Picture above: From the first page of the Prescott dossier

What do the BBC, the Met Police, the NHS, the Post Office and the City have in common? No, not the basis for a new competition programme – “Spot The Scandal” – (though if someone wants to “borrow” or “steal” this, remember I’m a litigator, a good one).

The answer is this: when faced with any sort of challenge or crisis, their initial response is woeful, informed by a mixture of complacency, panic, arrogance and defensiveness, perfectly designed to make the position worse. Only when the position has become much worse, existential even, do the organisations finally do what they should have done years before, action which will be much more painful than it might otherwise have been.

The latest issue for the BBC is an internal report – the Prescott Report. Contrary to much of the commentary (even from the BBC itself), it is not primarily or solely about Panorama’s programme about Trump’s January 2021 speech. As you can see from the picture above, it covers a wide range of topics and a considerable number of issues within those topics: editorial standards, choice of topics and guests, consistency of approach, fact-checking (or lack of), possible distortion of professionalism caused by unexamined and unmanaged conflicts of interest, lack of curiosity and challenge, potential bias – sometimes by omission, unexamined assumptions and so on. It is a long report and worth reading.

It is not possible to say whether all or any of the criticisms made are justified or not. But what is clear is that they need to be addressed – promptly, thoroughly and independently – and for this to be seen to be done. This is essential for any organisation – above all for the trust it needs to operate effectively. It is critical for a journalistic organisation. If you cannot trust the BBC to try to get matters right or to put them right if they go wrong, why should you trust them on anything. If you cannot trust, why should you watch it or pay for it. Trust: it’s the foundation stone for so many organisations and one which too many do not take seriously enough until it is too late.

This is the second main criticism in this report: that many of these concerns have been raised before, repeatedly, and have not been dealt with, properly or at all (seemingly confirmed by what Mark Urban has written here). In short, it’s not just the initial concern but how it was dealt with that can turn a difficult – but resolvable – issue into a crisis.

This has – sigh! – happened before. It is the modus operandi of such scandals. Based on my experience through quite a lot of City scandals, here are a few key points – and some gentle advice – about the responses and what not to do.

1. “Look, squirrel!” Most organisations, even those with repeated problems, will have good people and good teams working for them. This was true of the City even at its nadir, hard as it may be to believe this. It is true of the Met now. But it does not matter. It is no answer to those making criticisms to ask them to look at the bits that work well. It’s the bits that don’t work well which need addressing. If they aren’t, the bad smell around them will attach itself to the good guys/the good work, no matter how well they do their job, no matter how hard they try to distance themselves.
2. “Nothing’s fundamentally wrong” This is the “these are minor issues” gambit. (A former Radio 4 controller was trying this tactic on the Today programme on Monday morning in relation to the women’s rights/trans rights issue.) Or the “1 or 2 rotten apples” approach, so beloved of our police forces. Well, they might be at the start. But if they keep on happening in lots of areas and over many years, they clearly are not minor. Dismissing them just infuriates.
3. “It’s an attack by those with an agenda.” This is the worst. It is the classic response to anyone whistleblowing – attack the messenger rather than look at the message, query and impugn their motives. This needs burying in the ground under concrete with a stake through its heart. It does not matter if they have an agenda or are bad people or want to close you down or whatever. If they do have an agenda (everyone has, including you, live with it), one you consider malicious, the very last thing you should be doing is giving them evidence which reinforces their view. (What on earth did the BBC think it was doing censoring Badenoch’s response by removing only one sentence? And guess on which topic.) When you are being slammed for censorship and bias, censoring your reports about this (see how the sex/gender concerns have been downplayed or scarcely mentioned at all by the BBC) according to the ideological bias you are being criticised for plays directly into your critics’ hands. At this point, your critics – and not just them – are going to wonder whether the real problem is not your bias but your stupidity. What you need to do is ignore who is telling you and investigate what they are telling you. It is only when you have done so and have hard well-evidenced robust answers that you can query motives. Not that this should even be necessary if you do have robust factual answers.
4. “We’re attacked by both left and right so we must be getting it right.” A lazy response. This might have been true when all political issues could be easily placed on a left-right axis. That time has passed. Many of the issues raised do not neatly fit into this category: many of the concerns raised by left-wing women and now championed by Badenoch developed under and were pushed by a Tory government. What’s the left/right position on the story about a Yazidi girl kidnapped by Hamas (one of the stories discussed in the report)? Many of those concerned about Gaza are very socially conservative on other matters. (See the the arguments among the “Your Party” founders on this.) But it is also another avoidance technique. Rather than engage with what is said, the response assumes that impartiality is a straight line in the middle of a straight road and so long as you walk on it, you are doing OK. It is a facile approach not least because criticisms from both might both be valid but for different reasons.
5. “We are an asset. How dare you challenge us?” Ooh, get you! No-one is – or should think themselves – beyond challenge. For journalists to say this is laughable. If you are an asset – and at its best the BBC is an asset – the answer should be “Show. Not tell“.
6. “What we do is essential. You’ll miss us when we’re gone.” This is to confuse an essential function – public service broadcasting, policing, health, finance etc., – with the organisation/people doing it. It is all too easy for those in charge to confuse their personal/corporate/organisational interests with those of the service they are providing. Public service broadcasting does matter but what it means in an era when few watch television in the way previous generations did, of streaming, of multiple media sources requires fresh thought. An organisation which has a trust problem will find it harder to be listened to.
7. “The useless sacrifice“. Accountability is necessary and resignations may well help. But they are rarely enough, certainly without a real understanding of what has gone wrong, if anything, why, what is needed to put it right and the right leadership and a plan to put this in practice. (From the time of the global financial crisis, UBS Investment Bank had pretty much one CEO per year, all with a shiny new plan, none of whom achieved anything very much because everyone still thought the problems were one-off exceptions rather than evidence of a bank which needed wholesale and difficult cultural change and a realistic business plan.)
8. “A new leader“. Yes. But what sort? This is one of the hardest tasks. An outsider can see matters more clearly, ask questions, bring fresh thinking etc. But – do they know enough about the substance to understand the issues, be able to spot difficult issues in advance, to challenge their staff, especially the permafrost layer of management who can either make a difference or act as a roadblock, to gain staff’s confidence while making necessary and often difficult changes? (Between 2001 and 2007 UBS’s CEO was Peter Wuffli, a management consultant, with little real banking experience, especially in relation to fixed income trading which went so catastrophically wrong.) Tim Davie’s background was in marketing. But he was also Editor-in-Chief. How much did he really understand about editorial standards/guidelines and so on? Or, indeed, the difference between his responsibilities to his staff and how to cover contentious issues, which created a glaring conflict of interest he seemed oblivious to? (See, for instance, his answer here to a Select Committee in March 2024.) On the other hand, those in the business can suffer from group-think and a lack of independence or perceived independence. (The new Director of News is someone specifically criticised in the report for his inadequate defensive responses.) The many leaders with banking or policing experience at a time when so many in those sectors went so wrong are not exactly poster boys or girls for the “Only insiders make good leaders” school of thought. Toughness and determination are more important. As is courage – the most important quality of all.

What is needed now is a proper investigation into the concerns raised, one in which all relevant stakeholders, including the public, can have confidence. (Investigation reports are not that dissimilar to good journalism. Sentimentality and being “kind‘ have no place in either.) It is also going to be quite a task to choose a replacement Director-General. Lisa Nandy, the Culture and Media Minister, will presumably have a say. The fact that she has given a regulatory role to someone who contributed to her office financially, without following the rules, does not perhaps bode well. Quis custodiet custodes?

Perhaps a question a BBC journalist might find the courage to ask.

Cyclefree