Penance without action? What’s missing from the BBC’s Mea Culpa

The departure of the BBC’s director general and news CEO raise questions about the difference between political gesture and making amends, says George Pitcher. The Christian concept of penance has much to offer

The resignations of the BBC’s director general Tim Davie and News CEO Deborah Turness are a cause of wonderment. I don’t mean that they’re truly amazing – like a miracle, the stars at night or a bird’s nest – but that they’re like a sign or a wonder, in that we struggle to understand what they can possibly mean.

Davie seems to have quit after a string of scandals on his watch, from Huw Edwards to Gary Lineker to the Donald Trump edit fiasco – and, in large part, has perhaps thrown in the towel because he’s had enough. Turness has adopted the “buck stops here” approach, in that she was the big news boss when Panorama broadcast a twelve-second paraphrase of President Trump’s 6 January 2021 speech that made it look like he was calling for the subsequent insurrection at the US Capitol.

Nobody complained about the Panorama programme last year when it aired, and Trump only threatened a $12bn lawsuit after it turned up in a long and tedious report by a disaffected BBC adviser. Meanwhile, it’s obviously not the direct fault of the director general or News CEO (or they might be frantically examining their personal libel insurance); Turness also made it clear that “the BBC is not institutionally biased”.