The BBC is a cultural phenomenon which in its 100 year history has been garlanded with awards. Its output is appreciated around the world and it has successfully cultivated both mainstream and niche audiences. It is regarded with affection by many and with distaste by few. Where it has given rise to controversy, it has attracted criticism from both the left and the right of the political spectrum in almost equal measure. There is not one government from that of Stanley Baldwin to Rishi Sunak's which has not at some point crossed swords with the creation of Sir John Reith. From each of these episodes the BBC has emerged chastened but wiser, which cannot honestly be said of the politicians.
Reith's memorable edict that the BBC should "inform, educate and entertain" was as important for the order in which those words were placed as for their meaning. They remain a good yardstick by which to judge a public service broadcaster funded by a non-discretionary license fee. By most objective measures, the BBC still fulfils this unofficial mission statement and no amount of bloviating about Gary Lineker's blog, purist horror about the Beeb's interpretation of Great Expectations or grumpiness about the Today programme really changes that. Comparisons with Netflix, Amazon Prime and other free or pay-per-view media also miss the point as none of these have a public service remit to which they can be held accountable.
So why does the BBC presently get up some noses like a massive dose of snuff?
Perhaps the answer lies in that part of the BBC's output which arguably should have the least trouble fulfilling the letter, spirit and word order of Reith's rubric from the 1920's - its flagship, BBC News.
The edition of the Six O' Clock News on Tuesday 27th June illustrated, in microcosm, the muddle at the heart of the BBC as an institution. With everything else going on, the very top story that evening was the finding of a Lancashire coroner that the untimely death of Nichola Bulley, a photogenic middle-aged mortgage adviser, was caused by accidental drowning in the River Wyre in early 2023. Once-upon-a-time, this story might have struggled to be included in the BBC's regional news output, never mind leading that of the national news agenda. Nonetheless, the case originally came to prominence as part of a confected social media "storm" about an allegedly vulnerable woman allegedly let down by police incompetence. In so far as there was any story here at all beyond the private grief of a family kept in appalling suspense about the fate of an adult loved one, it was the utter crassness and insensitivity of the social and mainstream media commentary about the incident at the time. The coverage was purely mawkish and with no connection to Reith's principle's for broadcasting.
However, a clue lies in what can only be described as the obsession of BBC News with that word "vulnerability". In today's canon of modern manners, one sin that cries out to Heaven for vengeance is to appear "uncaring". The appearance of being uncaring is as heinous a crime as genuinely being so, notwithstanding indifference is a perfectly normal sensation that helps us from going mad. From there it is a quick step to suppose that every misfortune (whatever its origin in either fate, human agency, accident, ignorance or stupidity), is deserving of our care and support. The more publicly this ersatz empathy is expressed and institutionalised by those like the BBC the better. Nowadays, intensely private feelings such as grief are held to be inauthentic unless they are publicly expressed. In today's debased culture, no death is truly sanctified until a football crowd stands "in solidarity" and looks down in silence upon black armband wearing players. But misfortune is so quotidian a state of humanity, we need a word to describe the legions who suffer from it. Step forward the "vulnerable".
BBC news bulletins are increasingly peppered with tales of "vulnerability" and a seeming denial of human agency. We are constantly invited to empathise. Tuesday night was no exception. Despite the disturbing events in nuclear armed Russia, the Beeb prioritised some info about a bloke called Lewis Capaldi. Lewis is a successful singer who resembles an overweight chipmunk in bad need of a hair wash. The Beeb gravely informed us that he also has Tourette, a non-fatal syndrome of nervous tics and verbal outbursts suffered by a very tiny fraction of folk in the UK. Quite what was the relevance of all this to anything is unclear, but at least it gave the BBC another opportunity to piously preach about a subset of the "vulnerable". And for no other reason than poor Lewis's set at Glastonbury was interrupted by a sore throat. Following which the good natured crowd had had to carry the weight of his banal lyrics on their own for half an hour. Surely the story here was the outrageous £335 ticket price (plus £5 booking fee) that hard - up punters had had to shell out to hear acts by various geriatrics (plus Lewis Capaldi) in which no amount of pyrotechnic extravagance could conceal the increasingly brittle timbre of the voices. That and the fact that Tourette would appear to be the least of poor Lewis's health problems.
With barely a moment to ponder the relevance or otherwise of Capaldi's behaviour patterns, we were whisked off to the House of Commons as the Business and Trade Committee gave representatives of the UK food retailing industry a proper hosing down. This on account of their alleged profiteering from food price inflation and exploitation of the "vulnerable". The retailers gave a succinct description of their markets, which are among the most competitive on the planet, and pointed out their post-pandemic margins are actually lower than in 2019. Although their defence was entirely reasonable, it would have been appropriate for some relevant countervailing information (such as fuel pricing) to be presented in the piece to provide balance. But the BBC struggles hopelessly with this concept. Instead the "balance" was provided by some Labour Party blowhard who complained about the bonuses being paid to executives and the dividends being paid to apparently undeserving shareholders at a time when "ordinary families" and the "vulnerable" were under pressure. To any fair minded person, this was surely beside the point.
There was the same technique with former Health Secretary Matt Hancock's big moment in front of the UK Covid Enquiry, now trundling towards its first anniversary even as those of France and Sweden were completed months ago. The newsworthy point here was surely Hancock's insistence, in the face of all objective evidence, of the efficacy of even tighter lockdowns to "halt" pandemics in future. Instead, the whole piece was framed around crass Matt's faux apology to Covid's victims and the scenes of relatives turning their backs on the erstwhile minister as he emerged into the street. It seemed not to occur to either Hancock or the BBC that this vain and foolish man's act of assumption of personal responsibility for Covid was as preposterous as it was nauseating.
The nadir was arguably the item on the findings of something called the "Independent Enquiry into Equity in Cricket" chaired by the unimprovably named Cindy Butts. Over two years in gestation, Cindy's considered verdict was that English cricket is irredeemably racist and elitist. Apparently "over 50% of those in cricket had suffered discrimination" a situation Ms Butt described as "horrific". Never mind Cindy's hyperbole immediately detracted from whatever serious point she was trying to make, her premise was completely absurd. As those of BAME ethnicity comprise 17% of the UK population, either BAME folk have a disproportionate share of the cricketing community or there is some "horrific" discrimination against white people going on in the same game. In which case, what discrimination is Cindy talking about? But no matter - among her recommendations were the annual Eton v Harrow match be scrapped and that the ECB should issue an unequivocal apology forthwith. Her nonsensical views went completely unchallenged as the Beeb went over to some grovelling obeisance from the Chairman of the ECB and then to a ritual incantation from England captain Ben Stokes, who is smart enough to know (but not yet quite brave enough to denounce), the requirement for public genuflection to the growing absurdities of the "diversity & inclusion" agenda.
Whatever the plimsoll shod Director General is trying to do to restore objectivity and impartiality to the BBC's news output, it seems pretty clear that he either does not understand the concepts or his message isn't getting through to his editorial teams. BBC News is today less about useful and important information so much as little homilies about the Beeb's London centric world view. These are that the government can never spend enough in support of the "vulnerable"; taxes are non-negotiable; the NHS is sacred; climate change is man-made; the profit motive is to be treated with suspicion; all religions (apart from Christianity) deserve to be cherished; psychopaths are "militants" and that noisy axe-grinders should everywhere be indulged. It does not matter if the autocue is read in "neutral" tones by the pertly impassive Reeta Chakrabarti, by the oddly coiffured Huw Edwards or by the increasingly narcoleptic Clive Myrie if "news" items in the hands of the BBC are no more than unexamined parables for the educationally sub-normal. Infantilism would seem to be the order of the day.
Click. Off.
