"If the BBC’s new Director General, Matt Brittin, who will take over in May 2026, wants to be seen as more than just another tech bro cutout; like a diminutive version of the clutch that stood behind Trump at his inauguration, then to establish some quality credentials, he could start by cleaning up BBC Question Time and restoring some much needed credibility.
A completely new production team with a tough journalist as presenter; one with no ties to the establishment nor the Right, would send a clear signal.
More broadly, there needs to be a renewed sense that BBC News, across its various diverse outlets, can speak with genuinely independent voices, rather than appearing captive to perceived editorial biases, such as those associated with former political editor Laura Kuenssberg, who surprisingly continues to earn around £400,000 a year from licence fee payers.
When Greg Dyke became the Director General at the BBC in 2000, expectations were so low the groans could be heard right across London. He had made his reputation in LWT breakfast television to quote the Wikipedia “by introducing a new schedule based around popular features including bingo, celebrity gossip and horoscopes.” But after four years in the job at the BBC instead of trying to break the broadly small L liberal ethos of the BBC, he absorbed it and made it his own, ultimate leaving as something of a hero for defending good journalism that exposed the paucity of Government claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The institution shaped the man. We haven’t seen anything quite as impressive since.
Brittin himself has one left lean in evidence, which is an appointment to the board of the Guardian, but unfortunately that has been stained by the deeply controversial sell off of the Observer to the bland Tortoise Media, with worryingly opaque financing. There is no indication that the Observer’s historical excellent track record for investigative journalism has been other than stifled since the new owners took over.
We will be watching his appointment to the almost impossible job with interest."
David Knopfler [found on Facebook]
I stand by every word David illuminates us with here
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