Dengl 4 Top Guns Under Fire – BBC’s Rolling Heads

An incisive article by Ray Snoddy (Independent, 8 October 2007) reports that a BBC executive has lost his job following a report by ex-BBC executive Will Wyatt. The report details what happened when an Independent programme-making company (from whom BBC and other broadcasters buy programmes) made it seem that HM the Queen had walked out of a ‘photo shoot’ in a huff. This was inappropriate in at least three ways. One, which has been mentioned, is that the reported incident was untrue – the misdemeanour would have been one whomever the victim of misreporting had been. Another, which has also been mentioned, is that when the BBC – or other broadcaster buys in a programme there is more chance that crucial details of veracity – or other elements of quality – will go unchecked. A third consideration – which has not been mentioned as far as I can tell, anywhere, is that the BBC operates under a Royal Charter; surely in this case it should be particularly considerate of the monarch and how she is represented. Quite possibly some senior broadcasters behave as though either Polly Toynbee or Germaine Greer are the part-time monarchs, but if they check the charter they will find this is not so. Accordingly respect is due to the real monarch.
Leading from the second consideration above, the BBC recently broadcast an important documentary ([rime time, over one hour, no interruptions for adverts) on the history of Britain’s nuclear bomb making endeavour to reach collaborative status with the USA. I watched this through, carefully, and considered it as good as it could be, given the constraints of its length – a book can say vastly more – as I have tried to show in my study: http://www.amazon.com/Television-Nuclear-Power-Communication-Information/dp/0893916765. In particular, I watched the credits and – rarely it seems these days – it was the BBC itself which had made this item. Correspondingly, there was less chance for error in what was a very politically sensitive programme. This is a lesson the BBC evidently knows, even though it may not practice it often enough.