The BBC: the ban on virtue-signalling
When he took over as the new Director-General of the BBC in September, Tim Davie declared that restoring its reputation for impartiality was his top priority. It will be a “mammoth task” to ensure that the BBC’s output reflects the views of all sections of British society – not just “the urban, metropolitan middle classes” that make up the bulk of its workforce, said Robbie Gibb in The Daily Telegraph. But last week saw a step in the right direction, when the corporation issued new guidance, instructing journalists not to express political views on social media, nor to take part in protests or gatherings that could be deemed controversial. They were instructed to avoid public “virtuesignalling” that could indicate a political view, “no matter how apparently worthy the cause”.
The directive didn’t go down well, said Jim Waterson in The Guardian – particularly since the term “virtue-signalling” is a loaded one. In the online culture wars, it is used by “right-wing activists to sneer at left-wing individuals” whom they deem noisily self-righteous. The guidelines make sense if the BBC is trying to stop its staff tweeting their views about, say, Brexit, said Marcus Ryder in The Independent. But the range of potentially “controversial” subjects is large and could include, say, opposing racism or homophobia. If you’re trans, your entire identity is controversial to some. At first it seemed that staff could actually be banned from attending gay Pride events, though the BBC executed a hasty U-turn on that. It’s the same problem we saw last year, when the presenter Naga Munchetty was officially censured for saying that President Trump was racist because he tweeted that four US politicians of colour should “go home”; that decision was, thankfully, later reversed.
Some BBC journalists were unimpressed, said Bill Gardner in The Daily Telegraph. On Twitter, Huw Edwards quoted a warning from the guidance that emojis can “undercut an otherwise impartial post”, and defiantly tweeted a string of Welsh flag emojis. Newsreaders are now worrying about wearing poppies on air, said Vanessa Thorpe in The Observer. Isn’t that “virtue-signalling”, and a political statement? The BBC has opened up a whole can of worms.
“Life can get so interesting that we forget to be afraid.” Don DeLillo, quoted in The New York Times
“Television is an invention
that permits you to be entertained in your living room by people you wouldn’t have in your
home.”
David Frost, quoted in the
Montreal Gazette
“I guess a man is the only kind of varmint [that] sets his own trap, baits it, and
then steps in it.” John Steinbeck, quoted in
The Washington Post