This is a critical moment for the BBC. The public broadcaster is rightly held to much higher standards than other media outlets, but the resignations of Daviet and Turness are not about the quality of the information provided. They are the result of a political attack that highlights the structural weaknesses of the mechanism that is supposed to guarantee the independence of the corporation. Rumors of a quiet political pressure have long been circulating. Now this pressure is unfolding openly
By The Observer
If the BBC could speak freely today, it would say it has suffered an internal coup. Director-General Tim Davie and BBC News chief Deborah Turness have been forced out of their posts, but their statements do not explain much. Not least because neither of them can fully explain what really happened. The truth is that a group of politically appointed executives have pushed Samir Shah, the BBC chairman, to get rid of two of the corporation’s most capable figures. Let’s be frank: this is political interference that risks damaging the work of journalists and undermining public trust.
As the hours pass, the sequence of events that led to Davie and Turness’ resignations is becoming clearer. On November 3, Turness proposed that the BBC apologize for a problematic montage broadcast in 2024 on the Panorama program. In that footage, two separate parts of Donald Trump’s speech from January 6, 2021, were artificially joined together, making his stance appear more aggressive than it actually was.
The BBC could, and should, have addressed this issue much earlier. The journalists had drafted a formal apology, which the chairman Shah was to send to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. But when Shah sent a copy of the draft to board members, some said the apology was not clear enough. The rebellion came from politically appointed board members. The BBC’s governance structure is unique: the chairman and four directors, representing the four constituent nations of the United Kingdom, are appointed by the government, while the other five, without executive functions, are elected by the board itself.
As a result, the BBC’s response to a problem that could have been easily resolved remained in limbo. For days, an institutional vacuum was created, into which the White House immediately stepped in, sharply criticizing the Panorama editing. By November 8, the situation had become unmanageable, prompting Turness to resign. The next day, Davie decided, to the surprise of many board members, that she had to say “enough,” and followed Turness’s example by leaving. At that point, no one made any attempt to persuade the BBC News boss to change her mind.
A FRIEND IN THE RIGHT PLACE
The central figure in this story is Robbie Gibb. A former spokesman for the Conservative prime minister and appointed to the BBC board in 2021 by Boris Johnson’s government, Gibb has spent the past four years fighting what he sees as the public broadcaster’s progressive bias. Board members generally do not interfere in editorial decisions, editing or news scheduling. But Gibb is an exception. His supporters believe he is trying to “save” the BBC from itself. Last year, he reportedly said that if he could not impose his will, he would be prepared to “blow up” the broadcaster.
The spark that led to Turness and Davie’s resignations was a report presented to the board by independent consultant Michael Prescott, which criticised the Panorama programme and the BBC Arabic service’s coverage of the war in Gaza. The report also contained other criticisms: from what it described as “censorship imposed by the LGBTQ section of BBC News” (mainly on issues relating to transgender people), to inaccuracies in a BBC Verify piece on racism in the car industry. Prescott and Gibb are widely known to be close friends.
Most of Prescott’s remarks were based on research by David Grossman, a highly respected former Newsnight journalist and Gibb’s colleague when he worked for the BBC. Some of Grossman’s analysis is important and deserves more attention. However, Prescott’s report was purely advisory and his interpretation that Panorama had withheld essential information about the events of January 6 was wrong, as what happened that day is well documented. Some of the criticisms would have justified an internal review, but none were serious enough to justify the dismissal of two senior executives.
INTIMIDATION MANEUVER
This is a critical moment for the BBC. The public broadcaster is rightly held to much higher standards than other media outlets, but the resignations of Daviet and Turness are not related to the quality of the information provided. They are the result of a political attack that highlights the structural weaknesses of the mechanism that is supposed to guarantee the independence of the corporation. Rumors of a silent political pressure have long been circulating. Now this pressure is developing openly. Nor has the attitude of the Minister of Culture, Lisa Nandy, helped the situation.
For months, she has publicly expressed strong doubts about Davie’s leadership. This has paved the way for a “hunt for the BBC” by politicians on both the right and left. Respect for the broadcaster’s editorial independence is disappearing.
Since last summer, The Observer newspaper has been warning about the dangers of political interference in the BBC’s work and has supported the idea of a fully independent service, where politicians cannot command from behind the scenes and where editorial choices are entrusted to independent experts and outside perspectives, as is the case in the entertainment sector. If this situation were to play out like an episode of the BBC’s popular programme The Celebrity Traitors, where the players are divided between “loyalists” and “traitors”, Davie and Turness would undoubtedly be among the loyalists. Their departure constitutes a betrayal of the most fundamental principle on which the public’s trust in the BBC is based: its independence.