Post by Teddy Bear on May 9, 2008 20:15:58 GMT
I just came across this article written last year by an-ex business editor of the BBC, Jeff Randall, who worked for them between 2001-2005. It encapsulates much of the inner 'workings' of the BBC, and what is wrong with it.
Crisis-prone BBC needs management clear-out
By Jeff Randall
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 27/07/2007
When it comes to crises, the BBC is world class - reporting on them and indulging in them. Where other media organisations have problems, troubles and difficulties, the BBC lives in a semi-permanent state of oh-my-God, nurse-put-up-the-screens, we-simply-can't-go-on-like-this crisis.
In the 1980s, when Alasdair Milne was director-general, the BBC endured frequent anxiety attacks, most famously over a Panorama documentary, "Maggie's Militant Tendency", which resulted in the Corporation paying out libel damages of £1 million. It prompted "a crisis of confidence".
In the 1990s, when John Birt was in charge, there was a collective breakdown, as lifers weaned on budgetary incontinence had imposed upon them an unfathomable internal market. One veteran likened it to "an identity crisis".
By the time I joined the BBC in February 2001, Greg Dyke was the boss. Never knowingly understated, he led the corporation into battle against the Government over the war in Iraq.
After a BBC source, Dr David Kelly, committed suicide, and its reporting procedures were subsequently lambasted by the Hutton Inquiry, the BBC suffered "a crisis of conscience".
Dyke resigned and Mark Thompson was brought back from Channel 4 to steady the ship. No chance. The BBC's admission that it misrepresented the Queen and faked phone-in competitions has sparked fresh turmoil, "a crisis of trust".
Once again Auntie is flat out on the shrink's couch, undergoing a session of deep introspection.
Having spent nearly five years at the corporation - I still do some work for Radio Five Live and the Money Programme - the question I am most frequently asked is: "What's it like at the BBC?" There is no easy answer, because it's a place of mad extremes and infuriating contradictions.
I left because I feared that my role as "an agent of change" (Dyke's term, not mine) had run its course. You can swim against the tide only for so long. If you're not careful you end up going native, drifting comfortably with the consensus.
I look back with enormous respect for many reporters, presenters, editors, behind-the-scenes producers and cameramen, who make the BBC a broadcasting giant, rightly admired around the world.
It was only when I tried doing the job that I began to appreciate just how good they are. Under pressure, the best make it seem easy. I promise you, it is not.
That said, it is an institution with a thick layer of egregiously poor management. For every journalist foot-soldier, gamely filing reports from war zones, there is, back at HQ, a battalion of worse-than-useless, middle-ranking meddlers with only one aim: to survive long enough to draw a pension.
These are what a news editor described to me as "creatures of the corridors". Many are failed broadcasters.
They exist in a parallel universe of meetings about meetings. They are masters of work creation, digging holes in order to fill them in, communicating largely by sanitised memos. They know every BBC guideline on race, gender, equality, diversity, health and safety.
Yet when required to take a decision, they refer up, delegate down or, better still, go missing. They abhor accountability.
Anna Ford told me: "There are only two types of people here: radiators and drains. If I were you, I'd avoid the drains. The BBC is full of them." I knew precisely what she meant.
In a commercial organisation, these undesirables would be driven out by market forces. The yardstick of success and failure provided by profit and loss is a visible reminder of whether you are winning or losing. When results are poor, or mistakes are made, heads roll. A line is drawn and the business moves on.
This rarely happens at the BBC. Instead of the boil being lanced, the poison stays in the system. And so a drama is turned into a crisis, made worse by an unusual capacity for self-flagellation.
A reporter, feeling sorry for himself, once told me, "the trouble with the BBC is that it's run by fear". As you have no doubt guessed, he had never worked anywhere else.
The BBC's real problem is a lack of fear. It's almost impossible to sack anyone. Indeed, any manager brave enough to give an errant colleague a rollicking runs the risk of being reprimanded for "bullying".
When, in 2003, the BBC did try to get rid of two vexatious journalists, who between them had brought 17 tribunal cases, 20 external reviews and appeals, and various other hearings to air their grievances against the BBC - dismissed by the corporation as ranging from "frivolous to ridiculous" - a strike was threatened.
It is as though there is an unwritten agreement: if you don't call for my head, I won't call for yours. Darwin would have been confounded. The unfit do not merely survive, they prosper.
Every January, come rain or shine, a large truck with £3 billion of licence-fee money turns up at Television Centre. Too much of it is spent on administration, too little on output. A senior BBC executive, someone with real affection for the place, admitted to me: "Yes, the management's too soft. It's just how we are."
When a Sky defence reporter, James Furlong, was found to have faked a report on the Iraq war, he quit immediately. The poor man later committed suicide. When Piers Morgan, then editor of the Daily Mirror, published faked pictures of British soldiers abusing Iraqis, he was booted out.
Earlier this week, the managing director of GMTV, Paul Corley, resigned after its breakfast show had admitted to conducting unfair competitions. He carried the can for cheating viewers.
Meanwhile, at the BBC, where flagrant breaches of editorial standards occurred at six of its best-known shows, including Comic Relief and Children in Need, who has gone? Nobody.
So far, a handful of executives have been suspended on full pay, pending an internal investigation - a bit of summer gardening leave. Nice work if you can get it.
In addition, there will be a raft of new courses and training for all editorial staff to teach them the merits of veracity, plus the establishment of a standards panel.
This is meat and drink for the Jobsworths. You can almost hear them cheering. It is what they live for: awaydays, flip charts, presentations, focus groups and feedback sessions. Opportunities to appear busy and important. Trebles all round.
To their credit, some BBC output editors have not concealed their disdain for the corporation's most recent blunders. Those who watched the Ten O'Clock News and Newsnight rip into management's handling of the matter were left in no doubt just how angry many senior insiders feel.
Yes, the BBC is in crisis. And it will remain that way because it's sustained by an inverse pyramid of talent. Too few grafters at the bottom, supporting too many dossers at the top.
Jeff Randall was the BBC's business editor from 2001 to 2005
By Jeff Randall
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 27/07/2007
When it comes to crises, the BBC is world class - reporting on them and indulging in them. Where other media organisations have problems, troubles and difficulties, the BBC lives in a semi-permanent state of oh-my-God, nurse-put-up-the-screens, we-simply-can't-go-on-like-this crisis.
In the 1980s, when Alasdair Milne was director-general, the BBC endured frequent anxiety attacks, most famously over a Panorama documentary, "Maggie's Militant Tendency", which resulted in the Corporation paying out libel damages of £1 million. It prompted "a crisis of confidence".
In the 1990s, when John Birt was in charge, there was a collective breakdown, as lifers weaned on budgetary incontinence had imposed upon them an unfathomable internal market. One veteran likened it to "an identity crisis".
By the time I joined the BBC in February 2001, Greg Dyke was the boss. Never knowingly understated, he led the corporation into battle against the Government over the war in Iraq.
After a BBC source, Dr David Kelly, committed suicide, and its reporting procedures were subsequently lambasted by the Hutton Inquiry, the BBC suffered "a crisis of conscience".
Dyke resigned and Mark Thompson was brought back from Channel 4 to steady the ship. No chance. The BBC's admission that it misrepresented the Queen and faked phone-in competitions has sparked fresh turmoil, "a crisis of trust".
Once again Auntie is flat out on the shrink's couch, undergoing a session of deep introspection.
Having spent nearly five years at the corporation - I still do some work for Radio Five Live and the Money Programme - the question I am most frequently asked is: "What's it like at the BBC?" There is no easy answer, because it's a place of mad extremes and infuriating contradictions.
I left because I feared that my role as "an agent of change" (Dyke's term, not mine) had run its course. You can swim against the tide only for so long. If you're not careful you end up going native, drifting comfortably with the consensus.
I look back with enormous respect for many reporters, presenters, editors, behind-the-scenes producers and cameramen, who make the BBC a broadcasting giant, rightly admired around the world.
It was only when I tried doing the job that I began to appreciate just how good they are. Under pressure, the best make it seem easy. I promise you, it is not.
That said, it is an institution with a thick layer of egregiously poor management. For every journalist foot-soldier, gamely filing reports from war zones, there is, back at HQ, a battalion of worse-than-useless, middle-ranking meddlers with only one aim: to survive long enough to draw a pension.
These are what a news editor described to me as "creatures of the corridors". Many are failed broadcasters.
They exist in a parallel universe of meetings about meetings. They are masters of work creation, digging holes in order to fill them in, communicating largely by sanitised memos. They know every BBC guideline on race, gender, equality, diversity, health and safety.
Yet when required to take a decision, they refer up, delegate down or, better still, go missing. They abhor accountability.
Anna Ford told me: "There are only two types of people here: radiators and drains. If I were you, I'd avoid the drains. The BBC is full of them." I knew precisely what she meant.
In a commercial organisation, these undesirables would be driven out by market forces. The yardstick of success and failure provided by profit and loss is a visible reminder of whether you are winning or losing. When results are poor, or mistakes are made, heads roll. A line is drawn and the business moves on.
This rarely happens at the BBC. Instead of the boil being lanced, the poison stays in the system. And so a drama is turned into a crisis, made worse by an unusual capacity for self-flagellation.
A reporter, feeling sorry for himself, once told me, "the trouble with the BBC is that it's run by fear". As you have no doubt guessed, he had never worked anywhere else.
The BBC's real problem is a lack of fear. It's almost impossible to sack anyone. Indeed, any manager brave enough to give an errant colleague a rollicking runs the risk of being reprimanded for "bullying".
When, in 2003, the BBC did try to get rid of two vexatious journalists, who between them had brought 17 tribunal cases, 20 external reviews and appeals, and various other hearings to air their grievances against the BBC - dismissed by the corporation as ranging from "frivolous to ridiculous" - a strike was threatened.
It is as though there is an unwritten agreement: if you don't call for my head, I won't call for yours. Darwin would have been confounded. The unfit do not merely survive, they prosper.
Every January, come rain or shine, a large truck with £3 billion of licence-fee money turns up at Television Centre. Too much of it is spent on administration, too little on output. A senior BBC executive, someone with real affection for the place, admitted to me: "Yes, the management's too soft. It's just how we are."
When a Sky defence reporter, James Furlong, was found to have faked a report on the Iraq war, he quit immediately. The poor man later committed suicide. When Piers Morgan, then editor of the Daily Mirror, published faked pictures of British soldiers abusing Iraqis, he was booted out.
Earlier this week, the managing director of GMTV, Paul Corley, resigned after its breakfast show had admitted to conducting unfair competitions. He carried the can for cheating viewers.
Meanwhile, at the BBC, where flagrant breaches of editorial standards occurred at six of its best-known shows, including Comic Relief and Children in Need, who has gone? Nobody.
So far, a handful of executives have been suspended on full pay, pending an internal investigation - a bit of summer gardening leave. Nice work if you can get it.
In addition, there will be a raft of new courses and training for all editorial staff to teach them the merits of veracity, plus the establishment of a standards panel.
This is meat and drink for the Jobsworths. You can almost hear them cheering. It is what they live for: awaydays, flip charts, presentations, focus groups and feedback sessions. Opportunities to appear busy and important. Trebles all round.
To their credit, some BBC output editors have not concealed their disdain for the corporation's most recent blunders. Those who watched the Ten O'Clock News and Newsnight rip into management's handling of the matter were left in no doubt just how angry many senior insiders feel.
Yes, the BBC is in crisis. And it will remain that way because it's sustained by an inverse pyramid of talent. Too few grafters at the bottom, supporting too many dossers at the top.
Jeff Randall was the BBC's business editor from 2001 to 2005