The BBC has recently released a ‘significant’ 10-point impartiality plan in an attempt to raise standards and challenge claims of bias across the whole organisation. The plan is primarily focused on impartiality, whistleblowing and editorial standards, and has been introduced following the criticism the BBC faced due to the questionable way Martin Bashir obtained his Panorama interview with Princess Diana in 1995. This criticism was effected after the publication of the Dyson Report, an investigation appointed to Lord Dyson by the BBC at the end of 2020 to examine documents and records from the time of the interview. He unsurprisingly found in these documents that the process used for securing an interview with Princess Diana was far from what the BBC’s audience would expect.
Although Lord Dyson acknowledges the huge success the interview caused for both the BBC and Martin Bashir in his report, he, more importantly, notes that the interview was obtained through Bashir’s commissioning of fake bank statements. In these, Bashir had fabricated false information regarding payments to Princess Diana’s Private Secretary, a former employee of Earl Spencer, and the Prince of Wales’ Private Secretary. This raises the question: should the success of the interview be disregarded based on the deceitful way Bashir gained access to Princess Diana? The BBC’s Director-General, Tim Davie, has thanked Lord Dyson for his work, and deemed his report to be “thorough and comprehensive”, nonetheless, it raises doubts amongst the audience of the BBC to what extent they can trust the information provided by the organisation, one of the biggest broadcasters not only in the UK but the world.
Although the BBC denies any knowledge or connection to the disingenuity of both the documents and Bashir’s actions, one cannot help but question the extent to their supposed lack of knowledge. Considering Bashir was working on behalf of the organisation and commissioned the false statements from another employee of the BBC, Matt Wiessler, it is hard to believe that the BBC had no knowledge whatsoever of the incident. Interestingly, Matt Wiessler, the graphic designer who commissioned the false statements, has never faced criticism for accepting the work.
The actions of Bashir were in breach of the 1993 Producer Guidelines in straight dealing, and the BBC has since recognised that they should prioritise transparency and honesty moving forward, as their previous guidelines were evidently insufficient at preventing the incident. As a result, the BBC has seen significant changes in its editorial guidelines and procedures over the past quarter of a century. These include; the introduction of mandatory rules around the handling of sensitive information, a ‘red flag’ process to engage senior editorial leaders in controversial programme, a new whistleblowing scheme, and being party to the introduction of a new governance system. The new 10-point plan also details more stringent guidelines and procedures to improve transparency and clarify how the BBC obtains and monitors the information it obtains and provides. The organisation aims to do this through training programmes, introducing new editorial measures, increased responsibility for the editorial Policy team and thematic reviews to ensure a breadth of voices and viewpoints are conveyed. In response to the plan, Sir Nicholas Serota’s review states that there is “still potential for significant improvement” despite the fact that “much has changed” over the past quarter of a century. Serota’s review is a reminder that the incident should never have happened, and that as an organisation that prides itself on integrity, honesty and accuracy, the BBC should take full responsibility for the incident and ensure that they safeguard against such an incident occurring again.