"Today" featured an item today about whether we should know the salaries of top BBC radio presenters (as if queued by Anthony's reply to my post about their lazy journalism yesterday). The National Audit Office had asked for the information, but had not been able to sign the confidentiality agreement that the BBC needed to have in order to protect its contract with employees. That sounds like a plausible excuse --- if I were embarrassed by the amount I had been able to negotiate for myself, and even more if I thought that it might reduce my credibility in my job, I would certainly negotiate a clause in my contract making the pay confidential.
The real question --- and one which Humphreys avoided in his faux-probing of Jeremy Peat, Trustee of the BBC --- is whether the BBC should sign such contracts. Morning radio shows are today's equivalent of a church service---they prepare millions of minds for the day ahead; they are the daily cult that makes up our culture. It is crucial that the priests of the cult be exemplary. This was the great discovery of the 10th century West European movement of monastic reform: you can only claim authority if you are seen to be beyond reproach. In the 10th century, this meant re-establishing the chastity of the monks (... yes ... they had given it up; poverty had to be re-established later as a sign of authority---the fabulous wealth of the monasteries was not at that time anticipated).But if the Church was going to legitimate the rule of monarchs as representatives of Christ on earth, they had better come across as credible authorities on the subject.
I don't want chaste or poor priest/presenters on my morning radio. But what the monastic reformers got right is that whatever the standard of legitimacy it is that you champion, those in ritualistic charge of the system must adhere to it. Journalism lives under the standard of transparency and accountability, and it cannot afford to itself be opaque. It will lose its ability to probe if it is.
There was a fascinating demonstration of this in the morning interview: Edward Leigh, the MP who is chair of the select committe that was looking into BBC Radio's performance, turned the tables on Humphreys as I have nver heard before. Listen to the clip: at minute 1:48, after the usual priest-to-victim grilling, Leigh says: "the taxpayer pays a polltax for the BBC, and has a right to know. How much do you earn, John?" Humphreys is stumped. He doesn't want to break rank, he stumbles, he blames the men in suits. The high sacrificer has turned sacrificial victim. At minute 1:48, the logic of accountability---one that MPs have been thinking a bit about these days---is confronted to the logic of the Corporation's interest. Not only is accountability the clear winner, John Humphreys clearly knows it. When he asks for a justification from his trustee, Jeremy Peat answers that "the BBC is not like any other public body. It is established by Royal Charter."
Well ... the aura of monarchy may not extend so far these days as to keep the BBC closed. What I really look forward to is not so much knowing the salaries --- though I expect that will reduce the bill to taxpayers, not increase it --- I look forward to having transparency in the news-making, and in particular to reducing the power of public relations in our public realm.
