The BBC, its formula and white van man

 

There are other intriguing things in that Sarah Sands interview. Talking about 'the laser focus of the Today programme on government', she says: 

“There’s a formula: there’s a crisis and the government is both the problem and the answer.”

That, of course, applies to programmes like Newsnight too.  

She continues:

“But a lot of people’s lives take place outside the state. And there’s also an element of not always being on the side of those just trying to earn a living.”

This is a long-standing, justified criticism of the BBC - that it's a public sector institution with a public sector mindset, and little feel for the private sector or those (the majority of the country) who work in the private sector - but the next paragraph gives it an added bite: 

She was mildly scolded by her superiors recently for focusing too much on the economic costs of the coronavirus, rather than the consequences of easing lockdown. “I thought, ‘Oh, that’s interesting for someone who has never had to be in the private sector.’ I think if you know your job is safe, you have a different view. I had an admiration, quite unfashionable at the BBC, for white van man, someone just trying to meet the bills.”

So her BBC superiors told her off for "focusing too much on the economic costs of the coronavirus". That's a very telling revelation, isn't it? It's something critics of the BBC should take note of.

(Update: Peter Hitchens has taken notice, calling it a "devastating revelation from Sarah Sands...clearly showing self-censorship in the Corporation").

And "admiration" for "white van man, someone just trying to meet the bills" is "quite unfashionable" at the BBC. (I will now think of the corporation as being stuffed to the rafters with Emily Thornberries.) The BBC isn't speaking to the nation if it disregards white van man, and the private sector in general. It's speaking to itself, and those like it. 

With his commercial background, it will be interesting to see what steps (if any) the new DG Tim Davie takes to remedy this and finally break the inward-looking groupthink here. because it appears to be so deeply ingrained as to appear very, very hard to change. 

What landed instead

Though sticking to the line that "the corporation’s commitment to impartiality is absolute", Sarah Sands also tells The Sunday Times that stories sometimes "veer". Cue another revealing anecdote:

She once commissioned a segment on a Greek village where huge numbers of refugees had arrived. She envisaged a piece on the anatomy of the pressures faced in the village. After various BBC processes, what landed instead was a “very nice piece on child mental health in refugee camps”. She says: “That’s a really good story, but it’s not the story we were discussing. I think there’s just an expression of sympathy for the underdog, so I can see why the overall effect is that it feels liberal.”

An outsider arrives at the BBC

 

Sometimes an anecdote speaks volumes. In her Sunday Times interview, departed Today editor Sarah Sands recalls her first day at the BBC:

“It’s rare to get an outsider in the building,” she says. “And so I think there was a tremendous suspicion that I was basically a spy.”

A BBC press officer had visited her three times within three hours with queries about apparent sins she had committed that her new colleagues had leaked to The Guardian. “It was things like I’d had [the columnist] Matthew d’Ancona in the building, and so I’d been fraternising with a journalist with right-wing credentials,” she recalls. “It went on and on.”

Initially she felt like a governess whose new charges kept putting spiders in her bed.

So people on the Today team leaked their criticisms of her to The Guardian (it had to be The Guardian of course!) and they didn't like her being friendly with right-wing journalists. Very BBC!

The Sarah Sands of time run out

 

People hereabouts have said it many times before: 'They always wait till they've safely left the ample bosom of Auntie Beeb, don't they?'

A recent twist though, began last September by John Humphrys, was to not even wait a single day. 

He broadcast his last edition of Today on the morning of 19 September 2019 and by the evening of 19 September 2019 the Daily Mail - which had serialisation rights - was splashing the BBC-bashing bits of his new book. It happened during his leaving party. 

I hope he thanked his agent.

*******

Now John Humphrys's ultimate editor at Today, Sarah Sands, has put him to shame and gone one better...

It was her final edition at editor of Today this morning, and - quite literally - a piece of hers for the Financial Times popped up pretty much to the minute this morning's Today programme ended and she was finally free of her BBC obligations. 

Her FT piece may even have crashed the 9am pips, so well timed was it.

Being the FT, it probably won't guarantee her quite the same publicity that JH got, but it's full of the same kind of demob-happy, love-the-BBC-but-spill-the-beans-and-let-the-cats-out-of-the-bags revelations that JH spilt and let out very nearly one year ago now. 

As far as this blog's big theme goes - BBC bias - Sarah says that "respect for the rules [of impartiality at the BBC] is weakening". 

(No! Paint me ironically shocked!)

She also says it's "awkward" when BBC journalists' "masks slip on Twitter". 

(They're forever slipping. Merseyside transport police should arrest them. Who has she in mind though? Lewis Goodall? Jeremy Bowen? Emily Maitlis? Or her lippy colleague until today Nick Robinson?)

"Does the celebrity conferred on news broadcasters require constant burnishing on social media? ", she wonders. 

(Who has she in mind? Lewis Goodall? Emily Maitlis? They seem to adore the limelight on Twitter at least as much as they do their TV 'fame').

Sarah also talks of "the employee activist" and the "sense of entitlement among younger employees" at the BBC and says that "they expect to have their view of the world on air". 

(We're seeing a lot of that, to put it mildly. It's a huge problem for the BBC. But is it just the young 'uns, and is it entirely new? What about Nick Bryant and Jon Sopel, or - even older - John Simpson and Jeremy Bowen and Hugh Sykes? And countless others? It is undoubtedly getting far worse though with the young 'uns.) 

She's certainly not wrong about how the BBC can "treat social conservatism with polite incomprehension". 

(...something that certainly applies to Ed Stourton's Sunday programme on Radio 4 for starters). 

As for her "As for faith, that is best watered down into community homilies", well yes!

(Today's Thought For The Day is only the most obvious example here, along with Songs of Praise). 

On the question of the Last Night of the Proms row she writes, "Many of its staff feel passionately one way, many of its audiences another." 

(Well, yes. We assumed that). 

"The BBC must fight to overcome a cultural like-mindedness," she says. How? She answers, by embracing localism. 

('Cultural like-mindedness' is quite a good phrase to describe the problem. Even John Humphrys, the one thought to be the token right-wing Brexiteer by FBPE, spider-sporting pro-EU left-wingers on Twitter AND his former boss Rod Liddle, turned out to be a self-declared liberal Remainer. Given that the BBC is cutting back on local news, maybe applying the sharpest cuts among the central, metropolitan BBC reporters rather than the local news teams might help?).

She gives an example of how "uncomfortable truths are tricky" at the BBC by telling anecdote about her attempts to raise data about obesity and Covid-19 got quashed through "kindly reluctance" to report it - in contrast to the BBC's focus on data about BAME people suffering disproportionately from the disease.

(Very BBC!) 

And for those of you who want to defund the BBC licence fee and make it a subscription service at best, (though probably not for those of you who want to totally and utterly wipe it off the face of the earth) she writes: 

As for the entertainment, if it is appealing enough, the public will surely pay a voluntary subscription for it. The BBC should be nurturer or curator of talent, not have a monopoly on it. I understand the principle of universality, but we cannot pretend that the BBC is the NHS of broadcast. There are alternative sources of entertainment and scope for partnerships. 

("We cannot pretend that the BBC is the NHS of broadcast". I'm not sure that many of her former senior colleagues are above pretending that at all!)

*******

Is that where new BBC DG Tim Davie really is? A lot of this whole piece sounds like where he is. Yet she's on her way out and he's on his way in.

Interesting times at the BBC.

Happy Brexit! (Open Thread)

Lord Hall departing; 450 BBC journalists being cut; the Government apparently beginning a consulation on decriminalising the BBC licence fee as early as next week; Sarah Sands exiting Today, pursued by a bear; Conservative MP Julian Knight (who opposes the BBC licence and wants a review of the BBC's impartiality rules) replacing pro-BBC Damian Collins at chairman of the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee; Rupert Murdoch planning a rival to Radio 4 - it's been quite a January for the BBC!

Half a ton of carbon dioxide emissions per member of the 'Today' team which flew to see Greta

photo op

The Sunday Times tells us that Mishal Husain and a team from Today went to Sweden to interview Greta Thunberg. Naturally, they flew there - and not by magic carpet or low-cost reindeer.

Today editor Sarah Sands told the paper:

We did discuss that among ourselves. It felt awkward but we did not have the time for trains or boats. Greta is not actually judgmental towards individuals, accepting that other people will not all conform to her high standards and asking only for people to do what they can. Change has to be collective.

The Sunday Times also tells us that, as part of her guest editorship, Greta had a conversation with one of her heroes - Sir David Attenborough. This was done via her laptop in Sweden and a studio in Broadcasting House. 

So the question arises: Why didn't Mishal Husain & Co. do the same? What was the actual need to fly out there? Is it just because Today wanted a photo op with the famous Greta? 

Sarah Sands sounds off

Today editor Sarah Sands sounded off on this week's Feedback over the question of the Government's decision to boycott the Today programme in protest against BBC bias:

Well, what's happened is that you can see the Government won a big majority, it sees Labour in disarray and it thinks it's a pretty good time to put the foot on the windpipe of an independent broadcaster. 

So the strategy, as we know, is quite Trumpian - to delegitimise the BBC. 

So, at the moment that's the policy. I  don't think it will last because it's shortsighted and its' pretty discourteous, I think, to our 7 million politically engaged and intelligent listeners. 

John Humphrys signs off

Here's the moment John Humphrys signs off after 32 years of broadcasting on the Today programme and an illustrious journalism career spanning six decades #r4today

Full sign off 👉 https://t.co/JYz6qDwUTL pic.twitter.com/vm1nBIHPHM

— BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) 19 September 2019

Plenty of plaudits for Humph this morning during his farewell appearance on the Toady. 

A big article by Giles Fraser on Unherd, too. Who will miss John Humphrys? 

The Today Programme seems to be getting less and less listenable under Sarah Sands’s headmistress- ship. "She introduced the puzzle", someone announced, as if that was a good thing.

He sounds ok, but when you see him Humphrys has the pallor of a man who’s been living underground for years. For his sake, now that he can have a lie-in and a bit of a relax, I advise him to get some fresh air (for the vitamin D) 

Bye John, and good luck. 

Two anecdotes

A letter to The Observer:

I was the “woman at the back” on last Thursday’s Question Time from Winchester. On a previous occasion, I was the “woman in pink”. How Question Time has changed. These days you are obliged to supply your personal details and political affiliation in order to get a ticket. This is presumably to get audience balance, but who decides what the balance should be is not clear. 

The choice of panellists also raises more questions than it answers. Apart from politicians, the BBC calls on a limited list of journalists and so-called independent thinktank representatives (lobbyists). The usual suspects, who somebody in the organisation has defined as right or left, crop up with monotonous regularity along with random celebrities who rarely make a relevant contribution. 

The format has changed considerably over the years, with the chair chipping in, interrupting the panellists and too often appearing to reveal their own prejudices. Many friends and colleagues refuse to watch the programme now but those who have stuck with it won’t have been reassured by Fiona Bruce’s brief and grudging non-apology for her embarrassing demonstration of ignorance. 

Karen Barratt

Winchester

Gillian Reynolds in The Sunday Times: 

Meanwhile, BBC News, it is whispered, wants to shift Sarah Sands away from Today. Since she became its editor in 2017, Today has lost political clout and listeners. Sands has wit, spirit and powerful contacts. At Today, she has discovered she can’t change the presenters; that power belongs to the head of news, Fran Unsworth. You have to be BBC born and bred to dodge such quagmires.

The Alternative Factor

Last week's Observer featured a three-page piece by Miranda Sawyer headlined Trouble at the Today programme: is it losing its grip? 

I had to smile at the tone of it. It reminded me, ironically, of BBC reporting. 

Miranda presented herself as someone dispassionately, you might almost say 'impartially', attempting to get to grips with the growing criticism of Today. 

But she then proceeded to give all the programme's critics free rein, and to slip in her own partisan barbs in support of those critics, and to frame her 'balancing' challenging interview with Today editor Sarah Sands with Sarah Sands-undermining comments.

(If she wasn't very clearly being deadly earnest, I might have suspected her of brilliant satire here. As it was, she was being deadly earnest, so I'll just add that if Mark Mardell were to step aside from The World This Weekend she'd surely be his ideal replacement!)

Anyhow, all of the criticism of Today in her piece came from a certain type of person - socially liberal, pro-EU, left-wing...

...though this probably wasn't particularly surprising given that the criticisms she aired derived entirely from reading her own media & social media feeds - i.e. her own echo chambers.

When you boil it down to its essentials, her piece makes a number of points:

Firstly, these people are complaining that Today gives overly-aggressive interviews to people they like and underly-aggressive interviews to people they don't like. They'd prefer it the other way round. 

Secondly, they want the BBC to cut all pretence of balance when it comes to debates on contentious issues (including climate change and Brexit). They want primacy given to experts who agree with their point of view and want non-experts (or wrongheaded experts) who don't share their point of view to be either shunned or scolded by the BBC. 

Thirdly, they want shut of John Humphrys because he's not in tune with the #metoo spirit of the age and they think he's pro-Brexit (and shows it).

This kind of thing is like entering a hall of mirrors.

And today's Feedback on Radio 4 was a hall of mirrors within a hall of mirrors, with that Observer piece providing a launch pad, and various selected like-minded listeners piling in against John Humphrys, and with Sarah Sands facing a probing from Roger Bolton.

(Their discussion about John Humphrys, with Roger leading the charge against the Today veteran, reminded me of several ITBB posts past where I kept on wondering aloud about whether Roger Bolton had it in for John Humphrys - eg. here, here, here and here for starters).

I thought of transcribing it for you but Sarah Sands's style of speaking is too conversational to render easily without wasting hours doing so, but I'll try to distil her merrily rambling responses nonetheless:

She blames a more polarised news landscape and an increasing intolerance of views that aren't shared and - doubtless having a dig at Miranda Sawyer - says that people are building up 'evidence' based on their Facebook feeds.

She defended herself from the charge (raised by Roger Bolton) that she was siding with pro-Brexit types by being shown on images posted on social media being at a lunch party with Nigel Farage and Liam Fox by saying she was with Sadiq Khan at that same event.

(She didn't say in her defence -and Roger didn't add in her defence - that she was openly for Remain in the referendum).

And she defended John Humphrys against further charges of being out-of-touch on social issues by citing praise for him, putting his remarks in context and saying that when it comes to holding power to account there's still no one quite like John.

You'll have to listen to it for yourselves to get the full effect but - like that Observer piece - this Feedback edition, ringmastered by Roger Bolton, felt like entering an alternate universe.

Paul Mason strikes again

Fans of everyone's favourite far-left ex-Newsnight economics editor Paul Mason might enjoy the following...

As reported in today's The Times, George Osborne's Evening Standard stands accused (by openDemocracy's James Cusick) of promising "six commercial giants (including Uber and Google) 'money-can’t-buy' news coverage in a lucrative deal, leaving millions of Londoners unaware of who’s paying for their news". The Evening Standard strongly denies this, but that hasn't stopped Paul Mason from making demands on Sarah Sands, the editor of the Today programme (and previously the editor of the Evening Standard):

A flaw in Paul's argument was quickly spotted...

...followed by gales of public hilarity. (Oh Paul!)

Incidentally, this story (or non-story) is arousing a lot of interest from prominent commentators on Twitter but not, as far as I can see, from the BBC yet. (Not even the not-very-shy-and-retiring BBC media editor Amol Rajan).

P.S. A conspiracy theorist has just told me, possibly or possibly not via BBC Trending's Mike Wendling, that the BBC is protecting anti-Brexit cheerleader George Osborne and his Evening Standard here because George is doing such a good job on the Brexit front. Should I believe that conspiracy theorist? 

A Brief Encounter with 'Today'

I thought I might actually listen to an edition of Today in its entirety today, following yesterday's post about its 'dumbing-down'. 

It was disappointingly political and hard-news-focused, with lots on Mrs May's speech and Moody's downgrading and Rohingyas and Uber and capitalism and universities and undocumented migrants. 

There wasn't a single science story on it and the only arts bit was James Naughtie interviewing a children's author. 

There was, however, the new Nature Notes section - something I wholly approve of. 

Today's Nature Notes featured Charles Smith Jones of the British Deer Society answering elementary-level questions from Mishal Husain that any Autumnwatch viewer would have been able to answer. Still, Mr Smith Jones volunteered the interesting fact that some stags are known to travel up to 50 kilometres to join in the rut. (After Brexit can we go back to miles please?)

Plus the programme ended with Simon Jenkins and Mr Bruce the Station Master plugging Simon's new book on English railway stations. I liked that. (And I like Simon's highly judgemental books on buildings). Near to me is Carnforth Station where Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson shared a Brief Encounter to the strains of Rachmaninov. The ticking clock is still there, and it's usually working. 

My highlight though was Today's Matthew Price, that ultra-emoter, doing a typical Matthew Price piece on the sad plight of undocumented migrants facing the government's "hostile environment policy". There were tales of woe, lots of voices condemning the government's policy and speaking up for the undocumented migrants, plus (as bonuses) a delightfully gratuitous contribution slamming Brexit as well as Matthew saying that the government was "insisting" something or other in defence of itself. And to add insult to injury, the 'balancing voice' got just a few seconds - and I do mean 'just a few seconds'. 

If Sarah Sands could kindly get rid of that kind of report it would be simply spiffing!

Sarah Sands on Brexit bias

Sarah Sands

A copy of The Spectator awaited me when I got home today.

(That's not news. It always arrives on a Friday. Unless it comes on a Saturday that is, or isn't delivered at all.)

Among the first of its items this week was a 'diary' by Sarah Sands, the new editor of Today, laying out her stall.

(The Speccie hasn't posted it online yet, so the transcription below is from my own fair hand). 

She's proud to be moving the programme away from its heavy, grim-hospitals-and-even-grimmer-prisons-led news stories towards more of a newspaper-like programme with daily puzzles and much more science, art and fashion. 

Of course, this has brought accusations of 'dumbing down' from one side and calls for Today to reassert its role in setting the nation's news agenda' from the other.

To be honest, I'd rather have far more science and arts stuff than Today trying to set the nation's agenda.

I've had more than enough of the BBC trying to set the nation's agenda, thank you very much. 

So Sarah, please don't listen to these criticism. Please don't stop dumbing Today down! (How about an astrology section, and a daily cartoon featuring a droll cat or a whimsical dog too?)

*******

Mrs May (if you didn't recognise her)

As an outsider to the BBC, Sarah Sands might have been hoped to bring a breath of fresh air to Today. Her Spectator diary comments suggest to me that it's going to be business as usual regarding the BBC's Brexit coverage - something not helped by the well-known fact that she was pro-Remain in the EU referendum. 

Here's the bit about Brexit in full:

On Brexit bias, tone has become almost as important as argument. I notice that cheerfulness can grate on some, who regard it as political comment. When the Australian high commissioner asked on the Today programme why Brits were so gloom, it was categorised as an anti-Remain intervention. It is true that whoever came up with the word 'Remoaners' delivered a lasting blow. The Brexiteers own optimism just as Remainers claim reason. 

I want to try to tell the story of Brexit through concrete examples rather than positions. We looked at the fashion industry the other day and the designer Patrick Grant made a simple case. When he is making a suit, he imports parts from different countries. He can order a zip from Italy overnight. If he deals with America, he has to fill in a great pile of forms. He dreads the additional regulation. Boris Johnson wrote in his 4,000-world article that was meant to have been a speech (journalists so hate wasting material) that leaving the EU would lessen regulation. Can he explain to Patrick how?

There are three things I want to say about that: 

(1) She is well aware that Today faces huge pressure over anti-Brexit bias so, seemingly playing the 'complaints from both sides' game, cannily cites an example from the other side (a transparently silly example of course). 

(2) So Brexiteers are associated with feeling/emotion ("optimism") while Remainers are associated with logic ("reason")? In Sarah's mind too?

(3) The one "concrete example" of Brexit stories she cites raises a negative angle on Brexit. Why not a positive angle? 

Does Sarah Sands inspire you with confidence after reading those two paragraphs?

A new editor for 'Today'

The new editor of Today is to be Sarah Sands, editor of the London Evening Standard.

The FT reports the political aspect of her appointment like this:

During five years in charge of the Evening Standard, Ms Sands backed the Conservative candidates Boris Johnson and Zac Goldsmith for mayor of London and the Conservative party in the 2015 general election. She backed Britain to remain in the EU in the Brexit referendum. 

Professor Charlie Beckett, from the London School of Economics, said Ms Sands would have to adapt quickly. “Once at the BBC (or any other broadcaster), newspaper editors have to fit into an ecology that is regulated for impartiality and temper their instincts, especially on a show like Today which is subject to so much oversight from the public and politicians,” he said. 

Ms Sands dismissed concerns over her political impartiality, saying she wasn’t an “ideological person”.

The louder parts of the Left on Twitter are not happy at a "Tory" being appointed and, naturally, an 'Establishment-supporting', anti-Brexit Today editor will not appeal to many on the Right either. 

So expect complaints from two sides (not "both sides", of course, as there are more than two sides here) against a third side: the 'soggy BBC consensus'.