Hello Children
Today, the squirrels are in the boardroom doing their: Libel Badge.
"Everyone," winks Baldrick. "I've got a cunning plan. We'll splice different parts of the US president's speech to make it look like he meant something else."
Daddy Pig is taking notes. "Isn't he one of the richest and most powerful men in the world, known for taking people down who cross him?" says Daddy Pig. "I don't think that's a good idea. You might offend him and we mustn't ever offend anyone."
"You sound like Bungle-bonce," says Zippy, an independent non-executive director. "Just bang it out and see what happens so we can go to the pub. No one even checks anymore."
Fireman Sam, the comms director, is sleeping in the corner. He is very tired as he has been putting out a lot of fires recently.
Jess the Cat presses the big green button to send the programme to all the people watching telly.
"You plonker," says Del Boy. "No one's checked the edit yet."
Being wrapped up in virtue makes you blind. You believe your motives are purer than everyone else’s, so your actions can’t be questioned.
The BBC has become addicted to an ever-decreasing circle of moral certainty and can't get out of it.
Apart from Gone Fishing, the BBC doesn't make programmes for me anymore so I have no problem saying, I think it needs a massive wake-up call.
Yes, I still pay my Doctor Who tax, but recently it's not been worth it - apart for Radio 6. Unsurprisingly, Disney pulled out of Doctor Who this year. Stories of the Doctor were becoming more about agenda setting than sci-fi. The scripts were written like woke bingo.
"Quick Clara, I'm getting triggered. Get to the blue safe space before you become emotionally damaged. These daleks are showing toxic male microaggressions. We need them to check their privilege and unpack their deathly biases."
And so to bias.
Panorama used to deliver serious investigative journalism that took months to make., They checked every fact twice and only ran stories when the evidence was sound.
| Year | Episode / Topic | What happended |
|---|---|---|
| 2015 | Labour’s Earthquake: Why It Lost | Post-election analysis of Labour’s 2015 defeat under Ed Miliband. Critics inside and around the party accused the programme of bias and hostile framing towards Labour, but the BBC found no breach of its editorial standards. |
| 2016 | Resort Group | The programme wrongly implied that a police officer had been conned by The Resort Group. The BBC later acknowledged the facts were incorrect and issued an on-air apology for unfair treatment. |
| 2019 | Is Labour Anti-Semitic? | Around 1,600 complaints alleging imbalance and selective editing. The BBC and Ofcom both rejected the complaints and said the programme met editorial standards, though critics still argue that editing choices and framing gave an unfair impression ahead of the 2019 election. |
| 2021 | Martin Bashir / Princess Diana | Lord Dyson inquiry proved Bashir forged documents; BBC “covered up” the deception. Major institutional failure; interview permanently withdrawn. |
| 2023 | Private ADHD Clinics Exposed | Most-complained-about Panorama of the decade (1,639 complaints). Critics warned it increased stigma; BBC dismissed complaints. |
| 2024 | Menopause Industry / HRT | Accused of inaccuracy and unfair portrayal of a doctor's clinic. No correction or apology issued. |
| 2025 | Trump: A Second Chance? | Leaked memo showed the programme spliced Trump’s Jan 6 speech, cutting “peacefully…” phrase. Sparked resignations of Davie & Turness; Trump threatened $1bn lawsuit. |
When I was younger, there was no programme more serious than Panorama. Even the music was triggering. The show has produced brilliant journalism, such as the Post Office scandal, the care home abuse at Winterbourne and the pesticide approval exposures.
| Year | Episode / Topic | What it found |
|---|---|---|
| 2011 | Undercover Care: The Abuse Exposed (Winterbourne View) | Revealed systemic abuse of vulnerable patients. Staff convicted, hospital closed, national safeguarding reforms followed. |
| 2014 | Fake Sheikh: Exposed | Investigated journalist deceptive tactics; contributed to his eventual conviction. |
| 2023 | Post Office Scandal coverage | Helped expose the Horizon IT miscarriage of justice; part of reporting that led to government inquiry and exonerations of sub-postmasters. |
| 2021 | The Missing Princess | Investigated Princess Latifa’s escape from Dubai; prompted UN and international human-rights attention. |
| 2019 | Inside The Pesticide Business | Exposed loopholes in EU and UK pesticide approval processes; spurred policy review discussions in Brussels and Westminster. |
On the back of my cornflakes packet, I count nine Panorama scandals in ten years - and some of those are debatable. They put out about 40 episodes a year.
Now you could argue, that's not terrible, but this is the BBC's highest quality show about investigative journalism.
This most recent scandal regarding a poorly spliced clip of President Trump, however, could be the one that breaks the entire organisation. To many viewers, it looked like extreme bias.
Panorama covers powerful, rich, influential people. The editorial scrutiny should be extreme. Source complaints could be tackled before the show goes out? Surely there is an app that licence fees would cover.
When Panorama's ADHD episode went out (the most complained about episode in ten years), sources warned it would cause harm. Nobody stopped it and the BBC dismissed complaints.
I would argue newspapers face more scrutiny these days than the BBC.
In this most recent case, the Trump edit changed the meaning of what the president said and nobody caught it before broadcast, leading to a libel threat of $1bn - taxpayers' money.
Where were the editors? Where was legal? Where was senior management?
Tim Davie resigned over the Trump edit, but he'd survived the Martin Bashir scandal, the Jimmy Savile revelations and the Huw Edwards story.
There is culturally something very wrong with this organisation.
The Bigger Problem
If this were Sky or Netflix, people would cancel their subscriptions and go elsewhere.
But the BBC is different. You can't leave unless you ditch your telly. You pay the licence fee or you break the law, which means the BBC faces almost no market consequences for declining quality...
Unless it receives a $1bn lawsuit threat.
The BBC is a cultural institution. When it's good, it's world-class and I would hate to see it go. But it needs to choose: maintain its moral superiority and dig itself a grave of virtue - or maintain the standards that justify its fees.
The BBC keeps asking why people don't trust it anymore. Perhaps its board needs to look in the mirror.
As the wise woke phrase goes: Do better.