Can we still trust TV?

Summary

Podcast Summary: “Can We Still Trust TV?”

LSE: Public Lectures and Events | September 25, 2007

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Episode Overview

This episode brings together prominent journalists, filmmakers, editors, and media commentators to debate the central question: "Can we still trust television?" Against the backdrop of several high-profile scandals in British broadcasting, such as rigged phone-in competitions, faked documentary scenes, and broader commercial pressures, the panel dissects not only examples of television's betrayal of audience trust but also the evolving relationship between the audience, broadcasters, and regulators.
Tone: Challenging, skeptical, and at times sardonic, the conversation pulls no punches in interrogating both TV’s failings and its defenders.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Opening Statements: Setting TV “On Trial”

Charlie Beckett (00:00)

• Scene-setting: The public mood is one of distrust; calls for more transparent, honest, and relevant media.
• “I kind of half expected a number of you to turn up tonight with brandishing torches and pitchforks and nooses. There is something of a mood out there, of distrust...” (01:34)
• The media must acknowledge the “priesthood” has been “defrocked”—the old certainties are gone.

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Witness Testimonies

1. Laurie Flynn – Exposing Fabrication, Advocating Skepticism

Notable insights:

• Recounts exposing the 1996 Carlton documentary fabrication, a landmark for revealing TV’s failings.
• Argues a “crisis of trust” may be positive; skeptical, questioning audiences are healthier for democracy.
• “People need to become more media literate... when the digital platforms come in, you're going to need that more than ever.” (10:53)
• On whether to trust TV: “Trust and distrust.” (11:12)
• On media education: Advocates openness about industry failings, and tangible consequences for deliberate deceit (14:15).
• Notes decline in investigative teams, training, and a rise in “commerce-driven” decisions affecting truthfulness (16:01).

2. Roger Graef – Four Typologies of TV Untruth

Outlines causes and complexities behind TV misrepresentation:

• Inexperience: Lack of basic fact-checking and journalistic training.
• Ignorance: Failure to understand or seek the real truth.
• Venality: Deliberate distortion for profit or story.
• Unwitting Falsehood: Honest mistakes or incomplete coverage due to circumstances.
• “Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story” sums up an industry temptation. (18:05)
• Calls for humility and systemic support/training for journalists (23:12).
• Discusses “noddy” cutaways (fake interviews) and institutionalized minor deceit in documentaries—though warns of the difference between such “artifice” and outright fraud. (25:00–27:48)
• Commercial pressure, shrinking budgets exacerbate all the above (28:57).

3. Phil Harding – Perspective, Proportionality, and Risk

• Trust should never be blind; skepticism is necessary and healthy in a modern audience (36:19).
• Recent media panic over “TV fakery” is out of proportion; accountability is important but creative risk matters, too (36:53).
• “The problem with zero tolerance is that it leads to zero risk and thence to zero creativity.” (37:42)
• Urges commissioners to be less risk-averse and encourage whistleblowing, but admits structural issues exist for freelancers and independents (40:04, 41:50).
• Advocates more media literacy and transparency, including making editors accountable (43:00, 45:13).

4. Neil Midgley – The Press Perspective, Overreactions, and Structural Flaws

• Views current climate as one of “neurosis” and over-policing post scandals.
• “I don't think that 16,000 program makers at the BBC need the chips in their heads reprogramming...” (49:34)
• Points out most scandals are about interactivity/phone-ins, not content facts (49:36).
• Critiques disproportionate press coverage and acknowledges media’s own agenda (53:19–54:00).
• Distrust is now directed at management rather than “front-line” program makers (55:15).
• “Mark Thompson needs to take leadership and say more clearly... that the vast bulk of the people who work for him... are perfectly trustworthy and perfectly competent...” (56:22)
• Highlights lack of effective whistleblowing protection; culture needs to change (57:41).
• Institutional bias and impartiality crises are a threat.

5. Stephen Whittle – Systems, Training, and Professionalism

• Draws parallels to other professions: A small percentage of bad actors does not mean universal corruption. (64:45)
• Broadcasters still have much higher trust than most institutions; careful recruitment, ongoing training, and “apprenticeship” in the industry are key (66:14, 68:05).
• “Osmosis no longer works... terms of employment under which people work has got to be a major challenge...” (68:05)
• Whistleblowing policies exist, but they rely too much on confidentiality—the culture is insufficiently supportive (71:50).
• Advocates for mandatory training, stronger contractual requirements, better regulatory resourcing (74:04).

6. David Elstein – Accountability, Governance, and Cynicism

• Criticizes the BBC and the wider industry for deep-seated “culture of immunity and impunity” (80:31).
• “It’s simply impossible for that to have happened [rigged phone-ins] without management knowledge... and a culture of immunity and impunity.” (80:41)
• Loss of audience trust is about more than trivial competitions: It’s about persistent contempt for viewers.
• Holds up transparency, zero tolerance, and tough external scrutiny as the solution. (89:58)
• “Zero tolerance leads to calculated risk. It leads to discipline.” (89:58)
• Recommends a properly resourced, independent regulator (90:12).
• On “citizen journalism” via Current TV: Not a substitute for institutional reform and real scrutiny (97:22).

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Audience Questions & Discussion

• Media Literacy & Education: Audience and panelists agree on the need for more public education and openness (14:15, 43:14).
• Press & Tabloid Coverage: Some blame the press for amplifying scandals (53:19–53:47).
• Transparency & Whistleblowing: Significant concern about lack of effective whistleblowing protection, especially in freelancing and junior roles (41:50, 57:41, 71:50).
• Institutional Bias & Impartiality: Worries that loss of impartiality is worse than fakery/fraud (80:31).
• Regulatory Solutions: Call for a bolder, much more empowered and resourced Ofcom; skepticism about current bodies’ willingness or ability to act (90:12–90:56).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“The priesthood has been defrocked, the cosy party is over. And the arrogance and occasional mendacity that has characterized some of our work is no longer tolerable.”
— Charlie Beckett (03:00)

“Trust and distrust.”
— Laurie Flynn (11:12)

“Four typologies... inexperience, ignorance, venality, and unwitting failure.”
— Roger Graef (23:13)

“The problem with zero tolerance is that it leads to zero risk and thence to zero creativity.”
— Phil Harding (37:42)

“I don't think that 16,000 program makers at the BBC need the chips in their heads reprogramming...”
— Neil Midgley (49:34)

“It’s simply impossible... without management knowledge and a culture of immunity and impunity.”
— David Elstein (80:41)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Opening remarks and framing the debate — 00:00–04:00
• Laurie Flynn: history of deception and audience literacy — 06:21–16:56
• Roger Graef: causes of error and deceit in TV — 17:21–35:04
• Phil Harding: perspective and proportionality — 36:19–47:18
• Neil Midgley: external perspective and media overreaction — 47:26–61:15
• Stephen Whittle: industry training and regulatory gaps — 64:45–80:08
• David Elstein: governance, accountability, and tough reform — 80:31–98:05
• Final vote: majority no longer trust TV — 98:05

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Conclusion: Can We Still Trust TV?

After nearly two hours of debate, the audience was asked to vote. A clear majority said no: trust in television has been seriously eroded. The root causes identified include commercial and management pressures, declining resources for investigative work, institutional complacency, lack of transparency and accountability, and a failure to instil ethical discipline and effective whistleblowing.
Path forward? Panelists urge for media literacy, systemic reform, robust regulation, improved industry culture, and true transparency, both for viewers and those making the programs.

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For More:
Reflect and rage on the LSE podcast feed, explore the transcript archive, and keep questioning: who watches the watchers?

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Note: Adverts, intros/outros, and logistics have been omitted from this summary. The above highlights the thoughtful, forthright, and urgent debate that took place on whether trust in television can or should be restored.

Transcript

[Charlie Beckett]

Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the London School of Economics for tonight's TV on Trial event. But a slightly different arrangement tonight in that, well, short of judicial punishment, we are running through a judicial process. So it's going to be a slightly different format. In a minute, I'm going to attempt to play you a little film which runs through some of the issues that we'll be dealing with tonight. And then I'll be handing over to Roger Bolton, who's going to be chairing tonight's event, along with Mark Stevens, who's going to be conducting the interrogation. My name is Charlie Beckett. I'm the director of Polis, which is the new journalism and society think tank here at the London School of Economics. It's a partnership with the London College of Communication. Before that I worked at BBC News and Current affairs and latterly at Channel 4 News as a programme editor. So in a sense, I suppose I stand accused as well. We're delighted to host the event tonight with the Media Society, with the sport of broadcast and the LSE Media Group. Over the last year that POLIS has been going, we've been talking a lot about the sustainability of journalism and the news media generally. And one of the issues, one of the words that keeps cropping up again and again and again is trust, trust, editorially, trust in terms of economics. How do you keep people's faith and their commitment to the kind of media that we produce? Journalism. TV is on trial. The audience isn't happy. In a sense. I kind of half expected a number of you to turn up tonight with brandishing torches and pitchforks and nooses. There is something of a mood out there, of distrust. And this isn't just about the editing of a documentary promo. It's not just about giving the wrong name to a cat in a children's TV program. It's not even just about deliberately misleading people over TV phone ins. There's something more basic going on. I think people are turning away from conventional tv, conventional media, for a variety of reasons. Partly they can do it themselves, but also, I think there is a sense that people want a more transparent, more honest and more relevant form of media, and news media in particular. POLIS is here because we think it's time to defend the best of journalism, the best of television. But it's also, I think, the moment when journalists and people in the wider media have to wake up and realize that in a sense, the priesthood has been defrocked, the cosy party is over. And the arrogance and occasional mendacity that has characterized some of our work is no longer tolerable. New media technologies and the emerging markets and ways of making our media mean that there's a fantastic opportunity to sustain the best of the journalism and media that we produce. But what we produce and the way we do it will never be the same again. Polis is all about that big picture. And I hope that as tonight that we debate and interrogate the craft and the detail we remember that there are, I think anyway much deeper issues at stake. But first let's have a look at the chart sheet, as it were and I'm going to play a piece. The lights go down.

[Mark Stevens]

Okay, let's assume.

[Laurie Flynn]

I think we better assume that you're.

[Roger Bolton]

Well and they will fail with the.

[Neil Midgley]

Things that play to the end if you God wrong.

[Roger Bolton]

And on the subject we can't get back. I introduce myself, I'm my Bolton. We have assembled at absolutely no cost tonight an all white, all male, all middle aged panel of people with glorious futures behind them or in the case of David L. Of course in front of him. Can I explain the running order what we're about? If you do it in the next couple of minutes, get that that you tell me. What we're going to do is we've got a selection of witnesses here who.

[Neil Midgley]

Got a lot of experience I don't.

[Roger Bolton]

Say of cheating or faking or whatever at least discovering that they have taken place. People been controlled by foreign policy had to deal with this broadcast but nobody who is representing a vested interest except perhaps the vested interest. We've got a number of witnesses. They're going to come up one by one When I call I'll introduce them. Then Mark Stevens who's going to join.

[Mark Stevens]

Me on the platform now partner with.

Final Stephen instance is going to sound.

[Roger Bolton]

In the initial statement. I'll ask a couple of questions probably as well and then we want to give you the opportunity of asking not many questions because we've got a lot.

[Neil Midgley]

Of witnesses but some questions at the.

[Roger Bolton]

End when we're through we're going to have a vote on the very general. We acknowledge extremely general question which is can we trust TV after all of the things you've heard about.

[Mark Stevens]

Let me.

[Roger Bolton]

Let's get straight on then let's get our first witness. Our first witness is Laurie Flynn. Laurie revealed the 1996 Carlton Drug Trafficking documentary the connection to to be significantly fabricated. Just in case you thought the problems only belonged to 1997. They seemed pretty big in 2007. They seemed pretty big in 1996. The expose resulted in Carlton being fined a record £2 million. I don't think Laurie has worked for Carlton subsequently.

[Laurie Flynn]

Laurie, Good evening.

[Roger Bolton]

Would you like to stand behind this?

[Laurie Flynn]

I just took a call before coming in here from a very remarkable man with remarkable technology. His name's Mark Twain. And he gave me an exclusive interview which I'm about to report to you. And I do hope you'll trust me. I think you should trust anyone who uses the phrase trust me. Mark Twain wrote that there were 869 different forms of lying, but only one was expressly forbidden by the Bible. And that was long before the explosion of modern journalism. He also said he thought it was much better idea to teach ethics than practice them. His motto was to give them to other people. Well, in a funny sermonizing way. That's what we tried to do at the Guardian. And eventually when we started looking at the nature of police corruption, we found that the Guardian no longer looked so benevolently on us. But hey, that's tough. That's the price you pay for poking your big nose into places you shouldn't put them. And for trying to understand the causes of things. What would Mark Twain have made of the recent explosion of problems? What fun he'd have had with the cat scam. What fun he'd have had with the Shell Oil reserve scandal or BP's guru, Lord Brown lying in court? That's a pretty mean achievement. What would he have made of Northern Rock? What would he have made of guns on the street? The famous ITV or Channel 4 documentary where neither of the reporters came from the hometown they claimed to be protecting. And one of them even had a conviction re established for armed robbery. In other words, he broke into houses before he broke into television. This did not make us popular, exposing this. But we didn't set out to be popular. We didn't set out to be nasty. But we set out to try and explore some of the rarer practices on the edges of television, which, if they're not rooted out, will soon spread much closer to the heart of television. And it's not only in television and business. We see it in what one prominent writer has called the axis of deceit in government around the recent problems in the war in the Middle East. And it's quite interesting. Some of the academic research shows that in America, a third of people still believe that weapons of mass destruction were discovered in Iraq. And indeed, they probably believe this because George Bush has stated on television that they were discovered. And his ally, Mr. Blair, said he felt sure they would be discovered. Well, we haven't heard Too much more of that. I think there is a crisis of trust in society and I think it's quite a positive thing in some ways. People are much more skeptical and much more inquiring. They're much less likely to engage in blind faith. And this is not a bad thing. I was very heartened by reading the text of Michael Grade's speech at the Royal Television Society last week, where he attacks moral relativism and all the tricksy fiddling and cheating that's been going on. And I think with Grade we have at last someone at the helm of ITV who can be taken seriously, can perhaps match up to people like Jeremy Isaacs and David Plowright and Dennis Foreman and the other people who. Who stood for something and who had civic purpose and didn't mind a fight if it was a truthful and honest one. So I don't think that the crisis of trust is ever going to go away in educated democratic societies. People want to check up on you.

[Roger Bolton]

So, Laurie, sorry, because we have to say about two to three minutes. Is it your case then that we should not trust tv, just as we should not trust almost any aspect of society, and that you welcome perhaps people having a harsher view of television, that it's a scale falling from our eyes as opposed to afresh, as it were, corruption developing in broadcasting and television?

[Laurie Flynn]

I think you should trust your own intellect, trust your own reading of television. I think people need to become more media literate and they need to know more about the tricks. And I think that's happening. And God knows, when the digital platforms come in, you're going to need that more than ever.

[Roger Bolton]

So your argument is don't trust tv.

[Laurie Flynn]

Trust and distrust.

[Mark Stevens]

Make your mind up, Laurie.

[Laurie Flynn]

I don't trust every book in a library. You know I don't.

[Mark Stevens]

But I mean, could we ever trust television? I mean, are you saying that things have changed or are you saying that some society has changed?

[Laurie Flynn]

I think there's a bit of both.

[Mark Stevens]

Are you just saying society's wised up to the conjurorist tricks?

[Laurie Flynn]

You can hold contradictory ideas in your mind and examine your own ideas.

[Charlie Beckett]

But.

[Mark Stevens]

Why shouldn't we trust the television? Aren't we reposing trust with our license fee?

[Laurie Flynn]

I think it's very important to exercise your own literacy and for every television viewer to do that, particularly in the light of the events that have taken place in television. I don't think they're wholly new. In his speech, Mr. Grade refers to someone who used to send back instructions that his report should be edited to GUNSHOT SOUNDS he doesn't name that person. But I think, taking a shrewd guess, is first name probably rhymes with Andy. And as Bob Dylan says, he sure had a lot of gall. So I'll leave it to you to guess who that might be.

[Mark Stevens]

But let's just look at your own practical experience. You were a journalist on this Week for years and years. When you had a really bad guy, perhaps a confidential source had given you all the information. Wouldn't you just fiddle it a bit just to show, make it clear to the public to tell the truth that you knew?

[Laurie Flynn]

A confidential source can never give you all the information a confidential source is supplied. Have you ever give information?

[Mark Stevens]

Have you ever gingered it up just to make sure? Have you ever gingered it up just to make a point?

[Laurie Flynn]

The things I write about and make TV programs about are so appalling, I usually ginger them down and calm them down. You know, if you're describing, describing what happened in Bhopal or in the asbestos mines in South Africa or the gold mines.

[Mark Stevens]

Well, let's take Bhopal or the gold mines, for example. Had you ever wanted to have someone die on television because of the commercial pressures of ratings?

[Laurie Flynn]

Well, I thought I would maybe do that myself, but I see Paul Watson tends to beat me to it.

[Mark Stevens]

So your witness right now.

[Roger Bolton]

Was anybody in the audience? Anybody like to put a question to Laurie? Anybody raise. Put your hand up if you do. Would you like to put a question too right later there? Yeah, if you just take the mic. We've got a Ruby mic around.

[Audience Member]

It's a slightly simplistic question, really, but what do we do about people who don't exercise discernment? I guess that's what this debate is about, really. You know, not everyone is exercising the literacy that you're talking about. Should it be taught in schools, perhaps? I don't know.

[Laurie Flynn]

Well, I think my own experience is that British television, hugely, on balance, has led to a much more knowledgeable and literate society. Although there's another medium called education, which is even more significant than television or radio, because in the end they're just lights in a box, depending on what you use them for. What do we do about these people? We be open and honest about what goes on. That's bad in our own professions. That's one of the first things we can do. And we can actually insist that people who lie and cheat, the way the producers of the Carlton documentary the Connection pay a price for it. I think a good dose of community service down some sewer would be, you Know, give the sewage workers a day off would be a suitable punishment.

[Roger Bolton]

Okay, anybody else want to raise a question? I've got it, Laurie. Last question for me. Do you think that the situation is worse now than it was 10 years ago almost, when you did the Carlton connection? Do you think there's been a slip in standards that we are less trustworthy now than we were?

[Laurie Flynn]

I think there's definitely a huge slippage in terms of which awkward, difficult stories broadcasters will tackle. And I think there's a problem in the fact that there's no longer the big teams, well funded teams like the one you ran this week, which can spend months looking into something. And there's a crisis in training. And there are a lot of young people, very decent, well educated, idealistic and ambitious young people who want to do important things.

[Roger Bolton]

But is there a moral. What I'm trying to get, is there now a greater moral crisis?

[Laurie Flynn]

I think there probably is, yeah. Because I think facts have become unfashionable and truth has become unhip. I don't care whether it's hip or unhip. It matters to me. It's part of the most important part of our humanity to try to discover the truth.

[Mark Stevens]

Is it about hip or is it about commerce?

[Laurie Flynn]

Well, I think it's about commerce. The sacking of journalists is never a good thing. The lack of training of journalists and filmmakers is never a good thing. And that's all to do with driven by the bottom line. You know, we've learned from past financial crisis that the big profits of today are usually stolen from the future or found from some absurd cut that is made in staffing levels, whether it be in a hospital or a newspaper. This is very bad, and I think it's tragic that ITV is about to dismantle its regional television operations. It's very sad.

[Roger Bolton]

Laurie Flint, thanks very much. Thank you. I now ask Roger Graef. Stand up to. Stand up and come to the platform. Roger, as you will know, writer, filmmaker, broadcaster, criminologist, and a founding board member of Channel 4 and was awarded the Bafta Fellowship in 2004. So a degree of perspective, Roger?

[Roger Graef]

Well, I rather foolishly probably cast myself as ethics man when this debate started quite a long time ago by publishing and discussing the rules of filming and saying to the people we wanted to film that this is what I would want if I asked for access or somebody asked for access to me. And so we have very clear guidelines which we then show the finished work to the people that have been in the films so that we make sure that they're factually correct according to those people. People. But as we've moved on into other kinds of journalism and television, and with deadlines imposed on us, and with more and more people who didn't kind of grow up in the same environment as I did, working with me, I can see a number of different kinds of ethical problems. And being economical with the truth, of course, is something that you have to do when you've only got 1,000 words or 200 words or 15 minute report out of many hours, or even one hour out of 45 or 60 or 100 hours of shooting. And with video technology, people do a great deal more spraying and hoping than actually considering what they wanted to do in advance and really knowing what they're going after and then testing it. And in a way, what that has then produced are what I really would call four typologies, if you like, of error and mistrust, if you like, grounds for mistrust. The first is simply inexperience. People who don't have any sense of what fact checking is really about, who will go to Wikipedia as a source without realizing that it's actually composed of people who just put in whatever they want it to be. And they don't in a sense, know what two, three sources or primary sources really are. And that's not obviously something that we can do very much about, except through training and support and supervision. Then you have ignorance, as in, again, not knowing what a primary source is about, but real ignorance of, in a sense, what the truth could be. Because in a way what they really are looking for is a story. And there's a wonderful phrase which has been going, you know, as long as I'm sure journalism existed, which is don't let the facts get in the way of a good story. And that's always said rather jokingly in the editor, when you come up with something that doesn't quite fit what you think you've got. But it is a moral predicament for everybody who's ever had that experience of finding that what you thought was there just wasn't. Or sometimes in our experience it was least it's even better than you thought, but it's more complicated, so you then have to be economical with it. So you chop off the edges because you've got to simplify. And in so doing you are definitely falsifying, certainly by losing nuance, and you could even change the emphasis, which is why we find it helpful to show the films. But, you know, the combination of inexperience and then Ignorance is the second one. The third, of course, is venal, where somebody really knows something hasn't happened or has purposely not bothered to find out. They've actually seriously distorted what's gone on simply to sell the story. And, you know, time and again, more in tabloid than in television, they've been asked to do this. The Madeleine case in Portugal is a very clear example where the Portuguese media have been fed specific stories by the police that the chief investigator of that case knew to be wrong and then was told by his superiors to defend. And so he resigned. He just wasn't going to do it. But you could see the process and it's picked up very quickly by the media here because they couldn't and didn't bother checking primary sources to combat it. The fourth, however, is really interesting and I'm going to confess something which people in this room will not have known, except with the possible exception of Stephen Whittle, who worked at the BBC when we did, and that is that we're unwitting failure to tell the truth, as it were, because technologically, either the camera switched off at a certain moment or you were blocked from the action, or some way or another, you think you've got the whole story and actually you don't, because either you weren't there or you just missed it. And that's even more complicated, if you like, because when you're in that situation and in this situation that I'm going to quote to you, the footage we showed in one of our episodes of a police series showed a police officer stopping a fight by grabbing a girl who was trying to get away from the fight, and apparently just she looked like she was wrestling and resisting and kind of being very aggressive to him. But. And that's all the footage we had, and put it in the film, and then she afterwards complained against the police officer, saying that he'd started it, and in our footage he simply hadn't. And I defended him to the family and I really didn't, you know, looking at the rushes, I wasn't there. And then it was only when we. The complaint was being investigated properly, seriously, by an officer in the force that we then rewound all the rushes, looked very closely, realized that the key moment which would vindicate either him or her was simply blocked. There was a big person right in front both of the CCTV cameras and in front of us. There were just too many people around and nobody really knew. But the chances were from the fragment of an elbow that was raised, you could just see beyond one other person that she was right. And after weeks of looking at this and really soul searching, it wasn't casual. We decided that we got it wrong. So those are the four types that I think we have to deal with. The fourth just makes you humble so that you never can think that you've really got the answer the whole time. The first needs training, supervision, and the kind of experienced editors, series editors and executive producers that are in shorter and shorter supply and that are not just going to say, this is a great story, don't you know, file now, deliver now. And with the new technology, I think the problem is even worse because with user generated content, you can have people turning in their own video stuff, filing it, posting it online, and so on, and you can never tell whether they just did it in their backyard. Lastly, and I just, you might find this interesting, I was making a film for the BBC about the Quran, about Islam, the first one. And I was in Fez on the terrace of a hotel when the first moon, the pictures of the earth from the moon were taken. And it was on the back page of the Times. And it was an absolutely wonderful photograph. And the waiter came up to me and said, of course that was shot in a Hollywood studio. And I said, no, no, no, it's, you know, we don't do things like that. He said, don't be ridiculous. How do you know? Because it turned out I discovered later that the Moroccans believed that Islam would come to an end when man landed on the moon. And he was certainly not having it. But as I found myself trying to say to him, the Times wouldn't do such a thing, I felt the weakness of that argument becoming more and more evident to me. And so I think those of us who do claim to be committed to the ethical journey have to remain modest because we may find ourselves trapped by any one of those four types of mistakes, or chosen or purposeful mistakes. And there's far too much of it. There probably always has been. And the lack of trained supervision, I think is a crucial weakness in today's management of news and factual television.

[Roger Bolton]

Roger, can I ask you how seriously we should take some things because. Because there seems to be a mismatch between what people within certain parts of television center, shall we say, and the outside world regard as serious. Let's take the Alan Yentaub Noddy conveyed to the audience watching the program that Alan Yentov was interviewing a man or a woman, and he wasn't, because he wasn't there subsequent to the interview being conducted by a member of the production Team Alan Yenthov sat in a room with nobody with him other than the cameraman, recorded questions he hadn't asked. Does that matter?

[Roger Graef]

Well, it's interesting because everyone in the room, I imagine, knows what a noddy is and those are. Or a re Ask, as it was called in America, where, you know, after the interview, the person who did do the interview sits in the chair and if you can persuade the interviewee to sit there too, which I've watched cameramen bully prime ministers to say, you can't go now, just a minute, we better do the riyas. And they sit there. I mean, that's already, you know, kind of, if you like cheating, but I don't think that matters. I personally, I actually don't like it at all.

[Roger Bolton]

It's not a question of don't lie.

[Roger Graef]

No, no, no. I think.

[Roger Bolton]

Is it a form of deceit in that the.

[Mark Stevens]

Yes, it is.

[Roger Graef]

It is a form of deceit and frankly, if it had been me, I would have not done that. I would have just cut the question the answers to get.

[Roger Bolton]

And if it is a form of deceit and it's committed by a senior member of the BBC management, is it possible for the BBC to move forward with him remaining as a senior member of the Board of management with simply the very slightest of slaps on the wrist?

[Roger Graef]

I couldn't possibly comment.

[Roger Bolton]

No one is stopping you.

[Roger Graef]

No. I think Alan should be much more repentant than he has been. Being a person who believes in and teaches in this hollow institution sometimes about restorative justice, I'm not so keen on punishment, but I am keen on repentance and apologies. And I don't think any. Any of them should be have been as sanguine and offhand about it. It is different. And we need to keep a sense of perspective from fraud. The telephone for payphones was straight fraud. That's a criminal offence, no question about it.

[Roger Bolton]

But this was deceit.

[Roger Graef]

This was deceit. But actually, so was Grierson shooting on the Hull docks instead of on the trailer to show, you know, fish that weren't the fish that he pretended to be. The whole documentary tradition is based on some kind of deceit, if you like. So in the order of things, I don't think it's anything as perhaps the.

[Mark Stevens]

More important point, Mr. Grapes, is actually differential treatment, because it seems to me that Noddygate, you know, doesn't seem to me to take it very much further. What actually is the problem with it is that one, what you have is a senior member of the BBC who is being treated in a more favorable manner than people lower down the scale.

[Roger Bolton]

Would you agree with that?

[Roger Graef]

Well, that certainly appears to be the case. But it isn't just that, because we're talking about different kinds of offences. And what I'm suggesting to you, Mark, is that cheating of the kind of inserting a cutaway or whatever has been done in cutting rooms for yonks.

[Mark Stevens]

Does that make it okay?

[Roger Graef]

Well, it makes it, if you like, acceptable practice. And this is important, Roger.

[Roger Bolton]

I've never ever heard of a case where a cutaway questions are done by someone who was not present at the interview.

[Roger Graef]

Which is why I think it's serious. I'm not saying it's just said it's always.

[Roger Bolton]

That's never been done, to my knowledge.

[Laurie Flynn]

Do you know before?

[Roger Graef]

No, I've never seen that either. But I wouldn't be surprised if Tim Hewitt did, for example, on World in Action. I mean, Laurie was on World in Action in the tradition of shooting in Golden Square. John Morgan standing with a hat on when it was snowing, pretending is a sort of famous example of that. All I'm saying is that I don't think it's right. I would never do it. But I think as compared to making up the outcome of a competition or we're still committing criminal fraud, it's a different order of things.

[Mark Stevens]

I was interested in your identification of the symptoms. It's almost like going to doctor and saying, I've got ignorance, inexperience, venality and unwitting falsehood. Doctor, the thing that I'm interested in is what causes those symptoms. What is it? What is the infection that you have? Is it commercial pressure? Is it the sort of competition that you have within the independent sector, the long working hours, the budget constraints, the need for an audience, the need for advertisers? Is it those things that has caused the cause, the symptoms that you identify?

[Roger Graef]

Yes, absolutely. I mean, the difference can be compared to the time when I was lucky enough to be at Golden Square in Granada, at a time when Granada was printing money. And therefore people like Brian Laughing and myself and others were allowed to make two years to research a project to put a 90 minute, 93 minute film on ITV and have the network say, oh, fine, it's 93 minutes, don't worry, we'll move it. You know, as long as it goes out after 10:30. I mean, the kind of flexibility and respect for getting things right was definitely reflected in the budget and the amount of time we had. And Norma Percy, whom everybody will know, was you know, as dogged a person getting facts right as you'll ever know in your life, that sort of project is rarer and rarer. It is a matter of budget, it's a matter of ratings, and it's a matter of wanting to make sure that the story punches through.

[Mark Stevens]

We're all clear that the sort of programs that you make and also that Laurie makes are. Are disappearing from our schedules. And perhaps why. But is this because that there's a sort of culture of cynicism amongst program makers or perhaps more amongst commissioning editors and broadcasters?

[Roger Graef]

Well, I think actually the commissioning editors I know and all the channels are, as it were, are lovely people. I was going to say, honorable men and women. No, no. I mean, I have never been asked myself to change the ending or whatever. On the other hand, in some of the reality programs, and I had producers come to me and say, I can't do this anymore, they were told to change the endings so that it conformed to the script. They were told to force children to cry and Supermanly, they were told to force dissent in wipes, swaps and so on. I mean, those were kind of quote reality shows. Is that true? It isn't true. I think it's a deeply improper thing to do. But it's something. They were getting results because the outcome is different. And Mark, this is the crucial point and there has to be something, some judgment about this. If what you're producing is evidence, you mess with that at your absolute peril. But if what you're producing is entertainment and you're using as real people to do it, then the truth is there's a long tradition, rather like magic tricks and other kinds of illusions, that that's just the reality of it and we are not living in a perfect world.

[Mark Stevens]

I think we can all agree that there's an element of artifice to all of this. But let's just test what you had to say there. I mean, do you believe, for example, that TV bosses were as ignorant as they all profess of premium Rategate?

[Roger Graef]

I simply don't know. Not my territory.

[Mark Stevens]

Sorry.

[Roger Graef]

I really don't know. I have no idea at all.

[Mark Stevens]

It seems improbable, doesn't it?

[Roger Graef]

Well, it does. Given that they make so much money from it. I think they are probably hoping that it was pucker or if it was, that they wouldn't get caught. I mean, speaking as a criminologist, I can tell you that the vast majority of people break the law in some form or other most of the time, and they hope they Won't get caught, but they give themselves permission because they say they're law abiding people. Right. So they will say, paying black money to my cleaning lady is not the same thing as robbing someone on the street. And they're right. So there's a kind of tolerance, if you like.

[Roger Bolton]

But are you saying the cost of asking the question is too high?

[Roger Graef]

Well, sometimes it is, because it's implying a kind of perfect, really sort of. You know, what I'm trying to get.

[Roger Bolton]

At is if you bother to ask the question, question about the quizzes and so on, you'd find an answer which would be fatal to your profit.

[Mark Stevens]

So you don't ask.

[Roger Bolton]

A sin of omission, not a commission.

[Roger Graef]

Quite right. But actually, it is cynical and there's no doubt about it, it's cynical. And if you were saying, Mark, that this is being driven by budgets, competition and a demand for ratings, I will agree with you 100%.

[Mark Stevens]

Now, we've identified the illness, the symptoms. What's the cure?

[Roger Graef]

Well, I was saying, I think it's.

[Mark Stevens]

I mean, is it at the top?

[Roger Graef]

Well, it's in the middle. It's more and more senior executives of the kind like Roger, Steve Hewlett in the audience and so on, who actually know what questions to ask, because journalists with a lot of enthusiasm and who in love with their story don't want to look too hard in case it turns out not to be true. And we're doing one literally right now for Panorama, which just is on the edge of something we can prove. We've got lots of anecdotal evidence, but we can't prove. Prove it. And until we can prove it, we're not going to go ahead. But it's very difficult because the money would be great. It's an hour long special, blah, blah, blah. But we are used to that and we do not want to get into the territory of suddenly having somebody say, where's the beef? But that's not something that younger, hungry, thrusting types may necessarily want to hear.

[Roger Bolton]

I'm sorry to have to push you along, Roger. Just hold. Robert, anybody like to ask a question Roger gave lady right at the back, who I. Perhaps you could say who you are. Just to let people know, as an.

[Audience Member]

Almost bankrupt independent, I'd like to challenge a couple of things. Roger says, I don't think this is a question of money at all. And in a couple of the cases that we've all been titillated by recently, we have not been dealing with untrained people pushed to deadlines We've been dealing with fairly senior and people up until recently who had very serious good reputations. What we're talking about is editing. And editing is a subtle and difficult business. And it's not a question of money. Of course you can spend years editing and improve your product and improve your program. But we're really talking about judgment and about people who, for some reason or other, made the wrong judgments. And I doubt if any, in the most flagrant cases we've been hearing about recently, should it turn out that it's been their fault. It has not been a question of money and it has not been a question of lack of training.

[Roger Bolton]

Are you saying, Anne Lapping there, that it's hyping? That what is going on is a hyping of material above and beyond what used to be the case?

[Audience Member]

And the truth is that all editing is a matter of judgment and to some extent a matter of either hyping or honing a story and getting it wrong is a bad judgment call. And that's what we're talking about.

[Roger Bolton]

And is it your case there are more bad judgment calls being made insofar.

[Audience Member]

As they're being exposed? The other people, earlier generations, may have been luckier, but I don't think you can blame the ratings war, and I don't think you can blame reduced budgets, much as we hate both those things.

[Roger Graef]

Actually, if I may pick up on this, I wasn't saying that reduced budgets and money were the only cause. I was saying there are four different types. And that if you look at the culture of ratings war, if we can talk about Queen Gate, which is the obvious one, there's where Stephen is, a very experienced man, seems to have been involved in that. Yes, but that he was doing that to sell the program abroad. He said so he said, look, you know, it didn't matter because the only people who would see it were either TV critics and.

[Roger Bolton]

Sorry, did you get. Stop just for a moment. Do you understand what critics Queen Gate is? It's that trailer that was shown to the press which showed the Queen walking out, but she hadn't walked out.

[Roger Graef]

And the sad thing was actually looking at it online, that was a terrific piece of trail. If she'd been walking in, they didn't need to do it. It was just hyping. But that was to sell it and, you know, to maximize RDF's profits.

[Roger Bolton]

Okay, I'm afraid we're going to have to move on. Roger Griff, thank you very much indeed. Our next witness. Our next witness is Phil Harding, who used to Work on Panorama, then was editor of the Radioforce Today program between 87 and 93, is a former controller of editorial policy at the BBC and until yesterday or the day before was director of the BBC World Service, English Networks and News. His BBC pension is not affected by anything he says.

[Phil Harding]

And I'm out. Can we still trust television? The short answer to that is yes, but only up to a point. And it should be only up to a point, because in a healthy and informed democracy, audiences should be skeptical of what they're being shown and should be skeptical of what they're being told. I think this is an issue that needs a lot of proportion and a lot of perspective, and both those things I don't think it's received enough of. In recent weeks. Weeks too many things, ranging from fraud to gross idiocy have been rolled under facile newspaper headlines of TV fakery. And I don't think broadcasters need any lessons from some in the press of how to get stories wrong and how to get stories right. And I've been surprised at some of those who thought fit to write about this. By the way, I think the debate that Channel 5 started about noddies and walking shots is a total irrelevance. I would ban walking shots, but I wouldn't ban them because they're deception. I would ban them because they're grossly boring. And some producers should think of something more creative to do instead. If producers get things wrong, then they should be accountable for their actions. But those who advocate ever tighter regulation, maybe some of those who will speak to you tonight, those who would send the Gestapo in at every opportunity, will end up with a television culture and a broadcasting culture that is risk free. The problem with zero tolerance is that it leads to zero risk and thence to zero creativity. If there is a broader problem in broadcasting, if there is a systemic problem, I think it may be in the commissioning culture that has grown up in recent years. My experience with programs that have gone badly wrong has been, for the most part, that they have been driven by a fear of failure. The producers have been scared not to deliver for the controllers or the commissioners. Therefore, I think controllers and commissioners should have to give program makers more slack. They have to give room for more risk, and yes, they sometimes have to give room for more failure. Trust is crucial in broadcasting, but without creative risk taking, then no one will be watching.

[Roger Bolton]

Phil, it's difficult to interpret what you said in any other terms. That you think that the crisis is not severe and that the Director General of the BBC has overreacted. Is that your view?

[Phil Harding]

I think the director general of the BBC has probably got the balance about right now. I think, however, how's that comparable with what you said over the summer? Over the summer. I'm finished with Roger over the summer. I think there was too much sackcloth.

[Roger Bolton]

So in his immediate reaction, he's got it wrong.

[Phil Harding]

I think the BBC overreacted. Yes, to some of it. Yeah. And I think the BBC Trust overreacted to some of it as well. Yes.

[Roger Bolton]

And does that mean that you think some of the punishments that have been meted out are unfair?

[Phil Harding]

I don't know. I have no idea about the individual circumstances of any of the individuals, and I couldn't possibly know that.

[Roger Bolton]

Mark.

[Mark Stevens]

I want to Explore with you, Mr. Harding, this fear of failure. I think this is something which many independents will identify with. How did you, the BBC, encourage a greater degree of openness to enable whistleblowing, to enable people to say, sorry, this just isn't working. We're going to have to junk this particular program. How did that work?

[Phil Harding]

Well, I think you've got to be prepared to back program makers. And I've commissioned programs in my time, and I think you've got to. And I think you've got to be prepared for failure, and you've got to be prepared for the financial risk sometimes that it does carry. I think there is an element of money here. Commissioners have limited budgets, and of course, the market has got more competitive. Of course, program makers are more. Commissioners are more and more anxious to stand out in a very noisy environment. But I think that you have got to do that. And if a program doesn't stand up, then you've got to encourage that culture where somebody can say to you, I'm sorry, this story just doesn't work.

[Mark Stevens]

It seems to me that there are two issues, really. One is this story doesn't work. How does that relationship work? Perhaps with the commissioning editor, maybe with senior execs and the space there, which doesn't seem to me institutionally there at the moment. And I'd be interested in your views as to how that is put into place. But there's a separate question, which is when somebody on an independent production sees something happening which shouldn't, who do they tell without losing their job?

[Phil Harding]

Well, the standard whistleblowing procedures, which I'm sure you'll be more aware of than I am, would be that you take it to your immediate boss to start off with.

[Roger Graef]

With.

[Phil Harding]

If your immediate boss does nothing about it, then you take it to the person who's commissioned the program. And if they do nothing about it, then you publicly blow the whistle.

[Mark Stevens]

Do you understand that? There's a climate of fear, though, amongst people, particularly the junior, younger members within the independent sector, people who don't feel able to stand up and publicly say to their direct line manager, the person that employs them, I think that something's going wrong here because they know that they'll be out the door and somebody else will be in their shoes as soon as you look at it.

[Phil Harding]

Yeah, I think it would be difficult for a junior producer or a junior researcher to do that. But I think that if broadcasting is going to thrive, it's got to encourage a culture where there is much more open disclosure of these things.

[Mark Stevens]

Ok, let's move on to sackcloth and ashes. What's your reaction been to Mr. Grade and his pronouncements recently?

[Phil Harding]

Well, I think that, as I said, I think the problem with zero tolerance is that it leaves very few margins for error. And I think the risk with that is that if you end up with zero tolerance, then people are always looking over their shoulder, they will always take the safe option and they won't try things. And broadcasting, if it's going to thrive, has got to depend upon trying things out.

[Mark Stevens]

Do you think it actually precludes an apparent openness and openness to admit mistakes?

[Phil Harding]

I think there's a risk of that too, yes.

[Mark Stevens]

Okay. And you were talking about the public and you said that they're more inquiring and all the investigative. Do you think that the audience.

[Phil Harding]

I said I think they ought to be. And in a healthy democracy they should be.

[Mark Stevens]

Right. And do you think they are?

[Phil Harding]

I think there is every sign that they will be. And I think that, if anything, I would advocate that they should be encouraged to be more so and that there should be greater emphasis on media literacy at early ages.

[Mark Stevens]

It seems to me, though, that the public are reacting with some surprise to the events that are currently going on, which would in itself indicate that they aren't as informed as perhaps the chattering classes might hope.

[Phil Harding]

Well, I think some are. My experience with audiences has been that audiences are extremely savvy, actually, and that they do have. I don't mean that they know every device, every artifice and so on, but that they have a pretty shrewd idea of what's going on and audiences are pretty intelligent and will come to it. Of course, some will be surprised. I think the honest answer is we don't know what the audience audience thinks of all of this yet. There's been some research which showed that trust in the BBC and in other broadcasters dropped over the summer, but I don't think we know yet whether that's a long term effect.

[Mark Stevens]

Thanks Mark.

[Roger Bolton]

Just time for a couple of questions from the audience gentleman there and then we'll come here.

[Laurie Flynn]

Yep.

[Roger Bolton]

Gentlemen there, could you just wait for the microphone please? Sorry, we'll get to you in a second, thanks.

[Laurie Flynn]

Hi, Atul Shah Diverse ethics.

[Roger Bolton]

One of the best ways of checking trust is through transparency and accountability. The BBC has and we've talked a lot about the BBC because it actually is a special case in media. As a public sector broadcaster, the BBC has this amazing website but you try and find the name of an editor.

[Laurie Flynn]

Of any program on that website and.

[Roger Bolton]

You'Ll be, well, I'll give you 10 quid but it's not there.

[Laurie Flynn]

The editors are absolutely invisible and you're.

[Roger Bolton]

Talking about local editors, you're talking about editors of national programs and national departments and if you try and contact them by phone or email, they don't respond.

[Laurie Flynn]

And they are not accountable to anyone. And this is a serious problem and it's not rocket science.

[Roger Bolton]

What I'm saying, Phil, is there a way of making editors more accountable? It's remarkable that BBC television doesn't have a program of accountability or right to reply as channel forehead. I mean that to me is incredible.

[Phil Harding]

I think the BBC should, I think the BBC should be much more open and transparent about what it does and why it does things. And I also think that if things go wrong, actually people should be much more open about the fact that they have gone wrong. If you haven't got a competition winner, why not say to the audience, I'm sorry, this week we haven't got a competition winner. My view on that would be trust the audience and the audience will trust you.

[Mark Stevens]

Damien Tambini LSE Phil, you say don't send in the Gestapo. By that I presume you mean we don't want tighter broadcasting codes at a legal level or via Ofcom. But what about self regulation? Is there something that needs to be done in terms of the BBC or the other broadcasters own editorial guidelines or might there be something else that can be done? Do we need a kind of a dogma 967 for factual and news which is more transparent and establishes a relationship with the audience?

[Phil Harding]

I don't think, I mean in the end guidelines are supposed to be the embodiment of a culture and God knows I've written enough of them. I think that actually that you can have all the guidelines in the world but actually you've got to also have the culture that backs them up. And I think that's the most important thing within a broadcaster, that these guidelines matter and also how they should be interpreted. A lot has been made and a lot has been mocked about the BBC idea of having training courses as a result of this. And of course, broadcasters, and most broadcasters do not need to be told, you know, don't make things up. Of course not. But actually, I've talked to a lot of former colleagues who are in some cases seriously confused now about what is and is not allowable. You, you've obviously got extremes. That's perfect, that's dreadful, that's perfectly okay. But in the middle, and it comes down to, as Anne Lapping was saying quite a lot to editing and what is acceptable and not acceptable. And I think you've got a middle area of debate there, which I think, and which I assume the training course will actually allow people to discuss and bring those sorts of things out into the open.

[Roger Bolton]

Phil Harding, thank you very much.

[Phil Harding]

Thank you.

[Roger Bolton]

Now, a brief interlude in the incestuous world of television. Or perhaps not, because our next witness is Neil Midgley, a former corporate lawyer turned journalist. He's been at the Daily Telegraph for three years, where he's group TV and radio editor. Neil, over to you.

[Neil Midgley]

Hi. Hello, everyone. Yes, as Roger was just saying, I probably come at this from a slightly different perspective from the other witnesses tonight because I don't and never have worked in TV or particularly in factual journalistic tv, as I think most of my compatriots here tonight have done. And so my job really is to sort of stand on the shore and watch these waves coming in week after week, which isn't always an edifying task. The question that we're posed tonight is can we still trust tv? And I actually, in manner of lawyer, want to take issue with the question, because I think if the question is, can we trust in TV right now, then I think the answer has to be yes. I mean, if we can't trust what the people are putting out at the BBC and ITV in Channel 4 at the moment, after all this endless neurosis and forensic investigation over the summer, that I don't think we're ever going to be able to, can we still trust in tv Implies that there is a continuity of that, and I think there isn't necessarily. I think there has been. People are pulling their socks up and I hear anecdotes from people who make programs all the time about the ways in which they are now being compartmentalized by Compliance officers and forms and fear in a way that they never used to be. And in genres that haven't that much been picked up on tonight, you know, we talked about Wife Swap and Superman and so forth, but even in drama, people are getting this now. So there is this culture of neurosis and I don't think that's necessarily helpful. I also want to pick up on what Phil was saying about proportionality of response.

[Roger Graef]

Really.

[Neil Midgley]

We didn't see the video at the beginning, which I think was a shame because it would have refreshed our memories as to what has actually happened this year. Just to very quickly run through a list. The whole thing kicked off with Richard and Judy. We've had. And you say we pay. We had the GMTV fraud, we had Queengate, we had the first Blue Peter incident, we had the Malcolm and Barbara. Did he die? Did he not die? We had the second Blue Peter round and all the other BBC stuff that's come out and we've had Noddygate. Well, out of all of that, the bulk of those incidents are about interactive TV in some way. They're about phone ins or votes or revenue rating. Malcolm and Barbara and the Queen, neither of those were. Were criticized for what actually went on screen on the channel. It was about the promotion beforehand. So of all of, unless I've missed a major incident in that list, the only one which is where we're talking about criticism of programs that are actually on screen is poor old Alan Yentop and possibly a few people at five doing their noddies. And so I think on that basis it's important to keep it in perspective. And I personally don't think that 16,000 program makers at the BBC need the chips in their heads reprogramming. And I don't think Michael Gray needs to stand up and shout zero tolerance as if he's Rudy Giuliani in the South Bronx on a particularly rough day. You've got to. And Andy Duncan is Kite, Mike K Kite Mark idea. Equally an overreaction, I think, especially from a broadcaster which purports to want to nurture small indies which by their very nature aren't going to have huge training and compliance budgets. And just finally on that point about budgets, I think there is a, you know, the trust meeting, the BBC trust meeting on Wednesday. As far as I understand it, the two major points of discussion were this whole trust fakery thing, but also the reprioritization and budgets exercise that the BBC is going through at the moment. And it's obvious, it's certainly obvious to me, in a commercial media organisation where there's always pressure on budget, that if you cut and cut and cut and cut the budget and you expect the same product or more product, sooner or later the quality is going to decrease. And there has to be in this whole exercise at the BBC in particular, some bravery. And Mark Thompson has to say we are going to cut hundreds and hundreds of hours of stuff which is just not core to our mission and we are going to leave proper budgets in place for the hours of output which are core to our mission. And I think the attacks on Stock Storyville in particular show that that bravery is not happening at the BBC. And I think that's very sad.

[Roger Bolton]

Now, Neil, you talked about an overreaction, not obviously in the case of the fraud, but specifically in the BBC. To what extent do you think the print media have a responsibility for that? Peter Wilby said in a piece from Guardian why right wingers are on the warpath. He said the web has turned the broadcast and print media into direct range newspapers. Now they've discovered they can't charge for content, must attract visitors whom advertisers will pay to reach the BBC news website. Still, the market leader doesn't have to worry about that. When you read the Daily Mail, for example, and the way it's dealt with it, do you think that the press bear a great deal of responsibility for hyping this crisis?

[Neil Midgley]

I'm not going to take any responsibility for the Daily Mail, but is it.

[Roger Bolton]

Your observation that the fellow members, fellow journalists in the print media media may have hyped this?

[Neil Midgley]

Well, I think we do have some responsibility yet and journalists will always look for a good story. Print journalists as much as any other. And people care about TV in a way that they don't care about the peace process in the Middle East.

[Roger Bolton]

But the suggestion is also there's an agenda. Is it an entire coincidence that the Daily Mirror, Daily Mail gives the prominence it does to these issues and kicks hard? They're not a disinterested group. I think the argument is, no, they're not.

[Neil Midgley]

But I don't think that's necessarily because they're commercial competitors online with the BBC. The Daily Mail has a well known anti BBC agenda and it's probably fuelled by that. I certainly, knowing as I know how the news agenda is formed at the Telegraph and we now compete with online for video news viewers as much as we compete for print news readers with the BBC. But that doesn't inform our editorial agendas as far as I know.

[Mark Stevens]

Mark, yours, you're talking really about trust in two concepts. You're talking about trust the facts which are coming out of the BBC and the ITV and everywhere else. You're saying that that's trust facts, that's okay because they're under very careful scrutiny at the moment and therefore there's not a problem. But that ignores trust in judgment. And it seems to me that the editorial decisions that were being talked about earlier, those calls are not apparent to the viewer. And it seems to me that that's where the trust is eroded. Would you agree with that?

[Neil Midgley]

Well, I'm not sure whether viewers actually have lost trust in the editorial judgments of the people who are making the programs of the producers and the directors and the editors. I think there is or at least ought to be an erosion of trust in the judgment of the people who are running the networks because their response to the this has been so craven and so disproportionate and so backside covering.

[Mark Stevens]

Well, it's not just this event, is it? I mean, the big watershed ebb away of trust was back in 2003 when there was a 48% fall in trust according to the ITC Trust Survey that was carried out that year, which was on top of a 28% fall the previous year. And it seemed to have gone on ever since. And undoubtedly we're going to see a big surge this year. So your point really is about a lack of leadership, is it? What would your remedy be for the leadership then that you're not seeing at the moment?

[Neil Midgley]

Well, I think one of the former witnesses was talking about keeping this in proportion and the fact that Mark Thompson, for example, has been too hair shirt in his response. And I think, you know, there is an instant response. If you've libelled if you're Peter Fincham and you've libelled the Queen, then you have to go on Newsnight and you have to bow and scrape. And that is absolutely as it should be. But when it comes to the coal light of the day and the dust settles, I think Mark Thompson needs to take leadership and say more clearly, I think, than he has done, that the vast bulk of the people who work for him and the Indies who supply him are perfectly trustworthy and perfectly competent and they don't need to be reprogrammed.

[Mark Stevens]

But do you feel that there is any problem at the moment in the structure? I mean, we talked earlier with, with Mr. Harding about the possibility of there being more space to enable people to say there are errors being made or that this program won't work and not Actually forcing it to air in some kind of buggered form. Is that a responsibility that you see as being firmly grasped by people at the top?

[Neil Midgley]

Not as far as I can see. And I don't know what the whistleblowing policies are at the BBC, but it doesn't seem to me. I think there was the woman, Leona McCambridge from 6 Music, who I understand it was fired, having blown the whistle. That's just outrageous. There must be a better structure in place. And the BBC, as has been said, is insulated from commercial pressures. And should.

[Mark Stevens]

I think it's just the BBC, is it. I mean, Channel 4 has the same problems.

[Neil Midgley]

Well, yes, but Channel 4 is under commercial pressure in a way that the BBC isn't. The BBC certainly has a responsibility to lead the way in creating a culture of honesty and openness.

[Mark Stevens]

Let's just look at this issue of trust a little more, perhaps in a slightly different way, which is about institutional bias. Does that strike at trust, do you think? The fact that Lyons is perceived to be Brown's poodle, should that cause the public to have more trust or less trust?

[Neil Midgley]

Well, my personal experience from interviewing Sir Michael Irons is that he's nobody's poodle.

[Mark Stevens]

But he would tell you that, wouldn't he?

[Neil Midgley]

He would tell me that, yes. But I don't think there's any governmental agenda that you could see in what's happened over the summer in terms of how the trust has responded. I mean, if there was a. A repeat of the Gilligan problems, then you would find whether he's a government poodle or not, you've got to have a system. I think the BBC does need a system. If the question is, is the trust in somebody or other's pocket in all of this? The BBC does need, I think, a unique form of regulation. I don't think Ofcom will cut it.

[Mark Stevens]

Well, let's just move on to. To look at the Gilligan situation. The government's attacks on the BBC, do they erode trust?

[Neil Midgley]

Well, it depends whether you agree with them or not.

[Roger Graef]

I mean.

[Neil Midgley]

Well, my view still is that Alastair Campbell threw his toys out of the pram and wouldn't stop, and the fault largely lies with him. Even if, you know, Gilligan did.

[Roger Graef]

Sex.

[Neil Midgley]

Up the truth in his report.

[Phil Harding]

There.

[Neil Midgley]

Has to be, I think, a moderate debate. For the government to take part in any kind of debate, it has to be moderate and reasoned. And I think when there's hysteria, you know, you talk about the print media being hysterical. As soon as you get hysteria from Any powerful constituency, then you get a warped debate.

[Mark Stevens]

Yeah, you may have a warped debate, but you've got the public CAS that there's a problem in the political arena in the Trust, with the BBC. You've got a problem with perceived institutional bias at the station. You're seeing perceived problems with concerns about truth and honesty and the judgment of people making those things. Yet you still say that this is some minor problem that we should have no concern about.

[Neil Midgley]

I don't think it's a minor problem. And the number of column inches that my newspaper and every other one give to it show that it's not a minor problem. But I think it's one that has to be kept in proportion. And the way, partially the way to rebuild trust in the BBC is for Mark Thompson to show why the BBC is trustworthy instead of kicking the people beneath your witness.

[Mark Stevens]

Thanks.

[Roger Bolton]

Any time for a couple of questions from the audience? Yeah, we'll take one there and one at the back. Gentlemen, here first, please.

[Laurie Flynn]

Yeah, I'm Peter Thompson, I'm from World Press Centre. In 1990, governments agreed to use it, that's the World bank, to enable all of the delegations to start putting news material together so that all journalists could see the latest stuff at big set piece news events like that. But putting at the moment the. It has been left out of this conversation as the underlying cause of the budgetary. The fact that there's more and more channels, more and more ways for users, for the citizen to get news that has been left out of the discussion. And the clear and obvious solution that is available to us is to invite all of the world's sources of news material to actually put together an independent, user driven stream of the latest stuff about breaking news direct from sources that take responsibility for their own stuff. And then people can actually see what journalists do with that stuff and whether they add value, whether they evaluate it, whether they misreport it, any of those kinds of issues. It's a very cheap solution. It could save the BBC a hell of a lot of money. All other broadcasters and we might be able to see who actually is bearing the responsibility for having seen something and reported it accurately.

[Roger Bolton]

All right, thank you, lady off the back there. Yep.

[Audience Member]

Alex Nellis. I work within Public Relations. I'd like to ask, Neil, the question posed today has been can we still trust tv? However, in your capacity as a lawyer turned journalist, do you think the question should be and what do you think of the question? Can we still trust those who guard the guardians, namely Ofcom or the regulatory bodies.

[Neil Midgley]

Well, I mean, I think the trust in the regulatory bodies is one issue. Trust, I think, in senior management, actually. Can we trust senior management at the broadcasters is probably a more pertinent question, because they are the people who day to day have to both regulate and motivate the people that work for them. And I think they have been found wanting. I don't think, actually you might criticise the trust, for example, for moving quite slowly, but I don't think it's actually been found wanting in the way that it's fulfilled its regulatory brief. And I don't think OFCOM can be considered toothless either. So I'd focus more on the senior management than the regulators.

[Roger Bolton]

Neil Mitchley, thanks very much. Two more witnesses to go, and the first of these is Stephen Whittle. He used to run religious programs at the BBC, became controller of Editorial Policy. He's a former director of the Broadcasting Standards Commission and currently he's chair of the Broadcast Training and Skills regulator.

[Stephen Whittle]

Stephen, thank you. Gosh, that's a reminder of pasts I've forgotten. I also feel a little bit as if I've stumbled into a conclave of cardinals here, because we've had a lot of talk all evening about sackcloth and ashes and sin and eternal punishment. Let me move from the conclave to the law courts, where two lawyers punished partners were having lunch and one suddenly, very startled, turned to the other and said, oh, my God, I've left the office safe open. To which the reply was, don't worry, we're both here. I mention that because in another capacity, I regulate solicitors. And actually, what you've got here is, it seems to me, a very parallel example, because does the fact that around 5% of the profession cause enormous problems for the 95% of relatively honest lawyers mean that every lawyer is necessarily bent? And if you actually look at the record again of both Ofcom and its predecessor bodies, then the numbers of times on which broadcasters are really found to be massively wanting when it comes to fairness or privacy issues is actually, compared to the number of hours being broadcast, relatively small. That doesn't mean, of course, as others have made clear this evening, that we don't have an issue, we don't have a problem. Though I think one of the encouraging things is, and this debate is another example of it, of the fact that it demonstrates that we all have an enormous interest in broadcasting still, despite all of the other opportunities that are around. And of course, when it comes to the BBC, there is no such thing as a disinterested person. But it's also worth remembering, I think, that broadcasters do in fact, enjoy levels of trust that MPs and estate agents would die for. And even despite the events of the summer, I think that does, broadly speaking, remain true. And let me say it again, that actually, probably, well, indeed, we know the trust that they enjoy is a great deal higher still than for the newspapers, be they tabloid or broadsheet. But increasingly, of course, we live in a changing culture and a changing society. And I guess it's inevitable that as a part of that changing culture and changing society, broadcasters reflect not only the good but also the bad. And some of the issues that have been raised already around the increasing importance of competition within the sector, the increasing importance of the making of money within the sector. Once upon a time, money was used to make programs rather than the other way around. And also the consequential changes that have impacted on all broadcasters, both from the rise of the independent sector, from the continuing desire to cut and make the most effective use of resources, but most particularly in the way in which people are recruited to the industry leaves a lot to be desired. And some of the assumptions that we could once take for granted clearly can no longer be held to be as reliable as once they were. Osmosis no longer works. And clearly, as well, the terms of employment under which people work has got to be a major challenge for the industry across the entire sector. The body I chair, Broadcast Training and Skills Regulator, had a meeting of freelancers in London in the summer. The people who came to that meeting, 60% of them had never been asked by any employer, and most of them had had six in the course of a year as a regular part of their work. None of them had ever been asked by any of their employers, sorry, 60%, mustn't get it wrong, had never been asked by any of the employers whether they'd been trained. Now, I think that's where some of these issues lie. They lie at the top in terms of approaches to employment, approaches to training which leave a lot to be desired, and similarly at the middle and the bottom in terms of actually ensuring that the people who are working on these programs do have any sense whatsoever of what they need to be and to do. So I think what we've got here is actually a window of opportunity around ensuring that people are properly recruiting, recruited into an industry where they get an apprenticeship, because judgment cannot be taught in a classroom. It has to be part of a process in which you see a program through from beginning to end. So I'll just finish at that point, I think in terms of this actually providing an opportunity, the bicycle is not actually off the road. It's a question of making quite sure that it remains on the road and working properly.

[Roger Bolton]

So, Stephen, you would. Those people have tried to say somehow these younger people are less moral than we were when we were involved. You say that's rubbish.

[Stephen Whittle]

Yeah, I think it's a combination of things. I mean, I think, you know, there's certainly the fact that they live under a much greater pressure of delivery and a much greater delivery, a much greater pressure around where the next contract is coming from. So in that circumstance, clearly you're not going to be the first person to say I failed. You're going to be the person who is hopefully always on the ball and getting it right. So I think it's much to do with the culture of a program, much to do with the culture of a network.

[Roger Bolton]

And how about the culture of the management, A much more highly paid management than when you and I started in broadcasting. Do you think that they are in danger of watching, washing their hands to a degree of the situation that they're supervising and taking drastic and in some cases unfair action on young people?

[Stephen Whittle]

I think they've all actually seen it as a rather substantial wake up call. That's my reading of what's going on. And actually I think you're going to see, I hope anyway, a great deal more attention paid to trying to deal with some of the underlying issues. And clearly there are difficulties around balancing, on the one hand, the requirements around independent production, and on the other hand clearly about delivering effective and efficient program making. But Nigel was making the point very forcefully and I think quite rightly about concentrating on your core output and making absolutely sure that that is actually properly funded and properly seen through.

[Roger Bolton]

But for some people, just vital question, it sticks in their throats that young people are encouraged to come forward and confess things that they believe may be wrong. When they've done that, certainly in one instance, they then got fired. Do you think that's a particularly moral way for management to behave?

[Stephen Whittle]

Well, if that were the case, then clearly no, I'm not quite sure that is exactly the case as it is, I think, I mean, again, the BBC and ITV and for all I know, Channel 4 too have got a whistleblowing policy. You can find it on their website. You might want to ask whether or not it's the best whistleblowing policy, because, for example, the BBC's whistleblowing policy puts an awful lot of reliance in the end on anonymity. And confidential helplines, which in itself creates, doesn't it, a sort of slight sense of a culture that is not going to be seen supportive of the whistleblower, that the likely outcome of your blowing the whistle is indeed that something untoward is going to happen rather than it's dealt with in an open way.

[Mark Stevens]

Mark, you spoke, Mr. Whittle, about the pressure of delivery and contract. How would you change that pressure to enable things to improve for the future? If you're still in post, what are you going to be doing tomorrow to make things better, to reassure everyone?

[Stephen Whittle]

Well, the body I chair, in fact, although it's called, it's a co regulatory body between OFCOM and the broadcasters and for that matter skill set, which is the training provider within the industry. And I think clearly one of the things that we are doing are as part of our responsibility is getting people at the very top of the broadcasting organizations to understand that training is not an optional extra, it's actually core. It's absolutely central, not only obviously to a successful creative future, but also to a successful and well running business.

[Mark Stevens]

The problems that we have though is because we have this kind of bifurcated system. The challenge is that the broadcasters at one level are responsible for their people and may train them, may actually have the budgets to do so, but where's the incentive on the people below that, the independent sector, where are they going to get the incentive and the money to actually train people who are actually not going to be with them at all?

[Stephen Whittle]

Well, of course the broadcasters are perfectly free to provide training. Certainly in the compliance area where we've had some of the issues around this summer, it's perfectly within the power and possibility of broadcasting organisations to actually work together to provide good compliance training for the independent and freelance sector. And equally, it would be clearly easily possible too for broadcasters to say, unless someone can demonstrate that they've been on one of these courses, got some kind of certificate of competence, then they're not people that should be working on any production. For us, that's one of the ways in which.

[Mark Stevens]

So you see that as a contractual change in the sort of packed terms, do you?

[Stephen Whittle]

Well, I also wonder in terms of the kind of level of fines that are now coming out of ofcom, whether you won't find prenuptials in contracts between broadcasters and independent production companies.

[Mark Stevens]

Talking about standards, you seem to imply that we're entitled to trust in television. How would you define that bond of honesty, that bond of trust between viewer and program maker and broadcaster?

[Stephen Whittle]

Well, Laurie and others have talked about the fact that we actually live in a much more mediate, literate circumstance society. And Phil talked about the fact that audiences are indeed quite savvy. And I think actually, broadcasters underestimate audiences absolutely at their peril. People hate being talked down to. I find it most intriguing myself that in a society where more people are at university than any time in our history as a society, you wouldn't necessarily get that impression from watching television in terms of tone, in terms of use of language, in terms of the depth with which people go into issues. Honourable exceptions, of course, but, you know, clearly you underestimate people at your peril. And that, of course, is a very, ultimately, a very commercial issue for broadcasters.

[Mark Stevens]

Do you think that there's a coherent set of criteria for what's acceptable in terms of compliance and trust issues, or do you think it's a bit like an elephant? You know one when you see it?

[Stephen Whittle]

No, I mean, I think if you look at the OFCOM code, for example, there you have a very clear principle set out. The rule in support, or the rules in support of the principle, and guidance for the ways in which you can ensure that you meet with the requirements of. Of both the principle and the rule. None of this is actually rocket science. There are, from time to time, of course, peculiarities of the sort that Roger was talking to earlier in terms of really difficult and sometimes ambiguous situations. But for the most part, it's not, as I say, it's not like dancing on the head of a pin.

[Mark Stevens]

Do you think, then, that last question, do you think then that the regulators are doing a perfect job, or do you think they've got lessons to learn here, too?

[Stephen Whittle]

Well, I think clearly one of the things that's happened as a result of the summer is that ofcom, in terms of the regulator with financial teeth, is clearly making it very clear to broadcasters that they are responsible for what they broadcast, no matter who provides it. Which in turn is going to encourage broadcasters, I assume, to ask much more searching questions about how material gets to them.

[Charlie Beckett]

Thanks so much.

[Roger Bolton]

We're a bit pressed for time, so just one question, if anybody wants to raise it. Yeah, gentleman in the middle there, if we could get, Sorry, a bit disenfranchised. I will come to you next, because I haven't asked anybody up there two questions then. Yeah.

[Roger Graef]

Do you not think that if media.

[Mark Stevens]

Say, 10 or 20 or even 30 years ago, has been subject to the same scrutiny that it's been subject to over the last six months, similar things come to light?

[Stephen Whittle]

Yeah, I think there's nothing new about pressure in the media. And equally, you know, there's always been a sort of, I suppose, a tension, if you like, between the people who come from the factual side of the house, where essentially there's a whole set of assumptions, not to say rules about accuracy, for example, and fairness, and those who come more often from the entertainment side of the house, where the pressure is that the show must go on. And I think perhaps one of the dangers of the mixing of genre is actually that you get the confusion then between fact and fiction.

[Roger Bolton]

Gentleman there. Can I just speak loudly? Oh, you have got a mic.

[Stephen Whittle]

Sorry.

[Roger Bolton]

Just speak loudly.

[Stephen Whittle]

I've been doing a Master's for a.

[Mark Stevens]

Full week and a half on broadcast journalism every day. We heard about Alan Gate, to be honest.

[Audience Member]

Absolutely sick.

[Mark Stevens]

The back teeth of it.

I think it's really just unimportant.

Ms. Harding talks about commissioning tolerance and.

Ms. Commission about diminishing budgets.

[Stephen Whittle]

So in the 21st century, is it.

[Mark Stevens]

Simply more important that the problem of trust?

Is that the most important thing, ultimately curing.

Sorry, is the problem of commissioning the.

Most important thing, ultimately?

Will curing that cure the problem of trust?

[Neil Midgley]

Commissioning is just not enough for the budgets aren't higher.

[Stephen Whittle]

I think the biggest challenge for broadcasters over the next 10 years is going to be to continue to engage with the kind of audience, audiences they currently engage with. And in my belief, they are only going to do that by having utterly distinctive offerings to make for people, of which trust is a very important component. But it's going to be about the whole range of quality, imagination, innovation, creativity and indeed addressing issues people want addressed. Those are going to be the challenges for broadcasters of which trust is most obviously a part. But it's only a part.

[Roger Bolton]

Stephen Whittle, thank you very much. We now come to our final witness, David Elsteen, who spent, I think, eight months at the BBC at the age of 20, but then went on to be chief executive 5 director of programmes at Thames, worked for sky, is now chairman of the British Screen Advisory Council. And much else. David?

[Mark Stevens]

Thank you, Roger. Actually, it was four years at the BBC, but it was a long time ago. I was one of those general trainees who never had a day of training being paid as much as I was. £975 a year. I was put straight to work. And you learn on the job. Can we just clear up a few things? This is not an economic issue. The BBC has an income of 3.2 billion pounds a year. For week after week, the Liz Kershaw show on Radio 6 pretended to be Live, invited people to phone in, announce fake widows. It's simply impossible for that to have happened without management knowledge. And it's simply impossible for that to have happened without a culture of immunity and impunity. What we have seen emerging from the BBC in its very simplistic tip of the iceberg investigation is a short period of introspection. Tell us what's gone wrong, take the risk of being fired if you tell us. And that's it. On March 14, the BBC admitted to the first of the Blue Peter scandal. Publicly, Mark Thompson apologized. Two days later, Comic Relief did a fake phone in. Did anyone notice what the Director General had said? Did anyone care? And yet, what is it that we don't trust? It's worth remembering that it was a BBC Panorama episode that fully exposed the Blue Peter scandal and indeed in the same program, completely demolished gmtv, eventually forcing it the next day to abandon most of its programming and spend its time apologizing. I can't remember how many times I saw Paul Corley, the since resigned Managing Director, appearing on the program. What you had to ask yourself is how could senior broadcasters allow onto the air such an utterly flawed method of involving their viewers and indeed ripping them off? I mean, they wouldn't allow it. In terms of writing a news bulletin, why was this tolerated? Now, the only slight difference between now and the past, because there have been loads of these scandals in the past, is the interactivity vogue. Because of red button technology, because of phone ins, because of texting, because commercial TV could make money out of all of that activity. Virtually every program on the air went down that route and the BBC followed suit, even though it wasn't making money. But what you got was a contempt for the participators. Who cares if they voted for cookie rather than socks? We prefer socks. Who cares who won the competition? We've got someone in the studio who can turn up and pretend they won the competition. When you have that view of your audience, something is deeply wrong. Now, it is true, of course, that for the most part, the outcomes are trivial. Does it matter? Well, for me it matters in cultural terms, because when an organization allows this to be so prevalent, seems to have so little by way of investigative impulse, has such a deeply flawed governance system as the BBC has, it is not surprising that over a period of time you lose trust. 25 years ago, when I was a current affairs editor, I discovered that an episode of a BBC series called Inside Story, which purported to show how a cupboard had been found in a barn in Wales and emerged from this dust and obscurity to become a prized antique which made its way through a series of shops into Islington and finally to Boston. It was called Inside Story because it was telling you an unusual inside story. Complete fake. John Creed, the Islington antiques dealer, had provided the BBC with a cupboard in the first place, and it was put in the Welsh barn to start the program off. It took me many weeks to persuade the editor of Inside Story to come clean and admit it. In those days, at least, there was a BBC program called the Editors, of which he could do his Mayor Culpas. As Roger rightly points out, there is no such program on the BBC at the moment because the BBC doesn't care. It's not a core value. And this is a serious problem, because what it then tips over into is a much, much bigger issue, which is loss of control of your core values. And one key core value here is impartiality. Some of you may have read a report published in June called From Seesaw to Wagon Wheel. It was an interesting, though limited, investigation into episodes where the BBC seemed to have lost control of its obligation to impartiality. The most significant episode was when the campaigning group Make Poverty History captured a drama and an episode of the Vicar of Dipoli and almost captured a live rock concert. And the BBC tried to keep the insurgents at bay and substantially succeeded in one case, completely failed in the other two. Again, not a lot was at stake. But actually, I know of a much, much worse breach of the impartiality rules, probably the worst in the BBC's entire history, which for four years I've been trying to get the BBC to investigate. Absolutely refuses. And by the way, before we all get highly moral about the BBC, Laurie, I'm sorry to say that the Guardian published a piece of the same evidence a year ago. Twelve letters later, I still have not got the BBC, the Guardian, to correct the most egregious error in its entire history. I've written to the chairman of the Scott Trust, the editor of the newspaper, the ombudsman, the journalist concerned, three times, the letters editor, three times. Nobody will take it seriously. So what we have here is, whom do I trust? I certainly don't trust the BBC editorially. I will never do a prerecorded interview for the BBC because I don't trust their editing. And when I say, when I'm asked, will you do a prerecord? And I say, if you let me see your edited version? And they say, oh, that's against our editorial guidelines, I say, fine, I'll Go live or not at all. This is serious stuff because what you need is accountability and transparency of procedure. When I was running the this Week program, I only had one rule for my staff. Expect what you do to become public. That was an important discipline and I'm sorry, I disagree with Phil. Zero tolerance does not lead to zero risk. Zero tolerance leads to calculated risk. It leads to discipline. It leads to a knowledge that if your story doesn't stand up, it will be kicked out. I came within two hours of putting out a half hour program driven by a key interviewee. And finally, just before, before transmission, we worked out he was a fraud and dumped the program. You've got to have internalized into your culture this approach to what it is that you do. Can you be trusted? I also had a rule that every transcript of every interview was available to the interviewee so they could check after transmission whether we had edited them. Fair. That was another interesting discipline for my staff. And I think the point we have here is that the BBC simply doesn't take this seriously enough. It's got a flawed governance system in that the BBC trust is not sufficiently detached, isn't sufficiently experienced. Even Ofcom, by my standards, lacks the professionalism and rigour with which it ought to be investigating complaints. I've watched the BBC complaint system at work. It sucks. It is completely lacking in credibility. And calling in ex BBC executives to investigate BBC misdemeanors. What does that tell you about the organisation? That it doesn't trust us. So why should we trust it?

[Roger Bolton]

David, thanks very much. I'm afraid you wouldn't find any transcripts nowadays because on the whole the programs can't afford them. But can I just be clear about what your remedy is? You identify a failing culture, an inadequate system of governance. What do you propose to restore what you believe, or perhaps create what you should believe. Be a correct culture.

[Mark Stevens]

A tough independent external regulator with powers of scrutiny, access to all emails and the ability to fine all fines to be paid by the board of management.

[Roger Bolton]

So that means no BBC trust. Perhaps what, an even more empowered ofcom?

[Mark Stevens]

Yes, but a much more, a much better resourced Ofcom. I've seen a complaint go through Ofcom and with the best win in the world, you know, it was Amityville night at the Glasgow Palais. You know, they did their best, but they had virtually no resources to examine the documents, no ability to scrutinize, no ability to cross examine. You know, if Mark Stevens is available, I'd hired him plus a bunch of others to do the job. It's just too important to leave to a sub. You know, they wouldn't do it with regulating bt so why do they do it with regulating editorial content?

[Roger Bolton]

This has not been an audition for that job, has it?

[Mark Stevens]

Heaven forbid.

Mark, you talk about Mr. Elsteen loss of key core values, particularly impartiality. Yet you are also suggesting dump the BBC Trust and go for a revved up version of Ofcom. But do you think that even a revved up version of Ofcom is going to sit on something like there's something about Maria which seems to me nothing more than an advertorial for Andrew Lloyd Webber's next musical paid for at the expense of the license fee pair.

Well, I declare an interest. I used to chair one of Andrew Lloyd Webber's businesses. I was astonished when something About Maria went to air. But you know what? It actually worked for the audience. It was completely transparent in what it was doing.

[Stephen Whittle]

Nobody was disturbed.

[Mark Stevens]

It wasn't as if Andrew turned up in disguise and pretended to be somebody else or got Bill Kenwright to mount the production. And I'm sure the BBC was suspicious of the whole thing. They may never do it again or not a third time because they did it twice. And interestingly, if you were Andrew Lloyd Webber, you, you would feel a bit of grief because they then took the format, sold it to US television and cut him out of the deal. That's life.

What goes around comes around cynicism. Where do you think that this actually comes from? You spoke about it. And the sort of contempt that people in the chattering classes who work at Television Centre and elsewhere in Horsebury Road seem to have for the viewers. Why do you think that is? Where has it come from? Because it didn't used to be there.

I don't agree with you. It's been there for a long time. Ten years ago we had the crisis over driving school because Maureen was shown in an episode sitting up in bed at two o' clock in the morning and saying to her husband, I must go for a test drive. And people said the BBC crew couldn't have been there. This must be a recreation. Why wasn't it labeled recreation? And I remember going to a. A governor's conference packed out with people like Brian Lapping speaking eloquently against these terrible things. And Peter Taylor, 40 years experience reporting Northern Ireland and other things, saying every time the BBC does something like this, it must put a label up. Okay? We're 10 years on and we can't even label a fake phone in. This is a fake phone. In don't bother to tell.

But do you think then that the Ofcom is actually as effective as say, ICDIs, which does seem to be a fairly effective regulator? I mean, we saw the quarter million pound fine yesterday, whereas we don't seem to see OFCOM dishing out fines with quite the same alacrity and regularity.

Well, wait a bit. I think we're going to see a big, big fine for itv, a big, big fine for GMTV and a lot of additional rules. Look, Ofcom is learning its job. It's only whatever it is, 4 years old, 5 years old, and there's more to come. And I really hope that Ed Richards addresses the issue of resourcing his complaints department and making sure that every broadcaster is aware that the regulator is there looking for you with those fines.

Maybe they've got the money to fund the lawyers.

[Roger Bolton]

Just to. Time for two questions again. Right, lady there, third row and I'll take the one behind. Sorry, sir.

[Roger Graef]

Right.

[Mark Stevens]

The mic's right behind you because it was given to the lady behind you, but, well, intervened Bill Ford in my name I'm found the president of.

[Laurie Flynn]

The International Communications Forum, which embraces some.

[Mark Stevens]

3,000 media fellow in 117 countries. Compared with finding trust between the media and the readers, listeners and viewers. And I'm just thinking about what we've been discussing tonight. Think about what we've been discussing tonight. That cheating on who won prizes seems to me to be small beer as compared with the overall dragging down impact of many TV programs on the values of the viewers. And I state the example of my beautiful, bright teenage granddaughter who became a drug addict and a vodka drinker. She says as a result of getting the impression from TV items on pseudo celebrities and soaps that drug taking and loose living was a cool and desirable way of life. When she decided to turn her back on it, it took two years, including a 14 week leadership course in Australia, for her to become a free and delightful person again. Well, I think that it's not the role of our television to cause this destructive influence on the younger generation. Can you be sure it wasn't watching looking at stills of ladies with no noses in the Daily Telegraph that got her down this route? I mean, well, a lot of things got her down, but that's. She thought it was television what done it. She thought it was that.

[Roger Bolton]

Can I ask you, please.

[Mark Stevens]

Anyway, I don't want to go on.

[Roger Bolton]

To the negative because we're running out of time.

[Mark Stevens]

We can give a positive role.

[Roger Bolton]

Thank you, sir. Lady behind.

[Audience Member]

Hi, Mr. Elstein. When I listened to your talk just now, it echoes some of the themes that I heard, heard Al Gore speak about recently when he was talking about his rationale for starting his web TV outlet called Current tv. And Current tv, for other people here who don't know, it is effectively a citizens journalist form of broadcasting utilizing a different medium and technology. And he basically said, you know, that there was so much corruption and lack of accountability and sort of arrogance in major media outlets that he was affected, effectively driven to create something that was more transparent. And so do you think that by the BBC and these significant broadcast brands, by not addressing the accountability problem, they are sowing the seeds of their own demise and enabling the current TVs of the world?

[Mark Stevens]

Well, look, I don't want to deprecate Current TV because I'm sure it will add something, but let's not confuse user generated content with editorial rigor. The BBC enjoys a huge residue of affection and trust amongst the public. Absolutely massive. It can easily recover its reputation if it chooses to. What it lacks is the will to do it because it's worried about independence, editorial integrity. That's not the answer. The answer is scrutiny, accountability, that's what's needed. You don't need the Internet to put this right, you need the BBC to put it right.

[Roger Bolton]

I'm afraid we're going to have to stop there at this point. Thank you, David Elsteen. We're now going to proceed to our vote. We're slightly overrunning, but thank you very much for staying. But I, I do want to know what you think. And remember, it's not just the BBC. The question is, can we trust television? All those who think we can trust television, please put your hands up. And all those who think we can't, I would say it's about four, three in favour of saying we can't trust television. Thank you very much for listening.

[Roger Graef]

I'm John May from the media site.

[Neil Midgley]

If you could just stay still for a minute or two, please.

[Mark Stevens]

Can we thank Roger and Mark, please.

[Neil Midgley]

Who'Ve done a splendid job in bringing alive. There is reception afterwards, so you don't have to brush off this free wine.

[Mark Stevens]

Few other people to thank.

[Neil Midgley]

Broadcaster sponsored the wine. LSE Media Group also co sponsored it, so did Polis.

[Mark Stevens]

And Charlie Beckett has been a joy to work with. We won't thank nasty Nick who said.

[Neil Midgley]

He'D come and then didn't come. Nor Mr. Paul Watson who said he'd come and didn't come. Finally, on November 15, there's a dream event. Nick Clark died a year ago. And on November 15, we have an.

[Mark Stevens]

Event on the art of interviewing with.

[Neil Midgley]

Jeremy Paxman, with John Snow, with Kirsty Young, with Jim Nocketee and Peter Sissons. It's in the Council chamber. Broadcasting House tickets will be absolute gold. US if you want to buy a ticket, Dorothy, Jose over the back will help you to buy one.

[Mark Stevens]

But thank you all very much.

[Neil Midgley]

We may just try to run the video again. Or maybe we will.

[Mark Stevens]

It's on the website. If not.

[Roger Graef]

Phil, do you want to come have a go?

[Mark Stevens]

Thank you anyway for coming.