
Roger Mosey (pictured), was the former head for BBC Television News
It’s a turning point. So says one of the BBC’s well-known presenters about Sir Nicholas Serota’s review on impartiality.
The word from some senior managers is that they are ‘delighted’ too, and one – long concerned about the BBC’s impartiality or lack of it – believes the report has gone ‘way beyond expectations’ in setting out an agenda for change.
As for Richard Sharp, the BBC chairman, he is talking of ‘an impartiality revolution’.
With Tim Davie, the director-general, now planning to regularly call in external experts to verify neutrality, surely there are better chances than ever to institute change and end those accusations of BBC bias.
The BBC is correct to point out that it has many strengths. When it’s good, as in the early weeks of the pandemic, it’s very good.
This review is focused on when it is shown not to be good, as it was during the Martin Bashir scandal and his interview in the 1990s with Princess Diana.
Serota and his colleagues are right that it is difficult for someone to do something like that again. The level of external scrutiny is higher and the internal governance better.
However, the details of the report show why there should be continued concern about BBC output.
‘Not all staff,’ it notes, ‘have a comprehensive understanding of editorial standards’; there is sometimes a ‘culture of defensiveness’; a risk of ‘groupthink’ is identified; and ‘there is an opportunity for the BBC leadership team to go further’ still on impartiality.

The BBC is correct to say that it has many strengths. But this review is focused on when it is shown not to be good, as it was during Martin Bashir’s affair and his interview in the 1990s with Princess Diana (pictured).
It is all true and essential. It is imperative to stress that the key to unlocking the urban and liberal mindset that has dominated much of the BBC’s output needs be broken.
When I was an editor myself, I simply didn’t know enough about the different world view of farmers in Monmouthshire or car workers in Sunderland. If a public broadcaster funded by the licence fee is to survive, it must reflect the views of all people in the UK. The 2019 general election result and the Brexit vote were wake-up calls.
The review identifies politely, but definitively, the problem with BBC employee organisations. These organisations were set up with decent intentions to support diversity of staff, but are increasingly asserting their opinions on editorial policy.
It’s hard to overstate how much of an encumbrance some of the pressure groups have been for professional broadcasters, with rows ranging from the line-up of contributors on trans issues on the Today programme through to allegedly homophobic questions from the audience on Question Time.
‘This is all about software engineers thinking they’d be better programme editors,’ said one executive recently. Serota says firmly: ‘It is essential that when staff have strongly held views, these do not discourage content makers from reflecting the full range of public opinion,’ and he recommends greater clarity about the role of the employee networks, with an insistence impartiality must come first.

If a public broadcaster funded by the licence fee is to survive, it must reflect all views in the UK. The wake-up call was the Brexit vote and the 2019 general election result (pictured at British Broadcasting Corporation headquarters, London).
Tim Davie has demonstrated that Tim Davie understands the BBC’s need for traditional editorial values to be restored while simultaneously adapting the BBC to survive in a volatile and digital world.
He has been hindered rather than helped by the intervention of politicians who want one type of bias to be replaced with another. The BBC shouldn’t be the voice of Islington but equally it shouldn’t be the voice of Downing Street.
Davie must now deliver. There are many pitfalls ahead, as identified in the Serota Report: It is difficult to reconcile richness and variety of output with the current cost-cutting. One presenter bluntly describes the reorganisation of BBC News as ‘destructive’.
But the framework is ready for something radical. While social media descends into shouting matches on Twitter, the BBC could become a reinvigorated public space – open to all audiences, irrespective of their views and backgrounds – where there is fairness and enlightenment. It should keep moving with that plan.