ANOTHER week, another crisis for the BBC. One which yet again displays a complete lack of leadership and an abject failure to understand the mood of a nation which keeps the corporation's executives in chauffeur-driven cars and allows them to pay millions of pounds a year to their pet talent.
Indeed, it was on the very day that Jonathan Ross returned to our TV screens after being suspended over a prank call that the BBC landed itself in yet another mess. And this time, lives are at stake.
What possessed Director-General Mark Thompson a
nd his underlings to rule that the BBC could not broadcast a humanitarian appeal for aid to send to those suffering in the aftermath of the three-week conflict in Gaza? This is a channel which – as Tony Benn observed yesterday – had been happy to show an appeal for the same coalition of charities, the Disasters Emergency Committee, in another conflict. That appeal raised £10m for civilians caught between rebel and government forces in the Congo. Other BBC broadcasts have included one which raised £18m for the DEC to help after last year's cyclone in Burma.
That was good work and responsible broadcasting – so why not do the same when the DEC asked for help in Palestine? Thompson attempted to justify himself by describing Gaza as "an ongoing and highly controversial news story within which the human suffering and distress which have resulted from the conflict remain intrinsic and contentious elements". He added: "To broadcast a free-standing appeal, no matter how carefully couched, ran the risk of calling into question the public's confidence in the BBC's impartiality in its coverage of the story as a whole."
What a lot of baloney. The DEC is a non-political umbrella group representing respected charities including the British Red Cross, Christian Aid, Help the Aged, Oxfam and Save the Children. These charities are not taking an anti-Israeli or pro-Palestinian stance by wanting to help those who have been injured or made homeless by the conflict. We are confident that if for some reason Israel fell victim to a natural disaster which left civilians in dire need of help, those same DEC charities would be the first to ride to the rescue.
And let's be clear – there is a massive need for urgent aid in Gaza, where 1,300 people died in the recent fighting and more than 100,000 people were made homeless. Half of those are currently in UN emergency shelters, and the UK Government has had no problem with sending in £25m in aid. Oxfam and Save the Children have also managed to deliver supplies to Gaza, so the BBC's side claim that it may be difficult for aid to get into the battle zones is clearly bogus.
Initially, several other broadcasters unaccountably shared the BBC's view that to broadcast the DEC's Gaza appeal would compromise their journalistic independence. ITV saw sense yesterday and announced a change of heart. Sky was expected to follow suit, and there is a growing feeling that the BBC will eventually be forced into a humiliating U-turn. That will be welcome, but it will come too late: further damage has been done to the BBC's already tarnished reputation.
The furore over Ross and Russell Brand's stupid and offensive phone call to actor Andrew Sachs may have been overblown, but it did expose the BBC leadership's inability to make the right decisions, and to make them quickly. A similar lack of leadership has been demonstrated on a wide range of other occasions, from the events leading up to – and the reporting of – the Hutton report to last year's phone-in scandals. On each occasion, original mistakes were compounded by blind panic among executives when the BBC itself became part of the story.
On this occasion, those at the very top of the corporation appear to have overreacted in the face of, frankly unsupportable, claims that its news output had been biased against Israel. The result is a foolish decision that can only put Palestinian lives, which are already miserable, in further jeopardy. Thompson must reconsider.
In the meantime, we have no qualms in advising that payment to the DEC's Gaza Appeal can be made at www.dec.org.uk or by calling 0370 60 60 900.
