Entwistle and the BBC

Well I did promise a non-church post, but had to post about the Synod decision. Anyhow, a few weeks ago, George Entwistle resigned as the Director General of the BBC, in the wake of the Savile enquiry and the Newsnight programme. This raises some interesting questions.

Firstly, while it did seem initially that this was an acceptance of failings within his area, the financial settlement does cast suspicion on his motives. He has server a few weeks and been rewarded by half a million quid. It seems that he had other motives, and his resignation becomes blurred, with his motives being rather more flexible.

However, the real problem is the negativity attached to the BBC in all of this. Let me make clear, the poor journalistic decisions of one program are serious and need addressing: what is more, the possibility of the BBC having covered up the Savile scandals is problematic. There is some badness, some rot in parts of the organisation. As there is in all organisations.

The other side of this is that the BBC has produced over time some remarkable material. The dramas that they have produced in that last 2 years are a testament to the creative minds that exist in some parts of the organisation. The BBC website is a testament to what can be done with vision and imagination. The news output is also, as a rule, something we can be proud of, a source of largely independent information provision, that is highly regarded across the globe. Of course it is not without bias, but it does tend to be less so than many other news organisations. In many areas, it is the news source most trusted.

The danger is of tarring the entire corporation with one brush. No it is not perfect, but if we lose the BBC, we lose something extraordinary, something that is core to our culture. We lose something that is critical to the wider world too, the place that we, as a nation, hold in many other cultures. Yes it is critical to identify and root out the problems, the areas that threaten to tarnish this great organisation. But we must not lose the BBC, and all it stands for. If we do, we lose everything.