader, court proceedings from the Old Bailey and (how clichéd) fog in London. The BBC website informs us that Mr. Burrows read each item twice, once quickly, once slowly and asked listeners to advise which pace they preferred.
Thus was born the world’s first national broadcaster, and 90 years later, it remains an international icon of excellence.
However. As recent events have made clear, even the best can make horrible mistakes.
But to its credit, in this difficult week, the BBC has been its own toughest critic.
Newsnight, the program at the centre of the recent scandal, is a mixture of incisive live interviews and probing documentaries. As I have written in this space before, its lead host Jeremy Paxman is a pitiless inquisitor, known to reduce hapless politicians to quivering jelly through an interview technique that goes beyond aggressive and verges on cruel.
This past Friday night, Newsnight turned its guns on itself in a stunning bit of television.
A story it had broadcast the week before had gone wrong in the worst way. It implicated a high official of the British Conservative Party in a child abuse case in Wales. The official was never named, but those in the know realized immediately that it had to be Lord Alistair McAlpine, a party treasurer in the Thatcher years. Mainstream media danced around identifying him, even as they dispatched reporters and photographers to his home in Italy, ready to pounce.
Twitter was less prudent and his name was everywhere, convicted by social media.
After days of online abuse, McAlpine could take no more and issued a statement, outlining in outraged detail how and why he was innocent of the allegations. Coincidentally, one mainstream paper finally printed his name. But The Guardian story was all about how McAlpine was likely the victim of mistaken identity.
This was the backdrop for a remarkable Newsnight program. It went on the air with an unfamiliar host, a guy from radio. Reportedly none of the regulars wanted to front the show. He led off by intoning, “A new crisis for Newsnight. Tonight this program apologizes.”
He then detailed how the lead accuser in the previous week’s story was now admitting that he was wrong and had apologized to McAlpine. It seems none of the producers preparing the original story even showed him a picture of the man he was tabbing as his abuser. When he finally did see an image of McAlpine, he realized with horror his mistake.
The guest host then proceeded to eviscerate the program he was fronting. He asked a media analyst, “Is Newsnight toast?”
At the end he signed off: “Newsnight will be back Monday. Probably.”
Whew. It is hard to imagine any of the News International papers or TV programs flagellating themselves so publicly at the height of the phone hacking scandal.
The problem was that this was not Newsnight‘s first misstep. Its editor had already been forced to quit after a story about sexual abuse allegations against the late TV star Jimmy Savile had been killed, only to have a competing broadcaster break it all wide open.
But the BBC was not done with punishing itself. The next morning, on the flagship radio show Today, another famously tough interviewer claimed a high-profile victim: his boss.
John Humphrys’ guest was the BBC’s director-general George Entwistle. It was an audio evisceration. Humphrys demanded to know why Entwistle was uninformed about the offending program, especially given that the world was advised about its content in advance, thanks again to a tweet.
The director-general mumbled that he had not seen the tweet.
“You’ve got a huge staff working for you!” thundered Humphrys.
It was a disastrous performance. Twelve hours later, Entwistle faced the cameras in front of BBC headquarters in central London to announce his resignation, less than two months after being appointed. The Humphreys interview was widely viewed as his downfall.
The Beeb’s big guns continued to sound. The aforementioned Jeremy Paxman fired a rocket into the heart of headquarters, with a statement saying Entwistle was “brought low by cowards and incompetents.”
Multiple investigations continue, all duly reported by the broadcaster, and it seems likely that more people will lose their jobs. Newsnight, the news department, and the BBC as a whole all have interim managers. There are promises to streamline an unwieldy and bloated management structure.
The BBC has some powerful opponents, particularly in the print media. The Telegraph, formerly owned by Conrad Black, loves to run stories about bureaucratic excess or missteps by hosts.
But there is a consensus that it is a British national treasure. After a few days of self-examination leading its news programs, there were voices strongly advising it to move on to other stories.
Its worth was demonstrated again this week with a superb documentary produced by Panorama, showing how doctors have managed to communicate with people who are apparently in a near vegetative state. The most compelling case was a Canadian man in London, Ontario – summarized in Mike Drolet’s story for Global National.
The BBC may be suffering a very public torment and will likely need to make some serious changes.
But it is still the Beeb.
Sean is Global National’s Europe Bureau Chief, based in London. Follow him on Twitter: @SMallenGlobal.
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