Thompson: having a good war
Over the past month the BBC Trust has criticised serious failings in a Panorama programme over “manipulated” footage, the corporation revealed an £950,000 pay-off to a senior executive and an independent report found that the Natural History Unit has “dumbed down” its scientific output to the level of children’s programmes.
None of that matters of course. Attention has been well and truly diverted elsewhere, by what David Wooding, the former News of the World political editor, described at the paper’s Westminster farewell drinks as “the collapse of the Murdoch Twin Towers”.
BBC execs can’t contain their glee that there is a major media scandal unfolding and for once it isn’t BBC deputy heads which must roll. Let’s remember this is personal.
James Murdoch laid into the BBC in his Edinburgh MacTaggart lecture which concluded that profit is the only guarantor of quality and independence in broadcasting.
Mark Thompson, the Director-General, later signed up to a round robin opposing the News International takeover of BSkyB on plurality grounds.
Thompson did so without consulting the BBC Trust and was slapped down by the last Trust chairman. Like Vince Cable though, he must be feeling a sense of vindication and he intends to capitalise on the public mood whilst the BBC’s critics remain on the back foot.
A Thompson article, first published in the normally BBC-sceptical Times, defended investigative journalism. Thompson hailed the BBC’s Panorama investigation into the abuse of patients at the Bristol care home.
“Whatever the ultimate conclusions of the Leveson inquiry, it is important that the ability of serious investigative journalists to do their work is not blunted or unnecessarily constrained,” Thompson wrote.
The article came after David Cameron announced the extension of the judicial inquiries into the press to cover broadcasters – so the BBC will have to answer more detailed questions over when and for what work Panorama has paid private investigators in the past.
Thompson’s article sends a message that despite acknowledged failures over the Primark Panorama and its use of “inauthentic footage”, there is one media organisation that the public can trust to act fearlessly to seek out the truth and is above corporate interests – the final riposte to Murdoch’s MacTaggart.
The BBC’s chief corporate interest is, of course, the continued existence of the BBC licence fee and its ability to make broadcasting and spending decisions without interference from government.
If Thompson can use the hacking scandal to establish the BBC as a white knight, “above the fray” it will help the corporation enormously with difficult announcements to come from the £1.3 billion cost-savings required by the licence-fee cut.
Unpopular decisions to show more repeats, cut back on some popular shows or sports and possibly even close services will be helped if the laser-eyed critical scrutiny the BBC gets from some newspapers is neutered whilst popular opprobrium is deflected elsewhere.
It also means valid questioning of the BBC’s commercial activities, talent and executive salaries and the naked pursuit of ratings on some of its television and radio services could be overlooked as the corporation bathes in a surge of public popularity.
And whether the timing is a coincidence or not, it was certainly a good week for BBC Three to finally bury Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps.
I agree I think christmas came early for the BBC and for some of the anti- Murdock people