The BBC is bound by its Royal Charter (DCMS 2006) to be ‘independent in all matters concerning the content of its output, the times and manner in which this is supplied, and in the management of its affairs.’ It is widely recognized that the BBC has enjoyed, by international standards, an outstanding degree of independence from government. Scholars have pointed to how the BBC’s governors, now the BBC Trust, have characteristically served as a buffer between the Corporation and governments. Though appointed by government, they have tended to act as ‘trustees of the public interest’ in a politically independent manner. Of course, there have been times when the limits to the BBC’s governor’s independence have been exposed. As one former BBC insider has summarized: ‘The BBC is very independent. However, as with any publicly funded body accountability and the requirement for impartiality can act as a limitation on absolute independence’ (survey questionnaire response from former BBC executive, July 2010).
The BBC has set the standard for other news media. Channel 4 News is widely regarded as excellent, for instance considered by a recent study to have outperformed the BBC in independent reporting of the 2003 Iraq War (Robinson et al. 2010). As mentioned, there can be little doubt that the standard established by the BBC partexplains the high quality and independence of the non-public-service Sky News, which has also collected its share of Television awards. Of course Sky News’ independence vis-á-vis political power holders is also underpinned by its commercial freedom. The same applies to the UK press, which receives no subsidies (apart from exemption from value-added-tax), so governments have never had this particular potential lever for political pressure. Finally with regard to independence, UK journalists are not only lacking in deference to politicians, they have in the view of one controversial account actually pursued their cynicism and ‘attack journalism’ so far that they have undermined respect for politicians and damaged British politics (Lloyd 2004).
