BBC chairman vows to stay to ‘fix’ problems
The chairman of the BBC has said he is “not someone who walks away” after criticism of his handling of the recent crisis over Panorama’s edit of a Donald Trump speech.
Speaking to a committee of MPs, Samir Shah apologised for “the mistakes that have been made and the impact that has had”, but said he intends to “fix it”.
The controversy arose after the publication of an internal memo by former editorial adviser Michael Prescott, who told the MPs that “systemic problems” in BBC News were getting worse, but that he didn’t think the corporation was institutionally biased.
The parliamentary committee also heard from BBC board member Sir Robbie Gibb, who dismissed claims of a politically-motivated “coup” at the top of the corporation as “ridiculous”.
‘Steady the ship’
The outcry over the Prescott memo led to the resignations of director general Tim Davie and head of news Deborah Turness earlier this month, and sparked a fierce debate about the state of the BBC and its journalism.
Beginning his evidence, Shah apologised to “all the people who believe in the BBC and care for it”.
Asked if he was considering his position, he said: “My job now is to steady the ship, put it on even keel.
“I’m not somebody who walks away from a problem. I think my job is to fix it. That’s what I’m doing.”
A job advert for the new director general was published shortly before Monday’s parliamentary hearing began, with Shah saying he’d also like to create a deputy role because the top job is “too big for one person”.
The BBC has faced criticism for failing to do enough to tackle the concerns when Prescott raised them, or to address the row when it was made public after being leaked to the Telegraph.
“Looking back, I think we should have made the decision [to apologise] earlier,” Shah said.
“I think there is an issue about how quickly we respond, the speed of our response.”
He said it took time to investigate the issue properly and agree on an apology, explaining: “It took time to get it right, what the actual apology was for.”
‘Sharp difference of opinion’
The MPs were told there had been a “continuing and sharp difference of opinion” between some board members and executives over what the apology should say.
The dispute centred around whether the BBC should apologise for giving the impression that Trump had made a “call to violent action”, or simply for not making clear that two sections of the speech had been edited together, Shah said.
Another board member, Caroline Thomson, said a number of fellow board members felt the Panorama clip had given a “misleading impression” of Trump’s message, whereas she said the News department had argued it was fair given the content of the speech as a whole.
She said: “News continued to maintain that actually the impression given, despite the edit, was correct because the gist of the speech by Trump had, for example, the use of the word ‘fight’ 15 times and only talked about peace once.
“And they felt that the edit was justified but it should have been a more transparent edit. We felt that the edit had led to a more profound problem.”
Shah said he “applauded” Turness for doing the “honourable and proper” thing and stepping down as CEO of News, but said he did not think “that meant that the director general had also to resign”.
“The board wishes that the director general had not resigned.
“He had our full confidence throughout,” Shah said.
The role of Sir Robbie, a former BBC editor and director of communications for former Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May, who joined the BBC board in 2021, was also in the spotlight in the parliamentary session.
Committee chairwoman Dame Caroline Dinenage noted that he had “come in for quite a lot of stick in the media for somehow wielding his right-wing bias to influence the board”, and asked about speculation of a politically-motivated “board-level orchestrated coup”.
In response, Sir Robbie said: “It’s up there as one of the most ridiculous charges… it’s complete nonsense.”
Sir Robbie told the MPs he had “been the victim of that weaponisation” of the debate about the BBC.
He said the two years he spent as Downing Street director of communications was much less than the 25 years he spent working as a producer and editor for the BBC, and insisted he had been “hugely impartial” while on the broadcaster’s board.
‘Levels of denial’
Meanwhile, Prescott told MPs he sent his memo to the BBC board after growing increasingly frustrated by a lack of action to tackle “systemic” failings in BBC News while an editorial adviser to the board between 2022 and 2025.
As well as the Panorama edit, his memo documented other “troubling matters” including claims of bias in BBC Arabic’s coverage of the Israel-Gaza war, and one-sided coverage of trans issues.
“We kept seeing incipient problems which I thought were not being tackled properly, and indeed I thought the problems were getting worse,” he told the House of Commons committee.
“It became pretty clear to me the board was not taking stuff as seriously as I hoped and assumed it would.”
He said he was a “strong supporter” of the BBC and that Davie was “a supreme talent”, but that the outgoing director general had “a blind spot on editorial failings” that led to his downfall.
Prescott also said he was often met with denial by BBC managers when he raised concerns about issues identified in internal reports commissioned by the BBC board from former Newsnight journalist David Grossman.
“You do get levels of denial, as per my memo. Whether it was the issues within covering the US presidential race or Israel-Gaza or whatever, you got these reports through from David Grossman, and the management’s response was just to plain deny and say, ‘Well, we don’t agree with them’.”
He was “in despair” when BBC management originally “would defend and stand by” Panorama’s edit of Trump’s speech, he said.
But he said he had hoped the matter could be “sorted out quietly”, and didn’t know how the memo had been leaked.
Caroline Daniel, who along with Prescott, also used to be an external editorial adviser, was asked if she thought her former colleague’s memo was biased.
“I would not choose to characterise it in that way, I think it’s a personal account of what Michael wanted to bring before the board.”
She also told the MPs there was a “robust debate” about some issues, but the BBC did take action as a result.
“In my view, was the BBC willing to have a proper conversation, debate, and actually take action? In my view, yes, they were,” she said.
‘In safe hands’?
Speaking later, Dinenage suggested that MPs on her committee were not convinced the BBC board was in “safe hands”.
The Conservative MP told BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight that Shah’s responses were “wishy washy”.
“He didn’t really have direct answers on the questions of how to get the BBC to act quicker, act more decisively,” she said.
“We were really looking for hard evidence that the BBC board are going to grip this,” adding that “I’m not entirely convinced that they can and they will.”
“I don’t think as a committee we were wildly enthused that the board is in safe hands.”
