“Some of my best friends work for the BBC, but…” That ancient
cliché of prejudice seems a fitting epigraph for a few thoughts on a
favourite journalistic habit: sniping at the Corporation for flagrant
waste of the licence fee. Note that I say (with unwonted modesty) “a
few thoughts”. I am not qualified to claim more than that, and very few
others are either. That is the problem with the BBC – it’s far too
big for anyone to understand all of it. But that doesn’t stop us sounding
off.

Specifically, this article is about the habit of journalists finding out
how many BBC personnel are rostered for big national or
international events – party conferences, Olympic Games, etc –
and then contrasting that with the Corporation’s apparently constant
pressure on governments for a bigger licence fee. Why, is the
constant cry, do they not cut the numbers swanning it in Manchester
or Beijing?

I myself have occasionally indulged in know-nothing criticism
of patterns of spending – high salaries for star presenters that I
never watch (though they attract big audiences); shows that I
consider disfigure my television screen, if ever I inadvertently turn
on during Alan Sugar’s bullying moments (but millions enjoy that).
In fact, everything that I don’t like, but mass audiences cherish.
Sometimes I wish I could adapt the attitude enshrined in that ancient
piece of wisdom: “There’s nowt as queer as folk.”

Like most people who have worked for the BBC, I am puzzled by
many of its decisions and practices. But when it comes to something I
know about, it’s different. During every party conference I attended in
11 years as political editor, a paragraph appeared in some of the
national newspapers jeering at how many people the BBC had sent. This
was easily done, as the Corporation printed a handout giving temporary
telephone extensions for different departments in the conference
town.

To the first Daily Blank journalist I encountered the day this
paragraph appeared I felt moved to elucidate. What number of
representatives would the Daily Blank have at the conference if their
technology required them not only to bring reporters, photographers,
leader writers and feature writers – plus, as often as not, a couple of
drivers to whisk executives around – but also printers (from both
composing and machine rooms in those hot metal days), darkroom
men, sub-editors and a galaxy of others from the offices back in
London?

I explained, with what patience I could muster, that we reporters
couldn’t do our work without the technical staff on site to send out
our material – not only cameramen, but producers, graphic artists, floor
managers, and so on, right down to make-up. (On one occasion, I
arrived at the studio to do my lunchtime news report to find that
the make-up lady had been lent to Margaret Thatcher, whose own
make-up assistant had fallen ill on the day of her Leader’s speech. The
floor manager offered to wipe me down with an oily rag, but I
preferred to dull the glare of the studio lights with a few perfunctory
passes of a borrowed powder puff.) The Daily Blank journalist seemed
unconvinced by my technical explanation. I thought of
suggesting, as an economy measure, his paper keep the BBC complaint
paragraph in type from year to year, and just alter the figures and the
location.

Since my retirement from newspapers and the BBC, most
papers have established online departments, which employ large
numbers of journalists and other staff. Often these are taken on in
expectation, rather than the assurance, of making a profit from
the new technology. I think that is an additional reason to deter
newspapers journalists from judging another branch of the news
industry without sufficient knowledge.

Here I declare an interest. Two of our four sons work for the BBC
(without benefit of patronage). One, as athletics editor, went to the
Beijing Olympics as part of a large staff. Because of the time difference
between the events happening and the programmes going out, they
worked long and unsocial hours. He came to see us soon after his return.
After supper he briefly fell asleep in the armchair before he could risk
driving home.

Another son, who is an editor on World Service radio, went to
Geneva for the CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research)
launch. He returned from a three day visit also suffering from sleep
deprivation. I believe I worked hard in my 36 years in newspapers, but
nothing like as hard as during my 11 years at the BBC. Licence-fee payers
can sleep easily in their beds. The BBC extracts its pound of flesh all
right.

John Cole

The writer was political editor of the BBC, 1981-92.