It has been a bad couple of days for the BBC, with its admission that several phone-in competitions were faked.

The response in the press has been outrage, with headlines such as “They’re bear faced cheats” in The Sun, or The Daily Mail talking about “The shaming of the BBC“.

There is no doubt that this is a serious issue and BBC producers were wrong to have deceived audiences. But looking at the media gives the impression that this is a systemic problem at the corporation.

According to Jeremy Hunt, the Tory culture spokesman:

Mark Thompson has uncovered a hornets’ nest of deception at what was Britain’s most trusted broadcaster.

A hornets’ nest of deception? This makes for a catchy soundbite but how far does it reflect the reality of life at the BBC.

We should step back and take a more considered look at what happened. The BBC identified deceptions at six competitions out of the many thousands across its TV, radio and online output. Perhaps other cases will be discovered in the coming weeks.

But to suggest that the organisation as a whole is rotten is just ridiculous. What is interesting is why there has been such outrage at the fiasco at the BBC.

Simply put, the BBC is considered to be the paragon of everything that is good about Britain. It is assumed to be infallible, much like the Pope. There is no scope for failure, for making mistakes.

The chairman of the BBC Trust, Sir Michael Lyons, summed up this attitude when he said on BBC Radio Four that the corporation was held to higher standards than other media outlets.

I am not arguing that the BBC should relax its standards. It should lead the way in setting the bar for quality and trust.

Instead of bashing the BBC, we should try to find out what happened. The Times TV critic Andrew Billen offered a measured assessment. In his views, the problems:

suggest that a maverick culture, already rampant in the independent sector, has spread to many corners of the BBC. Young people, barely trained and under-supervised, have made a mockery of the standards that are supposed to be uniquely held by the nation’s prime public service broadcaster.

Ironically, the communications watchdog has lambasted broadcasters for “systemic failures” for their management of premium-rate telephone competitions. It is clear that there is a major problem with the way these competitions are handled across the media, not just at the BBC.

Print PDF