The BBC, viewed by many worldwide as an icon of objective journalism, is today reeling from scathing criticism of its editorial policy and integrity delivered in the report of the senior British judge Lord Hutton. Two top BBC executives, the chairman and the director general have already resigned. More heads are expected to roll as the government of Tony Blair demands this venerable institution apologize for claiming that Downing Street “sexed up” a report on WMD which justified Britain’s decision to join the USA in its Iraq attack.
Britain has a history of enquiries into government behaviour held by senior judges, which conclude by exonerating the government. It is odd that anyone in Britain imagined any other outcome, even though much of the evidence to Lord Hutton might have suggested some level of official guilt. But far from the Blair government suffering, at least for believing a highly convenient untruth about WMD, the BBC has been indicted and humiliated. For some this may seem a bit like a policeman arriving at the scene of a crime, where the criminal has been wrestled to the ground by a passer-by, and then arresting the passer-by.
Leaving aside the quality of Lord Hutton’s conclusions, there are many in Britain who believe the BBC is paying the price for its arrogance. Over time the organization has become a benchmark for other broadcasters. This arguably remains true of the BBC World Service. However, in its domestic services and specifically in its main news and current affairs wireless program, Radio 4, a rather swaggering liberal anti-establishment agenda has long been prevalent. What seems not to have dawned upon the broadcaster’s chiefs was that in assaulting the establishment, the BBC was also assaulting itself because it has, ever since it was established, been an integral part of that establishment.
The BBC was always open to subtle government pressures to toe the official line — not that that was a real problem since it saw itself as one of the pillars of the establishment. But since the Thatcher government, those pressures have been increasingly less subtle. Conservative and now Labour governments have given up on winks and nods and resorted to pushing and shoving. While resisting the Blair administration’s vigorous news management, the BBC effectively cast itself as part of the political opposition along with so much of the rest of the British media at a time when the real parliamentary opposition, the Conservative party, was pathetically weak. That deadly mistake has now given the government the excuse and the weapon to rein in BBC independence when its charter comes up for renewal next year. Tony Blair is not just interested in an apology; he wants it pliant and emasculated. Ironically through its mishandling of the Kelly affair, it has handed him the very tools he needs for its humiliation.
