There is an increasing fear that Mr. Greg Dyke’s real challenge at the BBC will not be how best to react to his politically-motivated detractors but to prevent the legacy of his predecessor’s follies from pushing the BBC further down-market. This suggestion will be pooh-poohed, to be sure, by all Corporation spokespeople. “Forget it” they will insist “Greg Dyke is determined to maintain and improve our standards of quality etc.” Yet none of this re-assurance can remove the shadow of doubt hanging over the entire question of how BBC Television, in particular, is prepared to improve the quality and standard of its news and current affairs programmes and, more specifically, do something imaginative to regain the initiative in producing documentary programmes of outstanding journalistic quality.

There is little doubt in the minds of many serious journalists that there has been a growing superficiality in television news reporting; that the “quick-fire” , in-and-out tendency is in command; that this leads to a vulgarisation of the message because background material is so thin or often completely absent; and that the closure of News at Ten has taken away a sharp competitive edge from the BBC’s Nine o-clock News. Of course, some observers will regard such comment as unfair since there remains a substantial measure of outstandingly good reporting from first-class television reporters. But that is not the point. It is precisely because there is such talent available – which is not being effectively and imaginatively used – that the signs of a slide have been so apparent.

One of the outstanding failures of Greg Dyke’s predecessor was the collapse of his own slogan about TV current affairs being a “Mission to Explain”. Far from that we have been treated to increasing shallowness, a superficiality in interviewing, a standardisation of cliché interpretation, a resort to populist imagery and indeed, sometimes, a journalistic sloppiness – unless, of course, this is all due to a lack of proper resources to back-up the reporters and correspondents on the spot. Moreover, as far as investigative journalism is concerned, given the enormous advances in technology now available to television it is ironic that most of us find it easier to remember the great investigative documentaries of the past rather than very much from more recent times.

There has been a spirited defence of the BBC’s current affairs agenda from Mark Damazer, assistant director of BBC News and formerly head of BBC current affairs [The Guardian, Media section May 1] in which he himself poses the question: “Can current affairs find a consistent and coherent proposition that attracts younger audiences? Can someone reinvent a serious television contribution to policy debates [something we have not managed to do in recent years]?”. That, in itself, is a significant confession. Mr Damazer goes on to offer this unconvincing answer to his own questions: There needs to be a debate about the future of current affairs, but things will change – because they often do and because they should”. Hardly the most galvanizing of exhortations.

Now, of course, this is by no means a malady confined to the BBC. It has become almost endemic with the commercial television networks. Indeed it would appear that the main commercial networks are now more concerned with fighting their merger battles than with programme excellence. The most dramatic example of the triumph of commercialism over programme excellence has been the disappearance of Granada’s old flagship programme World in Action. This has been a media tragedy on a major scale. There was a time in days of “Old Granada” when World in Action producers would spend a year preparing a programme, often at great cost, and then possibly find that the story collapsed. No matter, it never deterred an earlier generation of Granada executives from pumping in more money, more encouragement, more journalistic talent, to maintain and expand the quality of that programme. Of course Granada still dominates the ITV market; indeed it makes 50 per cent of networked programmes. But there is no sign of World in Action returning.

It will be argued that the commercial system still has some news and current affairs programming of outstanding quality – despite evident retrenchment. That is true. Channel Four News, with Jon Snow presenting, remains one of the few news programmes of sustained excellence. It provides time and space for background, intelligent interpretation and thoughtful, penetrating interviewing without arrogance or bully-boy tactics. There have also been several excellent documentaries on Channel 4 in recent weeks – programmes that did reach out to old standards of quality reporting. Yet there remain huge gaps in the range and quality of commercial television news and current affairs, far more so than with the BBC. There was a significant comment on this recently from Sir David Nicholas who was chief executive of ITN 1977-91. In a letter to The Times [April 15, 2000] Sir David wrote:

“ITV has suggested, not unreasonably, that we give its new schedule time to establish itself before we judge it. It is now a year since News at Ten was axed to make room for high quality entertainment and drama. Tuesday night’s one hour offering at 10pm was When Celebrities Strip – a potted history of the famous people who have bared all for the world to see. ITV fiercely denies that it has dumbed down at Ten. Perhaps the politically correct usage should be – intellectually de-escalated”.

Radio

“I wasn’t prepared for the virulence of some newspapers who were desperate to write something incredibly bad about the BBC working to their own agenda which was sometimes very personal but always driven by commercial jealousy. I never thought I was going to be lied about or lied to. If commercialism, which inspired these headlines, is the only thing that rules then truth flies out of the window because money becomes the most important thing.”

Moreover there is a glaring need now for the new BBC, under Mr. Dyke, to demonstrate that its great reputation for news, current affairs and documentaries is to be enhanced, not dumbed down to any assumed – almost certainly wrongly – popular taste or demand. Of course one could say precisely the same thing about the commercial networks but the point we are making here is to underline the crucial nature of the BBC in setting an example for excellence. That is the historic role of the Corporation. There is no substitute for quality, creative energy , the questioning of the squalid, and the encouragement of the unorthodox. The need for all this is greater than ever in modern journalism.