Incoming BBC chief wants to restore its reputation for impartiality. But will he?
Tim Davie: will this new broom sweep the BBC clean?
New BBC Director General Tim Davie is set to tell staff it is now a condition of their employment to be politically impartial.
It seems he has realised the Corporation’s credibility has suffered after years of kowtowing to the Tory administrations of the last 10 years.
And there’s academic information showing an “Establishment” bias during Labour administrations that made it hard for that party to get a fair hearing on the UK’s most-used TV and radio news outlet.
Fine words.
But will they cut any ice with entrenched right-wingers like Laura Kuenssberg and Andrew Neil, or the Tory-riddent BBC newsroom?
We’ll know soon enough.
Here’s the gist of the story:
The incoming director general of the BBC is expected to tell journalists that those who cannot leave their politics at the door are no longer welcome in a drive to repair the broadcaster’s reputation for impartiality, it has been reported.
Tim Davie will set out his plans for the corporation from its Glasgow offices on Thursday having taken on the role from Lord Hall, who stepped down from the top job last week to serve chair of the board for the National Gallery.
And the new director general is expected to make combatting accusations of partisan bias a focus of his tenure, The Sunday Times reported, by using his opening address to staff to tell those who cannot leave their politics at the door that they have no place at one of the world’s most trusted news brands.
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Interesting conundrum he’s creating there for himself. If the BBC stops becoming an establishment mouthpiece, then won’t Demonic Cummings abolish the licence fee?
But, surely, the whole Tory story about the BBC is that it is “too Left-wing”, not that there are so many Tories in the news room.
So announcing that “politics must be left at the door” is a hint to Tory HQ that there will be a drive to root out any remaining progressive influence.
Just look at the coverage of the “Last Night of the Proms” and the non-singing of “Land of hopeless Tories”. The whole image being portrayed is one of a BBC run by “elitist” Lefties, trying to wreck British patriotism.
So a new Director who talks of “impartiality” will delight the Tory Party as they will assume, (correctly, I expect) that he will move any reporting to a more Establishment-friendly bias.
If by bias he means ‘anti-Tory bias’, yes he probably does mean it.
Bbc to be trusted with the real news I’d rather doubt it they to far up their master’s backside to really give us the real news
I’m sure when say’s those that should leave their politics at the door, he meant those with mild left wing leanings. I’m pretty certain the right wing campaign will remain in full swing, and the bias as ever firmly of the right. This is about power not political balance.