“I have been defined by these two years at Number 10,” Robbie Gibb complained, sounding for all the world like the chap in the joke who only shagged one sheep. How dare anyone suggest that this lifelong Conservative who just happened to spend a bit of time running communications for a Conservative government might have a bit of a political agenda?
Perhaps that’s unfair. Giving evidence to Parliament’s Culture Committee, Gibb was reasonableness itself, as were his fellow witnesses. They all assured us they were passionate defenders of the BBC. They all loved the BBC, believed in the BBC, and wanted the BBC to succeed. It’s not quite right to describe all these Very Important BBC Types as self-satisfied, because so much time was spent apologising for various things, but it was always clear that they were apologising for things that had absolutely nothing to do with them, like when prime ministers apologise for the slave trade.
We kicked off with Michael Prescott, whose memo, so unfortunately leaked to the Telegraph, kicked all this off. Prescott is a stickler for accuracy. “To me, journalistic error might be I misspelled someone’s name or got the date wrong,” he said, referring to the time he spent as political editor of the Sunday Times. How long was that time? Ten years, according to his memo and his LinkedIn profile. Four years, according to the Guardian’s report when he left the job in 2001. Which is quite a stretch in getting a date wrong, but let’s not be fussy.
Since then, Prescott has worked in public relations. He had the sleek looks and the gold-rimmed glasses and heavy watch that go with a quarter of a century in that line. Although for someone who has made his living advising on PR, he turns out to have been surprisingly naïve about what might happen to a long memo detailing the BBC’s failings on a series of hot news topics. “I never envisaged events playing out the way they did,” he confessed, a line that probably won’t be used in his company’s next promotional video.
“This was conceived as a private memo to 14 people,” Prescott explained, an astonishing utterance from someone who worked even for four years as the political editor of a Sunday newspaper. When those people hadn’t responded, he sent it to people at Ofcom and the Department of Culture. What happened next will astonish you. “Six days after I sent the memo,” he said in a tone of shock, “there it was in the Telegraph!”
Although his memo had covered a lot of issues — “edited highlights” was his own phrase — Prescott kept returning to the terrible unfairness of the way that the BBC had treated Donald Trump in an episode of Panorama. As you probably know by now, the great sin here was that a speech by the great man of peace was edited to make it look as though the president had wanted his supporters to violently storm the Capitol in 2021. Which, as we all know, is… well, that’s not the point.
But the edit, it turns out, wasn’t what had upset Prescott. He, a self-professed “centrist dad”, had enjoyed the programme. He’d simply expected that, in the interests of balance, Panorama would do a similar episode the following week on Kamala Harris. (Why? BBC political balance requirements don’t extend beyond our borders. The Corporation doesn’t feel obliged to explain that all the people Vladimir Putin has thrown out of windows might deserve it.)
“I have been defined by these two years at Number 10,” Robbie Gibb complained, sounding for all the world like the chap in the joke who only shagged one sheep. How dare anyone suggest that this lifelong Conservative who just happened to spend a bit of time running communications for a Conservative government might have a bit of a political agenda?
Perhaps that’s unfair. Giving evidence to Parliament’s Culture Committee, Gibb was reasonableness itself, as were his fellow witnesses. They all assured us they were passionate defenders of the BBC. They all loved the BBC, believed in the BBC, and wanted the BBC to succeed. It’s not quite right to describe all these Very Important BBC Types as self-satisfied, because so much time was spent apologising for various things, but it was always clear that they were apologising for things that had absolutely nothing to do with them, like when prime ministers apologise for the slave trade.
We kicked off with Michael Prescott, whose memo, so unfortunately leaked to the Telegraph, kicked all this off. Prescott is a stickler for accuracy. “To me, journalistic error might be I misspelled someone’s name or got the date wrong,” he said, referring to the time he spent as political editor of the Sunday Times. How long was that time? Ten years, according to his memo and his LinkedIn profile. Four years, according to the Guardian’s report when he left the job in 2001. Which is quite a stretch in getting a date wrong, but let’s not be fussy.
Since then, Prescott has worked in public relations. He had the sleek looks and the gold-rimmed glasses and heavy watch that go with a quarter of a century in that line. Although for someone who has made his living advising on PR, he turns out to have been surprisingly naïve about what might happen to a long memo detailing the BBC’s failings on a series of hot news topics. “I never envisaged events playing out the way they did,” he confessed, a line that probably won’t be used in his company’s next promotional video.
“This was conceived as a private memo to 14 people,” Prescott explained, an astonishing utterance from someone who worked even for four years as the political editor of a Sunday newspaper. When those people hadn’t responded, he sent it to people at Ofcom and the Department of Culture. What happened next will astonish you. “Six days after I sent the memo,” he said in a tone of shock, “there it was in the Telegraph!”
Although his memo had covered a lot of issues — “edited highlights” was his own phrase — Prescott kept returning to the terrible unfairness of the way that the BBC had treated Donald Trump in an episode of Panorama. As you probably know by now, the great sin here was that a speech by the great man of peace was edited to make it look as though the president had wanted his supporters to violently storm the Capitol in 2021. Which, as we all know, is… well, that’s not the point.
But the edit, it turns out, wasn’t what had upset Prescott. He, a self-professed “centrist dad”, had enjoyed the programme. He’d simply expected that, in the interests of balance, Panorama would do a similar episode the following week on Kamala Harris. (Why? BBC political balance requirements don’t extend beyond our borders. The Corporation doesn’t feel obliged to explain that all the people Vladimir Putin has thrown out of windows might deserve it.)
“I thought they’ll probably be just as hard on Kamala Harris next week,” he said. “But they weren’t.” And a year later, the BBC has still not accused Harris of suborning armed insurrection. How can we trust Panorama until it’s told us that her supporters also stormed the Capitol?“
I thought they’ll probably be just as hard on Kamala Harris next week,” he said. “But they weren’t.”
An MP put it to him that the constraints of reality might make it tricky to achieve this level of balance. Prescott had a suggestion: part of the goal of the Trump film, he explained, was to ask about the secret of the president’s appeal. An episode on Harris could have asked: “What is the secret of her political appeal?” It is a mystery that a documentary on the secret of Kamala Harris’s political appeal has yet to be broadcast.
“I have been defined by these two years at Number 10,” Robbie Gibb complained, sounding for all the world like the chap in the joke who only shagged one sheep. How dare anyone suggest that this lifelong Conservative who just happened to spend a bit of time running communications for a Conservative government might have a bit of a political agenda?
Perhaps that’s unfair. Giving evidence to Parliament’s Culture Committee, Gibb was reasonableness itself, as were his fellow witnesses. They all assured us they were passionate defenders of the BBC. They all loved the BBC, believed in the BBC, and wanted the BBC to succeed. It’s not quite right to describe all these Very Important BBC Types as self-satisfied, because so much time was spent apologising for various things, but it was always clear that they were apologising for things that had absolutely nothing to do with them, like when prime ministers apologise for the slave trade.
We kicked off with Michael Prescott, whose memo, so unfortunately leaked to the Telegraph, kicked all this off. Prescott is a stickler for accuracy. “To me, journalistic error might be I misspelled someone’s name or got the date wrong,” he said, referring to the time he spent as political editor of the Sunday Times. How long was that time? Ten years, according to his memo and his LinkedIn profile. Four years, according to the Guardian’s report when he left the job in 2001. Which is quite a stretch in getting a date wrong, but let’s not be fussy.
Since then, Prescott has worked in public relations. He had the sleek looks and the gold-rimmed glasses and heavy watch that go with a quarter of a century in that line. Although for someone who has made his living advising on PR, he turns out to have been surprisingly naïve about what might happen to a long memo detailing the BBC’s failings on a series of hot news topics. “I never envisaged events playing out the way they did,” he confessed, a line that probably won’t be used in his company’s next promotional video.
“This was conceived as a private memo to 14 people,” Prescott explained, an astonishing utterance from someone who worked even for four years as the political editor of a Sunday newspaper. When those people hadn’t responded, he sent it to people at Ofcom and the Department of Culture. What happened next will astonish you. “Six days after I sent the memo,” he said in a tone of shock, “there it was in the Telegraph!”
Although his memo had covered a lot of issues — “edited highlights” was his own phrase — Prescott kept returning to the terrible unfairness of the way that the BBC had treated Donald Trump in an episode of Panorama. As you probably know by now, the great sin here was that a speech by the great man of peace was edited to make it look as though the president had wanted his supporters to violently storm the Capitol in 2021. Which, as we all know, is… well, that’s not the point.
But the edit, it turns out, wasn’t what had upset Prescott. He, a self-professed “centrist dad”, had enjoyed the programme. He’d simply expected that, in the interests of balance, Panorama would do a similar episode the following week on Kamala Harris. (Why? BBC political balance requirements don’t extend beyond our borders. The Corporation doesn’t feel obliged to explain that all the people Vladimir Putin has thrown out of windows might deserve it.)
“I thought they’ll probably be just as hard on Kamala Harris next week,” he said. “But they weren’t.”
And a year later, the BBC has still not accused Harris of suborning armed insurrection. How can we trust Panorama until it’s told us that her supporters also stormed the Capitol?
An MP put it to him that the constraints of reality might make it tricky to achieve this level of balance. Prescott had a suggestion: part of the goal of the Trump film, he explained, was to ask about the secret of the president’s appeal. An episode on Harris could have asked: “What is the secret of her political appeal?” It is a mystery that a documentary on the secret of Kamala Harris’s political appeal has yet to be broadcast.
One of the strange ironies that even as the people who actually stormed the Capitol are being pardoned, the Director General of the BBC has had to resign over the events of that day.
This was, he said, very unfair. “Everyone who knows me knows that I’m hugely impartial. I have friends across the political divide. I have impartiality through my bones.” It was ridiculous to suggest that he’d leaked the memo or wanted to destabilise the corporation.
“I primarily want to be defined by my commitment to the BBC,” Gibb assured us. “Not my two years working for Theresa May.” And that bit at least seemed completely believable.
One of the strange ironies that even as the people who actually stormed the Capitol are being pardoned, the Director General of the BBC has had to resign over the events of that day.
This was, he said, very unfair. “Everyone who knows me knows that I’m hugely impartial. I have friends across the political divide. I have impartiality through my bones.” It was ridiculous to suggest that he’d leaked the memo or wanted to destabilise the corporation.
“I primarily want to be defined by my commitment to the BBC,” Gibb assured us. “Not my two years working for Theresa May.” And that bit at least seemed completely believable.
And a year later, the BBC has still not accused Harris of suborning armed insurrection. How can we trust Panorama until it’s told us that her supporters also stormed the Capitol?
An MP put it to him that the constraints of reality might make it tricky to achieve this level of balance. Prescott had a suggestion: part of the goal of the Trump film, he explained, was to ask about the secret of the president’s appeal. An episode on Harris could have asked: “What is the secret of her political appeal?” It is a mystery that a documentary on the secret of Kamala Harris’s political appeal has yet to be broadcast.
One of the strange ironies that even as the people who actually stormed the Capitol are being pardoned, the Director General of the BBC has had to resign over the events of that day.
This was, he said, very unfair. “Everyone who knows me knows that I’m hugely impartial. I have friends across the political divide. I have impartiality through my bones.” It was ridiculous to suggest that he’d leaked the memo or wanted to destabilise the corporation.
“I primarily want to be defined by my commitment to the BBC,” Gibb assured us. “Not my two years working for Theresa May.” And that bit at least seemed completely believable.
