Lord Hall’s legacy: what lessons need to be learned by the BBC?

In his first speech as BBC Director-General on October 8, 2013 Tony Hall said, “I want to ensure that when we do make mistakes they are caused by trying to serve our viewers, not by looking

after ourselves. And when we do make mistakes – and we will – let’s own up to them quickly, learn from them, and move on.”

Almost eight years later, this does not read well. Thanks to Lord Dyson’s report and Thursday night’s Panorama it is clear what went wrong at the BBC between 1995-96 and since. The bigger

question is: what are the lessons that the BBC needs to learn if it is to regain the trust of its audience?

First, deal with bias. Lord Grade, former Chairman of the BBC, was right when he said on the Today programme that the BBC needs to appoint an independent board to hold the BBC’s journalism

to account. He mentioned three particular areas where the BBC’s coverage has fallen short: the Middle East, especially, Israel; Brexit; and recent election coverage. In all three cases, the

BBC’s news coverage, especially its flagship programmes, has been guilty of bias. 

This has alienated a large part of the BBC’s audience. Viewers have voted with their feet. A report by MPs has found that around 200,000 households a year have stopped paying their licence

fee. That is over five hundred households a day. More and more people feel that the BBC no longer speaks for them. It’s not just biased, it’s “woke”: its values are those of a Left-wing

metropolitan elite. The Culture Wars are becoming increasingly important in British politics, and on a number of key issues from Windrush and Black Lives Matter to policing here and in

America, it’s clear where the BBC’s news producers and programme editors stand. 

Second, the state of BBC governance. What has really shocked people is not so much Bashir’s duplicity but the cover-up: by Steve Hewlett, then editor of  Panorama, Tim Gardam, Head of Weekly

Programmes at BBC News, and, most serious of all, Tony Hall, Director of BBC News and Current Affairs. And, perhaps worse still, the failure of the BBC governors to understand the

seriousness of what Bashir had done. 

Curiously, the Panorama documentary didn’t mention a number of crucial figures. John (now Lord) Birt was then Director-General and the late Sir Marmaduke Hussey was the Chairman of the Board

of Governors. Both were key figures at the BBC at the time but neither were mentioned. And who was Head of News and Current Affairs at the time? Something else that was not mentioned was

the rise and rise of all three BBC executives named in the programme in contrast with the fate of the whistle blower, Martin Wiessler. 

But this is not the only failing of BBC governors over the years. Under their watch, the greatest Music and Arts department in the world was dismantled and no one on the Board did anything

to stop it; BBC history and science programmes have been dumbed down; look at the loss of ambition at the BBC by comparing huge series from the 1960s like The Great War or Kenneth Clark’s

Civilisation with the way the BBC covered the centenary of the First World War or the more recent Civilisations. The great and the good have just stood by and done nothing to stop this

creative collapse. Alasdair Milne famously described the BBC governors as a “bunch of amateurs”. He was right then and he’d be right now. 

Eighteen months ago, I wrote a piece for TheArticle asking whether Lord Hall was the worst ever Director-General of the BBC? It will be interesting to see in the aftermath of the Dyson

report whether Hall’s years as Director of BBC News and Current Affairs and his dismal reign as DG will be reassessed. 

Finally, there is the question of BBC News and Current Affairs. Over the last 50 years there has been a succession of controversies and run-ins with governments. In 1971 there was a run-in

with the Labour leadership over a documentary called Yesterday’s Men. According to the official History of the BBC web page on the incident, the Labour politicians were “effectively tricked

into taking part in a programme that would ridicule them”. On 30 January 1984, Panorama broadcast Maggie’s Militant Tendency. Neil Hamilton MP sued for libel, the BBC settled out of court.

Later that year, footage of the so-called “Battle of Orgreave” on 18 June 1984 had been filmed by a crew from the BBC. When this appeared on that evening’s BBC news bulletins, it was edited

and broadcast out of chronological sequence, falsely showing pickets throwing stones at the police and the police subsequently carrying out a mounted charge. In 2012 George Entwistle

resigned as Director-General after Savilegate and controversy over a Newsnight report which falsely implicated Lord McAlpine in the North Wales child abuse scandal. 

It is time for the BBC to sort out its problems with governance. It needs to radically overhaul its News and Current Affairs department – a new head to replace Fran Unsworth, sort out the

political bias and the “woke” mindset. To alienate politicians, viewers and, above all, the Royal Family is not a good look for the BBC. It’s time the BBC thought about how to win friends.

Amol Rajan and John Ware showed the way forward. Admit it when you’ve got something wrong and put it right. How hard is that? 

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