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Why BBC is everyone’s favourite whipping boy

Few public-funded institutions in Britain face the same level of scrutiny as the BBC does from those who pay for it. And that means practically every Briton because anyone who owns a radio or TV set in Britain must pay a licence fee regardless of whether they watch or listen to the BBC. No wonder every licence-payer feels entitled to kick the BBC. And judging from the degree of criticism it attracts — from politicians, listeners and viewers, the media and, indeed, it s own staff — it would seem the BBC cannot get anything right.

Not a day passes when the world’s most famous broadcaster is not embroiled in a controversy. Even as I write this, it is under fire for deciding to devote an entire season of programmes to focusing on Britain’s white working class. White Season, launched last week, seeks to examine what it means to be white and working class in a multicultural Britain, and explore why the community feels “forgotten” by the government and the mainstream political parties — a perception that has led some to flirt with right-wing and xenophobic groups like the British National Party (BNP).

What should have been welcomed as a bold exploration of a politically sensitive issue has been attacked, instead, with critics saying that the BBC has got it all wrong. One critic accused it of taking a “hideously middle class” view and equating the working class culture with racism, the subtext being that the BBC has an anti-working class “bias”.

Allegations of bias are routinely hurled at the BBC but the fact that almost every group (political, religious, cultural, regional, linguistic, liberal, right-wing, urban, rural) thinks that it is biased against them actually proves the opposite: that the BBC runs a pretty neutral show .

Let’s look at the catalogue of so-called biases: Muslim fundamentalists believe that its coverage of Muslim issues smacks of “Islamophobia”; secular Muslims complain that it goes out of its way to provide a platform to extremist voices; Christian fundamentalist groups don’t like its agnostic tone; Tories see it as a mouthpiece of New Labour even though New Labour nearly destroyed it over its coverage of the Iraq invasion accusing it of pushing an anti-war agenda (remember the “retribution” brought upon it by the Blair government over its report on the dodgy intelligence about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction?); Eurosceptics allege that it has a pro-Europe bias while Europhiles question its commitment to Europe.

Other areas of criticism are that the BBC is “inefficient”, “bloated”, “bureaucratic”, “squanders” tax-payers’ money on “crazy” schemes, is constantly “dumbing down” in pursuit of ratings and that it is “grotesquely white and middle class.”

Greg Dyke, who lost his job as the BBC’s director-general in the cull that followed the row over its Iraq coverage, famously branded it “hideously white”. It got him front-page headlines, an award from a racial equality group in Scotland; and he was applauded by the liberal elite—ironically the very people who are accused by the Right of “running” the BBC through proxy fellow-travellers.

Maybe, Mr. Dyke was right. But then which British institution — public or private — is not “hideously white”? Isn’t Whitehall “hideously white”? Isn’t the Cabinet “hideously white”? Isn’t Parliament “hideously white”? And what about other broadcasters and newspapers? Is there any employer in Britain whose workforce reflects the country’s ethnic diversity?

The answer is “no” for the simple reason that for all its multiculturalism Britain is predominantly a white country and the pool of “ethnic” talent is just not big enough. Add to this covert discrimination, as happens against minorities in any society, and it is clear why almost every single British institution is “hideously” white in its own way. So, why single out the BBC?

Mr. Dyke admitted later that not only was it an off-the-cuff remark but that he had actually got his facts wrong. The truth was that at the time he made the comment the “the BBC had just met its own target of 8% of staff from ethnic minorities, consistent with the proportion in the UK population as a whole.”

But by then his off-the-cuff and factually inaccurate comment had become conventional wisdom. And that still remains the perception because Mr Dyke’s belated retraction went almost unnoticed. In its latest issue, The New Statesman recycles Mr. Dyke’s original allegation while commenting on White Season. “That piece… gives away the real problem at the heart of the BBC’s season : the institution is not only still ‘hideously white’, but hideously middle class.”

“Hideously white and middle class”, maybe. But, — unlike many other British public institutions — the BBC, at least, is not racist. Which is saying a lot in a climate where some of the country’s leading bodies have been censured for racism (police were declared “institutionally racist” by an official inquiry commission after the way they investigated the murder of a black teenager) and the National Health Service has faced allegations of widespread covert racism from its ethnic employees.

The BBC has become a national obsession with a level of scrutiny that’s not helpful. The fact is that for all its failings (yes, occasionally it does get things wrong; yes, it is bloated and yes, it is often guilty of dumbing down) the BBC remains a model for public service broadcasting around the world. Precisely because it is funded with licence fee and doesn’t face commercial pressures it is able to do the kind of journalism that other broadcasters don’t—and in a sense can’t. Britons should be proud of the BBC, and stop looking the gift-horse in the mouth.

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