Some optimists say that the current crisis might bring out the best in us. These sunny souls are invoking the re-emergence of the “Blitz spirit” of the Second World War, when the country displayed what we like to think of as our true national character: stoicism, generosity and fortitude in the face of adversity, all leavened with a doughty, self-deprecating humour.
They may well be right – it does feel somehow different out there – but whatever else this crisis has in common with that period, one wartime comparison that certainly rings true is that the BBC is once again a vital, unifing force.
The BBC is having a good crisis; in fact the coronavirus emergency could have been custom-made in one of the management suites of New Broadcasting House, the better to display the merits of our national broadcaster.
Back in January things were looking pretty bleak for the Corporation. There were threatening noises coming out of government circles about a forthcoming reckoning; the licence fee was said to be under unsympathetic scrutiny and to some the BBC’s very future seemed in doubt. Some commentators believed a “punishment beating” was in the offing in retaliation for the perceived slights of the previous three years.
That period was dominated by the frustrations of the Brexit debate, during which a long-brewing crisis in relations between Leavers and the BBC reached its peak. In the BBC’s latest annual report Tony Hall, the Director General, claims he was “extremely proud” of how his news teams had covered “this vitally important national story”, but this was not how many Leave voters viewed things, and to them it displayed a tin ear about the BBC’s one-sidedness.
But two months on and the landscape has been transformed by events, events that give the corporation time to do some repair work on its tarnished image as a trustworthy guide. That image is itself partly a legacy of the BBC’s wartime role as an honest truth-teller at a time of national crisis, for the years 1939-45 were when the foundation stones of the BBC’s reputation were laid, and explain why so many people have a strong emotional attachment to it.
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SubscribeNot sure I agree. Always seem to lead with the negative side of the story on Toady e.g. that freelancers are missing out the morning after Rishi’s enormous giveaway.
And when they interview some expert they seem to us disappointed when there’s no bad news.
If you’re a freelancer (and five million of us are), that “negative side of the story” is hugely important.
Of course it is hugely important, but continually saying that the self-employed are being ignored or ‘forgotten’ doesn’t help. I would be more impressed if even one journalist had done his/her job and investigated the ways in which such people can be helped. Their situation is NOT similar to employees. Employees are paid by an employer which knows what they are doing and has the means to distribute money directly into their accounts.
In contrast, there is a vast range of self-employed. Bank details may be entered onto a tax return, but usually only when a refund is due, and even then, cheques are often sent. In my opinion, HMG should already have started the process by telling everyone to enter this data online. I’ll be interested in the eventual solution, but it’s bound to take time to implement, and I fully expect numerous problems including fraud.
I was pleased today to hear some of these difficulties mentioned for the first time.
Perhaps a balanced view is more important than simply relying on bad news to get you scribbling. Try it sometime.
The article says that, post the worst of the Cov-19, the challenge will be for the Beeb to resist the buckling down into Remoaner crash position as the countdown to severance from the EU begins. The Beeb’s love of the EU seems too ingrained to be a realistic expectation, but you never know. If the EU gets shaken to its core by this epidemic – as Europeans question the rightness of upholding open borders as one of the EU’s cardinal aims, and the single currency project itself faces possibly unsurmountable difficulties – then the Remoaner consensus in the UK may seem increasingly crankish and be (largely) quietly put aside. At which point there will be no glaring and overriding divergence between what the government and the BBC thinks.
This is not the BBC that I see, the pack hounds of interviewers still snarl and snuffle around no better than than ITV, C4, Sky.
The pressure from the public will be greater than the the pressure from the Government to start doing its duty.
As the article says ‘the Beebs underlying political instincts have not changed’. This is a problem for them when the nation is expecting it to work with the government and that comment alone could be, along with Covoid 19 behaviour, the final nail in their coffin and to be fair they deserve it.
Agree that PM/Evan Davis is quite good but that’s about it. The BBC now has lots of competition for all their output, right across the board, broadcast and online, free and paid. The TVL is unsustainable and they will have to find another, more sustainable, revenue stream. People will simply not be prepared to carry on paying this poll tax for TV or radio services they may seldom view or listen to – or to keep the likes of Gary Lineker (£2 million a year) in clover!
My wife and I turn on the BBC to listen to the daily governmental briefings which have been well managed. Some of the journalists questions have been crass and generally all from the same MSM suspects but otherwise we see and hear what we need. Once over we now turn straight off the BBC to avoid the spin which invariably contradicts the tone we have heard from the horses mouth. We then go to LBC or talk radio for a more balanced commentary. News output aside, the BBC also fails to reflect the mood of the country on so many other levels. Comedy,drama, current affairs all have a woke preachy tone. ITV is now the channel of choice in our household.
Well, perhaps. But I wouldn’t know. I gave up the BBC some time ago and I’m not going back.
The BBC has not learnt anything. The tone of this article reeks of bygone days of Empire and class; those days of long hot summers and the glittering prizes of Oxbridge. This is what the BBC dreams of, this is what the BBC was founded on and those old school ties are how it will strive to continue its miserable existence. The tone of the BBC is still sneeringly elitist, the structure still patrician and patriarchal, the agenda still unapologetically ‘woke’. The execution may have been postponed but it is still going to come, and not a moment too soon.