“He has made my life at the BBC very difficult,” journalist Lewis Goodall said two years ago about BBC director Robert Gibb, who is said to be the center of what some British media describe as an internal coup at the broadcaster. Day after day, Goodall was told by colleagues: “Be careful. Robbie is watching you.” His objectivity was questioned by Gibb. And yes, okay, when Goodall was seventeen he had been active locally for Labor.
But, wait a minute, Goodall wondered, was he really getting lessons in impartiality from a man who had been communications chief for Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May? A man who had worked as a spokesman in Downing Street? Goodall talked about it two years ago in the podcast Newsagents which he founded with two other former BBC employees who had also experienced Gibb’s hot breath.
The BBC is in dire straits, due to an ever-growing row over the incorrect representation of a speech by President Donald Trump. Last week, managing director Tim Davie and news editor Deborah Turness resigned. In many analyses, one name keeps popping up: that of former BBC journalist Robbie Gibb, who has long disagreed with the broadcaster’s direction and is now changing his position as director.
The reason in short: The Daily Telegrapha right-wing British newspaper, revealed this earlier this month in a documentary program broadcast Panoramabroadcast in October 2024, two excerpts from a speech by Trump are pasted together. This made it seem as if Trump directly called for the violent storming of the Capitol around January 6, 2021. A majority of the US Senate also found Trump guilty of inciting an insurrection during impeachment proceedings, but he did not utter the broadcast sentence in this way.
The BBC has now apologized to Trump. He nevertheless announced on Saturday that he wants to pursue a case against the broadcaster. He is seeking between $1 billion and $5 billion in damages.
The BBC, like all media, often makes mistakes. The fact that things got so out of hand has to do with two things. One: political appointments to the board, such as Gibb’s. And two: the BBC has powerful opponents who benefit greatly from a BBC in dire straits.
Political appointments
The much-discussed Gibb was appointed to the board of the BBC by then Prime Minister Boris Johnson. It may sound strange, for example, in the Netherlands, NOS directors are not appointed by the government. But political appointments have always been part of the BBC, explains Steven Barnett, professor of communications at the University of Westminster. With the new license for the BBC in 2016, something was added: the then conservative government introduced a reform that gave the five politically appointed directors more power.
Gibb took advantage of that extra space. About four hundred people, including more than a hundred BBC employees, signed a letter to the BBC’s CEO last summer, calling for Gibb to be suspended from the board of the media organization. He would, among other things, leave a heavy mark on Gaza reporting, in favor of Israel.
Together with four others, Gibb also oversees the broadcaster’s journalistic working methods. From that position, for example, he brought in Michael Prescott as an advisor, the man whose memo was published in The Daily Telegraph, the starting signal for the current crisis.
It’s like the pot calling the kettle black
Gibb says he once started working for the BBC because he disagreed with the reporting. „I’m a proper Thatcherite conservative”, said Gibb five years ago during a meeting of the interest group TaxPayers Alliance. He is a conservative in the hardline style of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Gibb was not yet a BBC director at the time, but he had previously worked as a journalist for the broadcaster. In between, he had been communications chief for Prime Minister May. The club he speaks for is committed to not making it a criminal offense when Britons do not pay the viewing and listening fees for the BBC. He does not support that position, nor does he categorically reject it, but emphasizes that it would be extremely “unpatriotic” to cut back on the BBC.
Robbie Gibb, in 2018, when he was communications chief for then Prime Minister Theresa May.
Photo Getty Images
Because the BBC is part of the country. All over the world, says Robbie Gibb, if you ask them what they know about the UK, people will say three things. „The Queen, David Beckham, the BBC.” The Queen was still alive, Beckham was past his peak popularity at the time. Gibb does add a comment. The only justification the BBC can have for the license feesays Gibb, is when the broadcaster provides something that the market ignores: impartial reporting.
Conflict of interest
So when, sometime in his twenties, he criticized BBC healthcare coverage (too left-wing), he decided: I’m not going to whine from the sidelines, I’m going to become part of the BBC. “To make a point of impartiality.” The fact that he profiles himself as a conservative does not hinder his own impartiality, he believes, you simply leave political preferences at the door before walking into the editorial office.
It’s like “the pot calling the kettle black,” says Jean Seaton, professor of media history at the University of Westminster and former BBC historian. “Look at GB News, of which he is one of the co-founders.” The radical right Nigel Farage, from the emerging Reform party, has an almost daily evening show there. “It is a clearly right-wing media company. And that is fine, but it is absurd to assume that Gibb wants to commit to impartiality.”
It does indeed sound something muchone man could not bring down such an entire institution
Gibb owned it The Jewish Chronicleeven when he had already been appointed BBC director. “To be the owner of that while you are also on the board of the BBC, that is incredible,” said Barnett. Both Seaton and Barnett see a conflict of interest in this, and point out that such things are not well enforced in the UK. “It’s also a good example of the power of the press,” says Barnett. “If he had been the owner of an Islamic newspaper, the story would have been the story for months headlines controlled.”
Isn’t it going a bit far to attribute so much influence to one man? “It does indeed sound something much“One man could not bring down such an entire institution,” says Barnett. “But in recent years several journalists have come out with the message that they were bothered by his substantive interference.”
News editor-in-chief Deborah Turness and general manager Tim Davie resigned last week after two excerpts from a speech by President Donald Trump were allegedly put together in a questionable manner in a BBC TV program.
Photos AFP, REUTERS
And it could also get out of hand, says Barnett, because of the breeding ground that exists for BBC criticism. This has traditionally existed among mostly conservative politicians, who, for example, object to the mandatory television and listening fees that the British pay. The Conservatives have many media on their side on this point, which also have no interest in a strong, government-funded BBC. The BBC is the UK’s most trusted news sourcemaking it a serious competitor for commercial media. Even among Americans, the BBC is the second most trusted news brand The Weather Channelaccording to one YouGov survey earlier this year.
Maga crowd
In addition, the story in The Daily Telegraph has been “inflated by the maga crowd”. Trump ran off with the news, his spokesperson advised everyone to watch GB News. Barnett: “There is a growing one unholy alliance between the right-wing populists in Europe and the maga activists in the United States, they are working together.” More than ever, he says, as an “enemy of the BBC” you can be sure that your message will be heard.
At the same time, Barnett thinks that the situation can turn out positively for the BBC. He is surprised by the number of politicians pointing fingers at Gibb. Now that Gibb is in the spotlight, his influence could well be diminishing. The BBC’s license will soon have to be renewed. The Labor Party has a majority, and can use the license to rid the BBC of political influence.
That would be worth a lot, says Seaton. “We have Russia and China as enemies, we have the five richest men on earth who own the most important media platforms. European citizens have very little to defend themselves against. The BBC is important in this, to at least provide us with reliable news.” On the scale of things, the BBC may be just a “pimple,” she says. “But it is a stubborn pimple.”
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