Support for the BBC as ''a Waitrose bag for life''

Writing about this year's Reith Lectures [Professor Stuart Russell on artificial intelligence], the Daily Telegraph's Andrew Orlowski raises an interesting question about why the man whose name those lectures still bears - the founder of the BBC John Reith - hasn't been 'cancelled' yet. His Nazi sympathies aren't exactly unknown:

In an age when so many historical figures have been cancelled, it’s curious that the first director general of the BBC has so far escaped the mob’s attention. But today, blissfully ignorant of history, self-proclaimed “Reithians” wear their label with pride in their Twitter bios. Like a Waitrose bag for life, this is a signifier of their own good taste and superior moral virtues.

In passing, Mr Orlowski also talks of ''the corporation’s golden age of the 1970s, on which its laurels rest'' - which, if you think about it, has more than a grain of truth to it.

Update - One story about Lord Reith's attitude towards the Nazis is told in Tim Bouverie's Appeasing Hitler: Chamberlain, Churchill and the Road to War. The then DG of the BBC was at a party with German Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop: 

One of the few people to seem genuinely sad that Ribbentrop was leaving, Reith asked the German Foreign Minister to assure Hitler that ''the BBC was not anti-Nazi'' and that if they were to send his German opposite number over for a visit he would fly the swastika from the top of Broadcasting House. 

Moral improbity and turpitude

As the founding father of the BBC, Lord Reith has long been regarded as a model of moral probity and rectitude. 

However, newly released documents show that he tried to reveal the scurrilous secrets of his private meetings with the royal family and Winston Churchill. Clement Attlee, the prime minister, intervened to scupper the publication of Reith’s memoirs, branding them “objectionable” and in “bad taste”. 

The term “Reithian” is used today to describe the high-minded standards set down for broadcasting by the first BBC director-general. Yet in private papers civil servants poured scorn on his abilities, describing him as gossipy, vain, peculiar and a failure who was “not designed for teamwork”.

Hahah! 

“gossipy, vain, peculiar and a failure who was “not designed for teamwork” a bit like me, then, apart from the eyebrows. I’m starting to warm to him.  

Or maybe not. 

This Telegraph article from 2006 -  a review of his daughter’s book “My Father”  shows Reith to have been a megalomaniac and a complete bastard. 

‘...it was a surprise and a delight, one of the best family memoirs I have read - honest, funny, sharp, well-written but never bitter - although a person other than Marista would have had plenty to be bitter about.’ 

(Elizabeth Grice Daily Telegraph)

 It says here that he was a great admirer of Hitler:

It was later revealed that Reith was a great admirer of Adolf Hitler. On 9th March 1933 Reith wrote "I am certain that the Nazis will clean things up and put Germany on the way to being a real power in Europe again.... They are being ruthless and most determined". Later, when Prague was occupied, Reith wrote: "Hitler continues his magnificent efficiency."

Marista Leishman wrote about her father with a good deal of humour, but under the circumstances ……what else could she do?

A fan of the BBC has responded to the Times piece as follows: 

“I'm interpreting this article as "See, the BBC was rotten from the start'. Bonuses all round at Murdoch HQ.”

Others, not necessarily all fans of the Murdoch Press,  might simply interpret the article as "See, the BBC was rotten from the start”