Tonight:
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Difficult questions ... Sir Michael walks into an ambush
Evening Standard 31 Oct 2008
John Humphrys: The Trust hasn't exactly covered itself in glory has it?
Sir Michael: I don't understand that John.
JH: You've allowed things to drag on and if you'd been left to your own devices you'd have held a meeting next week and then there would have been another meeting and in the mean time the whole world is going mad.
SM: When the Trust was set up, it was made clear the Trust's job was to hold the BBC to account, to defend its independence and to be clear it always acted on the evidence to avoid a repetition of earlier chapters in the BBC's history when folks leapt to defend BBC action without knowing the facts. What you've got here is evidence of the Trust following exactly that process. Asking for the facts before making a decision.
JH: But you were perfectly happy to wait until next week.
SM: Less than a week ago, on the Monday morning both apologies were issued and it was made immediately clear that the Trust was on the case.
JH: Not a word from the BBC, not a single explanation until Tuesday afternoon with the head of radio and not another interview with the BBC until last night... and look what happened during those four days.
SM: We might agree that between Tim Davie's interview...
JH: With one individual, no interviews with anyone outside BBC.
SM: The first that the BBC Trust or the director general was aware of this transgression was through newspaper coverage last Sunday, which is itself an issue, of which I'm absolutely clear, and that is why people have acknowledged their responsibility in that failing. First awareness Sunday. Action immediately on Monday.
JH: What we had was a half-hearted apology on Monday, pretty guarded stuff. Not evidence of the BBC being transparent and accountable, which we're told over and over again... if another corporation or politician behaved like that we would have torn them apart.
SM: I don't accept that. If you're asking me if by the Wednesday we'd been in a position to make a statement we made yesterday then I'd agree with you.
JH: But why weren't you? How many people had to be talked to? Four? How long does that take? An hour?
SM: You have lived through previous periods of the BBC's history where people made statements without the full facts and it cost director generals and chairmen their jobs.
JH: If you're talking about the Hutton affair that is completely different.
SM: It may or may not be. I don't know whether it's only four people and you don't know that.
JH: Why don't we know that?
SM: I think we all agree that the Brand programme should never have been broadcast. There is no disagreement on that. Those comments made by Jonathan Ross and the tenor of that programme should have been subject to much tighter editorial controls. However being clear about who had done what and what steps need to be taken in the future deserve some reflection.
JH: You're going to have this overhaul of taste and decency guidelines. What do you understand as chairman by decency in the context of a public service broadcaster?
SM: That's an extraordinarily difficult question for any of us to answer. We all know when a programme goes too far and clearly what happened in the Brand programme went absolutely too far. But actually defining where the boundaries are is different to different parts of the audience, it's different to different age groups. These are not easy things to define. The BBC cannot retrench and fail to serve all audiences.
JH: When you have somebody, in this case Jonathan Ross, appearing on prime time television and asking David Cameron if he masturbates over Margaret Thatcher, is that an example of decency?
SM: I'm not going to put myself in the position of the editor...what the British people don't want is Michael Lyons, chairman of the BBC Trust, making the editorial decisions about who appears on screen and what they say.
JH: There was a filthy joke made about the Queen just the other day since the Russell Brand affair. Do you believe the BBC should be doing less of that? Getting down in the gutter with this sort of humour?
SM: I've got no doubt the BBC has to be much firmer with these excesses... yes that's right. We have to be careful we do not retrench to a position where we no longer take a risk, where we're no longer seen as relevant and we fail to speak to a group of our citizens, who are not only the viewers and listeners of tomorrow, but actually they are the society of tomorrow.
JH: Are we underestimating these people? Surely the BBC has a different position in the national life, it has a role to act as a civilising influence on the nation?
SM: We wouldn't disagree on that. We need to ensure we provide news and commentary to different parts of the population. Are there boundaries where no one working for the BBC should go? Yes, there are.
JH: Have we crossed those boundaries? Not what happened a fortnight ago...I'm asking you take a broader view of it and say have we over the last few years overstepped the boundaries of taste and decency?'
SM: The BBC needs tighter editorial control over provocative material. Secondly there is a need for a clear understanding where the boundaries lie, recognising that it's not a picket fence we can all point to. It is a matter of judgment and if it weren't a matter of judgment, frankly we wouldn't need editors and controllers. That's their job to make those judgments.
