From Seesaw to Wagon Wheel

What would you do if you worked at the BBC and :

1.The Rolling Stones offered you exclusivity to their last ever concert which was in aid of charity or

2. a women newsreader was getting married in a village in Pakistan with two correspondents as guests and Osama Bin Laden turns up.

These were some of the hypothesis given at a seminar last autumn and were designed to test its staff's attitudes impartiality.

The strange thing is that the BBC was never set up to be impartial.Its remit was to broadcast a range of programmes to the reasonable satisfaction of the Post Master General.
By the time of its first royal charter in 1926,it was allowed to collect "news and information relating to current events.......... that in any manner it felt fit to do"

Times have changed since the days of 2LO and monopoly broadcasting and the BBC Trust has produced a report on the corporation impartiality and its safeguarding thereof.

Its main conclusions and criticisms centre on its failure to promote proper debate on major political issues because of the inherent liberal culture of its staff.

In particular,what it describes as themed seasons and campaigns,come under scrutiny.
When the corporation gives too much publicity to the causes.it concludes that the BBC is not there "to give a free ride",and with the themed seasons,there is "potential for problems with a lack of clear editorial accountability.

The report,lengthy to say the least, produces 12 guiding principles for the corporation amongst which are:

• That impartiality should beside being a legal requirement be also a source of pride
• that it is an essential part of the contract with the audience/funders of the corporation
• in today's diverse cultural,political and social landscape,balanced political reporting is even more important
• that it covers the breathe of view and is not necessarily the middle ground
• impartiality should not lead to insipid programming

One particular occasion where impartiality may have been breached was the broadcast of the Live 8 concerts in 2005.It was a political campaign intended to excert pressure on the G8 meeting at Gleneagles.The BBC was forced to cull some of the between sets action as it was deemed to be almost urging the crowd into an anti BBC rage.

The Vicar of Dibley also comes in for criticism for promoting the same cause.The sitcom braodact in 2005 never made clear the link between its writer Richard Curtis and the make poverty history campaign.

Finally Citizen journalism and in particular the usage of UGC were flagged as issues for the future.The BBC has to balance its exclusivity against editorial control.