Tim Bonner: BBC impartiality, more weasel words and a decade of dishonesty

You will forgive me for being cynical about reports earlier this week that the BBC has been told to set up tighter social media restrictions on freelance presenters. The recommendations apparently come from an independent review commissioned after the row over football presenter Gary Lineker’s tweets about asylum. Unfortunately, this carefully placed August news story is less than convincing for those of us who have been party to the long history of duplicity in the BBC’s handling of freelance presenters and social media.

Those with long memories might recall that as long ago as 2013 the BBC was tying itself in knots over a tweet from self-described “BBC presenter” Chris Packham, which stated that farmers involved in the government’s badger cull trial were “brutalists, thugs, liars and frauds”. In answer to a complaint from the Alliance’s then Chairman, Simon Hart, the BBC said that it had “a voluntary code of conduct in which presenters agree not to air their personal views on contentious subjects around the period when their programmes are being broadcast” and that “we accept that the timing of these tweets was not in the spirit of this voluntary code.”

The Alliance was interested in this "voluntary code of conduct" as we had concerns that BBC presenters were not being impartial on issues of importance to our members and we were fairly certain that the BBC was not going to properly police such a code unless it was in the public domain. When we asked to see the voluntary code, however, the BBC retreated. First obfuscating and then claiming that there were actually individual agreements between the BBC and freelance presenters which were confidential. This seemed to be confirmed by presenters who talked about discussions with the BBC about their social media use and we concluded that the “voluntary code of conduct” was in fact a myth.

Three years later the BBC Trust produced its infamous ruling that Chris Packham was a “recurrent” not a “regular” BBC presenter and that the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines therefore did not apply to him. In the light of that bizarre pronouncement it is, frankly, no surprise at all that freelance presenters have felt free to express political views and that over time those views have become increasingly extreme and partial.

Now we are told that presenters who appear on extremely prominent “crown jewel” programmes might have to show more restraint under new guidelines. What those “crown jewel” programmes are, what “restraint” will be required and what the “new guidelines” will actually be are all a mystery. Once again the BBC is desperately wriggling on a hook it has made for itself and, as ever, seems to be more worried about upsetting its “star” freelance presenters than it is about its fabled impartiality. 

BBC Director General Tim Davie was unequivocal in his approach to impartiality when he took on the role saying: "If you want to be an opinionated columnist or a partisan campaigner on social media then that is a valid choice, but you should not be working at the BBC". Unfortunately he has done absolutely nothing since to address the freelancers who work at the BBC who are partial, partisan and who do damage to the BBC’s reputation. No one is going to be convinced by more weasel words from the corporation, especially after a decade of dishonesty.