HAVING been a proud member of the BBC for nearly a decade, I am saddened and disappointed by the recent behaviour of a few senior journalists and managers.
Reputation is everything, but two seriously bad decisions have dented it.
The first was not airing the Jimmy Savile expose.
The second was a report on Newsnight, which smeared a distinguished politician by wrongly implicating him in child abuse allegations.
They were mistakes for which, no doubt, senior staff at the BBC will pay.
What’s regrettable is that it’s taken an earthquake like this to shake the management tree at all.
As David Dimbleby so astutely put it this week, there are too many over-paid managers and too few workers.
Promotions, always from within, border on the incestuous, leading to placemen like George Entwistle attaining heights he’s simply not cut out for.
His unfortunate interrogation by John Humphries last Saturday morning rather underlines my point.
The BBC then poured fuel on the fire by doubling his payoff.
No doubt it was to persuade Mr Entwistle to go quickly and quietly, but it’s not Lord Patten’s money to lavish.
And so long as we pay for the BBC through our licence fee, we should have a say on how it’s run; hence the furore this week.
However, every cloud has a silver lining and this is an opportunity for the BBC to “get a grip”.
Firm leadership is now needed, while this much-loved organisation cuts its cloth, trims the layers of management and directs money to the frontline where it’s needed.
The World Service springs immediately to mind, for example.
And, at regional level, more money must be directed at excellent services like BBC South Today and BBC Radio Solent.
We would be the poorer without the BBC, free as it is from the influence of advertisers.
And, as Michael Grade said recently: “The BBC keeps the rest of us honest”.
Amen to that.