Tim Davie insists he is still right person to lead BBC after series of scandals
Tim Davie insists he is still right person to lead BBC after series of scandals
www.theguardian.com
Tim Davie insists he is still right person to lead BBC after series of scandals
Have there been any studies into whether there's a higher or lower number of journalists/presenters/executives being involved in scandals at the BBC vs any other media organisation or do we just hear more about them because no other media business on earth gets as much scrutiny.
The BBC is very very big.
22,000 direct employees, thousands more freelancers and subcontractors. It’s one of the biggest broadcasters, cultural institutions and tech companies.
BBC News is the largest newsgathering organisation in the world, with content produced in around 45 languages and employs people in 73 bureax across 59 countries, as well as paying the salaries of journalists at dozens of local newspapers in the UK.
BBC Studios, the commercial and production arm, employs people in Canada, the US, Australia, India, NZ, Netherlands, Germany, France, Poland, Brazil, Singapore, China, Taiwan, UAE, SA and S Korea.
So it’s a city-sized corporation with cultural and language barriers. It’s also the largest public service broadcaster in the world, with £3.8bn of its budget paid for by the licence fee. This subjects it to more scrutiny than almost any other broadcaster.
It publicly publishes its annual report and accounts, a listing of its top salaries, and a summary of recent paid external events undertaken by journalists and top executives, where there’s always material for the tabloid press, who resent the power the BBC has.
BBC News does nothing more zealously than report on the BBC’s controversies and missteps. At any commercial broadcaster most of that stuff would be behind locked and bolted doors, with only a terse statement by the press office.
And it’s a media organisation. The public is fascinated by TV and radio. They are more interested in a harrassment investigation at the BBC than they would be at British Steel.
So, due to its size then, you’d expect more incidences than in most media organisations. Due to its sector, you’d expect more public fascination with incidences than almost anywhere outside politics, and due to its funding model it always has a target on its back from the likes of the Murdochs.
Yeah, I know the BBC is big and there are going to be horrible people working in any big organisation, but people seem obsessed with the idea that it's some sort of haven for rapists and paedophiles and I wonder if there are more or less of them at the BBC than you would expect.