The Laughing Wolf

BBC and Mistaken Targets

The sad decline of the BBC is something I have noted for quite some time, and something on which I have refrained from commenting. To be honest, people like Andrew have been doing a very good job of highlighting the various problems there, at the New York Times, CNN, and elsewhere, so I have not felt particularly pressed to jump in with “me too” type posts.

Besides, with this type of examination – just as in real intelligence work – the real goal, truth, or whatever you want to call it lies not in the individual acts and data, but in the underlying pattern behind those things. What truly matters is the structure, the linkage below.

I first noticed the problems with the BBC several years back when I first began to visit England on a regular basis for work. Growing up in a home where the WWII BBC was fondly remembered, being educated in a profession that held up that era BBC on the same pedestal as Murrow and other lights of journalism, and having very fond memories of it from a youthful visit, I was considerably disappointed. To be honest, I flipped over to Sky News and any other outlet I could find for news, but had trouble putting my finger on some of the dislike I was feeling.

It is easy to spot holes or problems in a particular story, at least most of the time. To be honest, mistakes get made. It can be something as simple as getting a persons name spelled wrong, to something far worse. Minor mistakes are part of the fun of watching the news anywhere, because you get to chuckle or laugh, and think how you could do better. We all take a certain amount of pleasure in a colleagues discomfort no matter the field, and cringe when they auger in.

Something else kept bothering me, however, and it was frustrating that I could not isolate it. At least until today, when the pieces finally clicked for me.

For many years, the BBC has prided itself on its independence from the Government. In many ways, it had to in order to maintain credibility in modern journalistic circles. It was a government-funded “official” news agency, yet it had to avoid any appearance of being an organ of the government. Otherwise, its reporters could and would be considered as spies and treated as such (most reporters are considered as and treated as such in authoritarian countries), it would not get any form or reciprocity from American and affiliated media, and it would not be taken seriously by viewers/listeners/etc.

What happened next may have begun innocently enough, but has metastasized into something that may well kill the organization. To show independence, to make the public statement that one is independent of a parent of any type, it is necessary to oppose them in a public manner and on a strong topic. It is natural to do this, and the corollary can be seen in almost any teenager in the world. The BBC took stands in editorials that were diametrically opposed to the government position at least in part to show independence.

This is fun, as any teenager who has gotten away with it will tell you, if you can’t remember yourself. The tendency is to keep pushing until you hit a wall. The BBC has been pushing for quite some time now, and has never had anyone tell them “No!” in a parental voice of command. The result is that a clique has formed around the idea of opposing the government, and pushing personal political agendas, rather than following the true meanings of a free and independent press.

Independent does not mean opposition. It means being free to cover any story you like, writing it up, and living with the consequences. It means setting an editorial policy and writing editorials no matter if they agree with the government or not. It does not mean forcing every story to be anti-government, or having every editorial attack the government in some way, any more than fair and balanced means that all parties have to be presented or presented equally. No rule of journalism says you have to give patent idiocy a fair shake, it is quite okay to call it as it stands. Indeed, that is one of the responsibilities of journalism, and one that is oft forgotten.

For example, there is nothing that requires me when writing about the Lunar Landing anniversary to include anything about or by the groups who claim we never went. If I do include them, being fair and balanced does not mean that I have to present what they say in an unquestioning manner. It is perfectly okay for me to shred their “evidence” with fact and show the fallacies in their arguments. That is part of my responsibilities as a writer and what used to be a prime requirement to be a journalist.

The BBC has, in my opinion, forgotten its journalistic duties in its desire to show that it is not a puppet of the Crown. It has forgotten that independent does not prevent it from agreeing with any position of the government, and that it has an obligation to fact and truth that supersedes all else.

Just as many a teenager has discovered, fanatical opposition independence can and does get you kicked out of the basement or other room. When you live in your parents house, you do have to play by their rules. If you are not willing to play that way, you have to leave.

The teenager is long gone, and the adult needs to get its own place. I think it is time and past time for the BBC to have to deal with the real world as real journalists. It is time for true independence, to cut the financial umbilical cord and make it in the world on its own. Maybe then they can re-discover what it means to be journalists, and to do a professional job.

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