British Broadcasting Corporation

The British Broadcasting Corporation, which is usually known more simply as the BBC, is the world's largest broadcasting corporation.

Origins and history

The BBC was the first national state broadcasting organisation. Founded on 18 October 1922] as the British Broadcasting Company Ltd, it was subsequently granted a Royal Charter and was made a publicly funded corporation in 1927. The corporation produces programmes and information services, broadcasting globally on television, radio, and the Internet. The stated mission of the BBC is "to inform, educate and entertain" (as laid down by Parliament in the BBC Charter); its motto is "Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation".

The BBC is a quasi-autonomous public corporation as a public service broadcaster. The Corporation is run by the BBC Trust; and is, per its charter, supposed to be "free from both political and commercial influence and answers only to its viewers and listeners".

The BBC's domestic programming is primarily funded by levying television licence fees (under the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949), although money is also raised through commercial activities such as sale of merchandise and programming. The BBC World Service, however, is funded through a grant-in-aid by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. As part of the BBC Charter, the Corporation cannot show commercial advertising on any services in the United Kingdom (television, radio, or internet). Outside the United Kingdom the BBC broadcasts commercially funded channels such as BBC America, BBC Canada, and BBC World News. In order to justify the licence fee, the BBC is expected to produce a number of high-rating shows in addition to programmes that commercial broadcasters would not normally broadcast.

Relationship with business and the state

The General Strike 1926

John Reith confided to his diary: "The Cabinet decision is really a negative one. They want to be able to say that they did not commandeer us, but they know they can trust us not to be really impartial." Reith is also quoted as saying: “since the BBC was a national institution, and since the government in this crisis was acting for the people...the BBC was for the government in the crisis too.”

John Pilger contrasts the actual implementation of a policy on impartiality with the literal meaning. He states:

The BBC began in 1922, just before the corporate press began in America. Its founder was Lord John Reith, who believed that impartiality and objectivity were the essence of professionalism. In the same year the British establishment was under siege. The unions had called a general strike and the Tories were terrified that a revolution was on the way. The new BBC came to their rescue. In high secrecy, Lord Reith wrote anti-union speeches for the Tory Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and broadcast them to the nation, while refusing to allow the labor leaders to put their side until the strike was over. So, a pattern was set. Impartiality was a principle certainly: a principle to be suspended whenever the establishment was under threat. And that principle has been upheld ever since.

The Miners' Srike 1984

British politician Tony Benn writes of the miners' strike at Orgreave:

It was the cavalry charges by the mounted police which triggered some stone-throwing by pickets. On that occasion though, BBC chiefs instructed the news bulletins to reverse the order of the film in order to suggest that the stones were thrown first and the cavalry charge came second.

Structure

Management

The BBC is a nominally autonomous corporation, independent from direct government intervention, with its activities being overseen by the BBC Trust, formerly the Board of Governors. General management of the organisation is in the hands of a Director-General, who is appointed by the Trust.

Executive Board

The Executive Board oversees the effective delivery of the corporation's objectives and obligations within a framework set by the BBC Trust, and is headed by the Director-General, Mark Thompson. In December 2006, Thompson announced the final appointments to the new Executive Board, consisting of ten directors from the different operations of the group, and five non-executive directors, appointed to provide independent and professional advice to the Executive Board. The members are:

• Mark Thompson (Board Chairman and Director-General)
• Mark Byford (Deputy Chairman and Deputy Director-General; Director, Journalism Group)
• Caroline Thomson (Chief Operating Officer)
• Jana Bennett OBE (Director, BBC Vision)
• Jenny Abramsky (Director, BBC Audio and Music)
• Erik Huggers (Director, Future Media and Technology)
• John Smith (Chief Executive, BBC Worldwide)
• Zarin Patel (Group Finance Director)
• Steve Kelly (Director, BBC People)
• Tim Davie (Director, Marketing, Communications and Audiences)
• Joe Godwin (Executive Producer, CBBC)

Non-executive directors

• Marcus Agius (Senior non-executive director), Chairman, Barclays
• Val Gooding Chief Executive of BUPA,
• Dr Mike Lynch OBE, co-founder and Chief Executive, Autonomy Corporation
• David Robbie, Group Finance Director, Rexam
• Dr Samir Shah OBE, Chief Executive, Juniper Communications
• Robert Webb QC, General Counsel, British Airways

Governors

The Board of Governors regulated the group from incorporation in 1927 until 31 December 2006, when the Board was replaced by the BBC Trust. The governors as of the dissolution of the Board were:

• Anthony Salz (Acting Chairman)
• Professor Ranjit Sondhi (National Governor for the English regions)
• Professor Fabian Monds (National Governor for Northern Ireland)
• Professor Merfyn Jones (National Governor for Wales)
• Jeremy Peat (National Governor for Scotland)
• Deborah Bull
• Baroness Deech
• Dermot Gleeson
• Angela Sarkis
• Richard Tait

BBC and 'impartiality'

Vulnerability to outside pressure

After the Hutton Inquiry when the BBC was criticised for reporting the Government's 'sexing up' of the 'dodgy dossier' the BBC developed a developed a system for dealing with external complaints which has been criticised for being too vulnerable to powerful organisations. Complaints are first heard by BBC executives, who can then pass it to a special complaints unit called the ECU. A complainant can then appeal to the BBC Trust, which has an editorial standards committee, made up of trustees. A senior source from the BBC's flagship current affairs programme Panorama told the Guardian: 'The problem at both stages of this process is that there's no right of appeal for journalists. It was set up to make it easy for ordinary viewers to complain, but the process is being hijacked by multinational companies and lawyers.'

The Guardian reported that following a Panorama programme in which the BBC had discovered that the low price clothing retailer Primark had been using child labour in violation of its own ethical guidelines, the company had repeatedly complained the the BBC:

Primark sacked three of its Indian suppliers after the documentary found children stitching the fashion stores' clothes in Indian refugee camps.

It is the second BBC inquiry into allegations by Primark that footage within the programme had been faked. On the first occasion Primark accused Panorama of setting up footage of children in a refugee camp, but the claim has since been withdrawn by the company.

The latest inquiry involves allegations made by Primark last year that another part of the documentary had been staged. The Guardian understands that the allegation was backed by a small number of witnesses, from sweatshop owners and child workers but such witnesses were apparently found to be not sufficiently reliable. The ECU found that there had been procedural breaches in editorial guidelines in relation to some footage.

The Alagiah affair

In July 2009 the BBC required its newsreader George Alagiah to resign as patron of the Fairtrade Foundation UK. Hugh Muir, writing in the the Guardian, commented:

George is extremely upset about this and fought the decision, but to no avail. He believes his role and profile helps developing-world farmers get a decent price for their produce, but the Beeb is adamant that enough's enough, as the role leaves Alagiah conflicted. So Jeremy Clarkson can take the Murdoch shilling for penning articles in the Sunday Times. John Humphrys can write commentaries for YouGov. But Alagiah can't be a figurehead for a movement connecting British shoppers with farmers in the developing world.

Indeed, the BBC appears to be selective as to which of its staff's external affiliations it opposes.

The Independent commented on the Alagiah affair as follows:

But what of other news men? Evan Davis is on the policy advisory board of the Social Market Foundation, a Blairite think tank, but the BBC says that's fine, as the SMF doesn't advocate any particular policies. Oh, right.

Also, Jeremy Paxman is a fellow of the British American Project (BAP), which he says is: "A marvellous way of meeting a varied cross-section of transatlantic friends." Journalist John Pilger has written:

The BAP rarely gets publicity, which may have something to do with the high proportion of journalists who are alumni. Prominent BAP journalists are David Lipsey, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, and assorted Murdochites. The BBC is well represented. On the popular Today program, James Naughtie, whose broadcasting has long reflected his own transatlantic interests, has been an alumnus since 1989. Today's newest voice, Evan Davis, formerly the BBC's zealous economics editor, is a member. And at the top of the BAP Web site home page is a photograph of the famous BBC broadcaster Jeremy Paxman and his endorsement. "A marvelous way of meeting a varied cross-section of transatlantic friends," says he.

Disaster and Emergency Committee appeal for Gaza

In January 2009 the BBC refused to air the Gaza humanitarian aid appeal on grounds that doing so could compromise its "impartiality in the context of an ongoing news story".

In a joint letter to BBC director general Mark Thompson, Jeremy Dear and Gerry Morrissey, the general secretaries of the National Union of Journalists and Bectu respectively, called on the corporation to change its mind and broadcast the appeal by the Disasters Emergency Committee.

Complaints to the BBC over its refusal to broadcast the DEC appeal reached 15,500 on 26 January 2009.

Dear and Morrissey wrote in their letter that the BBC's decision could be seen not as a commitment to impartiality but as a pro-Israel move:

The justifications given for the decision – "question marks about the delivery of aid in a volatile situation" and risks of compromising its "impartiality in the context of an ongoing news story" – appear to us cowardly and in danger of being seen as politically motivated and biased in favour of Israel.

We, above all, understand the BBC's need to maintain editorial impartiality and we also understand the pressure journalists and the BBC come under from those who accuse the BBC of bias in reporting the Middle East.

That said, we agree with those senior BBC journalists who say this is a decision taken as a result of timidity by BBC management in the face of such pressures – [former Middle East correspondent] Tim Llewellyn described this as "institutional cowardice".

Far from avoiding the compromise of the BBC's impartiality, this move has breached those same BBC rules by showing a bias in favour of Israel at the expense of 1.5 million Palestinian civilians suffering an acute humanitarian crisis.

Make Poverty History

The BBC has written at length about its decision to support the 2005 humanitarian campaign, Make Poverty History, in the context of the corporation's claim to impartiality.