Transcript: Why I Exposed Anti-Trump Bias At The BBC – David Chaudoir on TRIGGERnometry Podcast

And it turned out that it was Kirsty Wark didn’t mention anything, didn’t apologize, didn’t say anything. So it was mentioned by this guy.

VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: A bunch of different questions there. Your video, and I’m no apologist for the president.

INTERVIEWER: No, I’m not suggesting you are. I’m not suggesting you are. But what I’m saying is that you…

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Your video actually spliced together the presentation. He said, “We’re going to go down and we’re going to cheer on our senators and our House members.” And then it actually goes on to say in some of them, we might not be able to. And that line about “and we fight. And fight like hell” is actually later in the speech. Yet your video makes it look like those two things came together.

That’s the type of, that’s the type of messaging here that so many people in my country find frustrating, is that it’s hard to actually get the facts. The young woman from BuzzFeed is absolutely right. It was a violent attack, yet there were people, and there’s video of people walking peacefully through the Capitol building. If we’re going to have a debate about what this was and prevent it from happening again, I think part of that is to make sure that we are straightforward and our presentation will actually happen.

VIDEO CLIP ENDS:

The Morning After

DAVID CHAUDOIR: Then the next morning, I was a lead designer, which means, or sometimes as a freelancer, I was a lead designer. And that means that you go to editorial meetings. And an editorial meeting is not the VT editors, it’s the editorship, you know, the curation of the show.

And so they brought this up, somebody, a producer. And I tried to get in contact with somebody to find out, because I couldn’t remember who it was. One producer said, “Hang on a minute. How did that clip go out? You know, why did that clip go out?” And the editor at the time or a senior member of staff said, “Oh, well, it’s, God, now it happened.”

And I just thought that was extraordinary that you could, you know, get away with making such a falsehood out of such a long, because Trump rambles. You know, we all know this. He could have been talking about his soup. And then they put these two things together. And a friend of mine who was trained by the BBC said, “This is rule number one. You know, when you’re trained at the BBC, you know, you don’t falsify footage, you don’t clip footage to give a completely different meaning.”

How Could This Happen?

KONSTANTIN KISIN: So how, how did it happen? If, if that is the training that people at the BBC are given, how did that, because that is an extraordinary thing for a flagship program to broadcast a effectively a doctored clip. I mean, that’s what it was. It was doctored.

DAVID CHAUDOIR: Yeah.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: For that to happen is an extraordinary thing at an institution that, let’s be honest, you know, there’s a lot of critics of the BBC, but historically, it is the template and the model of objective journalism. How does that happen?

DAVID CHAUDOIR: Right, okay. So, as I said, a friend of mine, she doesn’t work there anymore, but she was trained by the BBC to be an editor. I cannot figure that out. I cannot figure how you can effectively make a lie. Your video. You’re manipulating time to create a lie. And how can you do that twice? If you are objective and you are there, you know, you’re holding yourself up as the arbiters of truth to then put that out that, you know, and to do it twice.

But I think that there’s a, I wondered technically whether somebody who worked on Newsnight, I don’t want to cast aspersions, an editor who worked on Newsnight did the same thing and worked on Panorama, because editors move around, there’s a lot of freelance staff because the Panorama was made by October films. And I’ve worked for the BBC as a freelancer and worked on films that are produced outside of the BBC. So I’ve met other editors and people move around.

So I don’t know whether the editor saw that clip or it was the same editor and thought, “I’m going to use that again.” But it was fishy. And at the time I was watching that in because we’d have a live feed from the studio, in the office where we produced the graphics. And I was aghast. I was thinking, how can they think that they get away with it? And then Kirsty saying nothing. And then the reaction the next day in the editorial meeting when somebody, when the producer said, you know, “How did that happen?” And there was no response. I sort of thought, oh, was there…

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Not a discussion about correcting the record, issuing an apology with touring the program?

DAVID CHAUDOIR: No. And it went, and it went out onto, it went on to iPlayer as normal. There are a couple of times when programs didn’t go on to iPlayer, but those look due to f* ups.

Election Interference

KONSTANTIN KISIN: But that, I mean, the word you just used, the term you just used up. I mean, that is a very generous way of describing what happened here because I don’t know if you, you know, people, everybody will remember this, but this is of course a very, very heated moment in world history, in American history.

You have a major media organization here in the UK misrepresenting what’s happening in that way at a time when, frankly, I don’t, again, people might, might have sort of time has eroded our sense of this. But the big term and discussion at the time was election interference.

DAVID CHAUDOIR: Yes.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: And I don’t know how you would describe something of this magnitude as not being an attempt, perhaps accidental, but nonetheless at election interference. Interference in the political process through deceit.

DAVID CHAUDOIR: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that there is election interference. Now, obviously now Trump’s taken at nuclear and said he’s going to, he’s going to sue the BBC for a billion. I think that’s just the way he plays. He plays big and threatens people and then, anyway, but I think the thing on a sort of legal issue, I think that it’s going to be difficult for him to prove that it’s election interference.

It is election interference, that program. There are Americans who live in this country who have American nationality and they are allowed to vote. So anybody who saw that could say, “Well, that’s, that’s, you know, that swung it for me. I knew the guy was a Nazi.” And, and then you say you could legally, possibly say there’s election interference.

But, but then again, the, the amount of people, the radar figures of how many people are watching Newsnight is something like a hundred thousand. It’s tiny. It’s really, it’s gone down from a million at its height with Paxo, down to, you know, nothing. It’s, it’s a program that’s kind of lost its relevance, which is slightly sad.

The Decline of Newsnight

FRANCIS FOSTER: I find it tragic, I’ll be honest with you. And I remember I used to be an avid watcher of Newsnight, and I remember one particular episode where Emily Maitlis did a monologue to camera, which is what Newsnight invariably did. But it was very interesting because she wasn’t relaying the facts. She was telling us how to think. And I remember at that point thinking to myself, I’m done.

DAVID CHAUDOIR: Yes.

FRANCIS FOSTER: And I think that’s a very big mistake that Newsnight made, is that it was telling you how to think.

DAVID CHAUDOIR: Well, I think that Emily Maitlis is a specific case in point. She’s now got a podcast with Lewis Goodall, and it was well known. Now, I’m not saying that everybody’s, well, he’s the lefty, but it was very clear to me that Lewis Goodall was the same kind of person. And I think Maitlis left quite soon after that, didn’t she? That she, she made it very clear which side of the fence she sat on.

But I think that there was, there were hints that, other people and other people had beliefs around that they were that way, aligned. Now, that’s not because I’m some kind of clairvoyant and can’t read people’s minds, but certain conversations that I heard around that time, and I can’t say who they were, but there were conversations in the newsroom that made me think, “Hang on a minute. You know, I thought we were objective here.”

KONSTANTIN KISIN: And what were those conversations?

The BBC’s Internal Culture and Editorial Pressures

DAVID CHAUDOIR: Okay, so a correspondent, I remember walking around as they were cogitating, the script was sort of walking around banging his fist, saying, “Brexit, Brexit.” And he turned to a producer and said, “How can we work Brexit into the story?”

And the guy who he had sort of landed up next to said, “I’m not sure Brexit is anything to do with this story.” And I was thinking, this guy is shaping opinion, and you are trying to work something in that isn’t okay. So there’s another one.

So there’s a senior correspondent talking about, and it was, so you get in early at the BBC, you get in at lunchtime. The stories don’t really sort of solidify until around about 4pm, you know, what’s kind of on the cards. But, you know, scripts aren’t coming through. And I overheard X talking to Y saying, “Oh, you know, the whole Trump thing, it’s all to do with QAnon.”

And I’m thinking what, you know, because I had heard these rumors about the QAnon and had thought that it was some sort of 4chan nonsense or some kind of meme or like Tekken or something like that and just thought it was sort of lunacy. And I later on sort of leant over the desk and said, “Sorry, what was that about Trump and QAnon? Where did you get that?”

And they said, “Oh, it was, I heard a podcast,” which was a BBC podcast about it and such, and that was it. And that was the truth. The fact that somebody at the BBC had heard somebody else at the BBC explaining Trump’s the Capitol Hill whatever they called it, what did they call the Insurrection or something. As you know, the reasons for it were QAnon etc. etc.

And I thought, gosh, you really in a tiny ecosystem. I’m just a lowly graphic designer, I’m looking at sources of YouTube and Twitter and stuff like that and I’m seeing a completely different world than you are and you’re in this bubble. And so it’s true. Because another BBC correspondent said it’s true, it must be true.

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The Joe Biden Graphic Incident

DAVID CHAUDOIR: Would you like me to tell you about another incident? Okay, so this is actually specifically to do with the graphic that I did. I did a graphic of Joe Biden. Now, I thought it was very, very clear at the time that he was in cognitive decline. And so he’s doing the, what you call it, gearing up for the election. This is before he got booted out, before there was a coup within the Democratic Party.

And so I picked up, it was a, it was a, I think it was a three person graphic. No, I think it was just a one person graphic with him in it. And I think it might have been a rally or something like that. It was something to do with the upcoming election. So I had a picture of Biden and he was sort of like this and he looked pensive, he had his finger on his mouth. But I wasn’t going to have him sort of, you know, strident. I thought that’s a pretty accurate picture of the man now.

And I was asked to change it for a more presidential looking. Now I can’t again, I wouldn’t like to get on the stand and say that’s what I was told, find a more presidential picture. But I was told, don’t use that picture and find another one, you know, that’s less where he’s looking down. And so I thought, hang on a minute, you know, I’ve just picked something which I think is because the graphic designers were allowed to go on, get in, pick up the pictures that you wanted.

And I thought, what’s the reason for them, you know, not accepting this graphic with that picture of Biden? Is it because he looks like an old man in decline? So, and then there was at the time, in the ether. Oh, by the way, that graphic I did manage to smuggle in. I found a photograph that said, “Let’s go Brandon.” So that went out with, “Let’s go Brandon.” But nobody pulled me up. I don’t know whether they knew what that meant.

Anyway, it was when they were saying Joe Biden. Yeah. Yes, I put that on the graphic. And that, that’s not because I’m sort of right wing. It’s because I, I think I have a slightly anarchic side. Anyway. Yeah. And then there was one other incident which happened at the BBC.

The School Refugee Story

Oh, okay. So there’s another weird story for you and I don’t know whether you’re going to be able to use this, but I overheard a producer talking about his son at school and he said, and he was talking about, we were talking, they, some producers were talking about illegal immigration and they were talking about a man who was at his son’s school, who was obviously not his son’s age, but was in the same year group, and that the children had seen him driving past.

He wasn’t at school one day and seen him driving past with a taxi. In a taxi. He was the taxi driver. And the producer’s kind of joking, saying, “Oh, well, well, me,” I remember saying, or thinking, so there’s a guy who’s an Afghan refugee at your son’s school who is clearly not the age that he’s saying, and he’s driving a taxi. And the children at your son’s school all recognize this. Isn’t that a story in itself? You know, the fact. But it was just in hearsay. It was just in conversation. And I kept thinking, that’s the story. But as I said before, I’m just, I’m just a graphic designer. So.

Leadership and Bias at the BBC

FRANCIS FOSTER: No, completely. Do you know what I think when you tell these stories? I think that there is a complete lack of leadership at the BBC because really, when these people are putting forward these stories or they’re molding the stories to be a certain way, what with a certain bias. Look, that’s fine if it’s Fox News. It’s fine if it’s MSNBC. This is the BBC. This is a publicly funded institution, and in its charter, it’s meant to be nonpartisan.

DAVID CHAUDOIR: Yes, absolutely. And I think that what’s interesting is you can find as many people on the left who say, “Oh, the BBC’s right wing.” And you can find as many people on the right who say, “It’s left, it’s left wing.” But in the instances that I saw, I thought that absolutely, definitely on that. And again, is it because I, I’m sort of more centrist and to the right. Am I seeing it? But they’re not.

And I don’t know whether it’s lack of leadership. I think it’s, it’s kind of like group think that. I remember being in an editorial meeting and there was a discussion about, they go through topics. “Oh, today is London Fashion Week. Shall we do a story on that?” Oh, you know, there are sort of events in, in the diary that they can pick on. And there was National Women’s Authors Day.

And so there’s this producer and he said, “Well, why don’t we do the best men’s author?” and this woman producer? It’s a meltdown. He was just like a very contrary person. I thought, I thought, but you need people like this, of course. You need somebody to throw hand grenades in and mix things up.

And I just remember thinking the reason, and I, and the figures about Newsnight were the fact that it was a dying program. That’s what I thought anyway. And then they ran out of money and they, you know, got rid of all the correspondence and now it’s kind of like a talk show. But I thought, why don’t they get people like you, people like Russell Brand in and liven up and get there?

Because you guys, if you were to be on Newsnight, I know you guys do this, you strip it out of the, you know, you clip it and you put it on. You get more people watching their program, more people watching your program. You are doing the kind of publicity that they can’t get. And I thought at one stage I, and I’ve mentioned this to you that I said, “Why don’t you get Konstantin Kisin in?” And one of the who I spoke to said, “Oh no, we’re not having him.”

KONSTANTIN KISIN: You know, I’ve done a lot of stuff on the BBC, so I don’t think it’s a universal thing, but I definitely think there’d be some reluctance. And you know, it was actually Rod Liddle who said to me once, he said, “Oh, you are now on the BBC dialect list.” Which is, which is, you know, you get five people, one of them has a moderately centrist opinion. But, you know, we’re joking around. I think it’s important to also be fair here. For example, you know your point about the Joe Biden graphic.

DAVID CHAUDOIR: Yes.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: I can totally see from an editorial perspective how you would also be accused of bias if you did present Joe Biden in an overtly kind of decline focused way.

DAVID CHAUDOIR: Right, absolutely. And there’s a story around that as well, that talking about the left, right, you know, bias. And anybody can see it from any angle. There was a, a bit of a hoo ha about Corbyn, Jeremy Corbyn, a graphic went out with Corbyn wearing a hat. He used to walk around with that sort of Beatles hat, you know. And the BBC were accused of making the hat bigger.

And there was a whole inquiry because Corbyn had get on. You know, the BBC is biased, they’re biased against me. And it was a Newsnight thing, graphic. And they had to prove, you know, they had to do a side by side. They had to prove to the board of governors that they hadn’t manipulated this image. So they are. And as I said, I don’t know why somebody rejected my graphic. Maybe it’s because he had his hand on his mouth. Maybe they wanted, you know, the three. I think it was a three header, I don’t know, but it might be. And you know, we want him to be looking out of screen. Right. Or I don’t know, but. And this is the thing about trying to second guess people. You can’t read people’s minds.

The Question of BBC Bias

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Yes. The point I was going to make though is you say, well, you know, lots of people on the left think the BBC is right wing and whatever. A lot of people say that. I actually think it’s a little bit more nuanced than that in that the people on the left who think the BBC is right wing tend to be on the extremes of the left. They are far, far progressive. Way out there, people.

DAVID CHAUDOIR: Not really. My uncle and aunt were saying it last night.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Really? Well, maybe my theory is not true, but what I was going to say is, and look, people might disagree with this is whereas the people who think the BBC has a left leaning bias are kind of anyone who is in the center and onwards. And one of the arguments I would put forward in defense of that theory is that, or at least in defense of the theory that the BBC, where it leans, it leans mostly to the left, is look at what’s happened since the presenters have left.

Once the presenters leave, you find out what their actual beliefs are. And look, Andrew Neil clearly center right, but look at Emily Maitlis, look at Lewis Goodall. I mean, look John Sopel, who’s another one. All of these people are very, very much on the left and they were not shy. I mean, the one thing you would say about Andrew Neil during his time at the BBC is that he skewered everybody equally.

Everybody respected Andrew Neil not for his views that align with their views, but for his neutrality and his principles and his doggedness in pursuing them. But when you talk about other people, they were implementing their worldview while they were at the BBC and they were respected not for their neutrality, but they were loved for the fact that they were sticking it to Trump and they were sticking it to this and they were sticking it to that. That’s, I think the difference.

The BBC’s Neutrality Problem

DAVID CHAUDOIR: Yeah, I think the thing about neutrality was very interesting after the Panorama story broke. And then my Newsnight revelation came a few days after and the head of news resigned and she called it an error. And I think that’s the difference. You can make mistakes, but you can’t make that kind of mistake. You cannot be. And as you say that, I think even on the Today program, and I can’t remember the chap’s name who presents that. But even he, there was no apology. There was no, you know, we f*ed up big time here. You know, this should never have gone out. This is an obvious case of bias. It was a mistake. Oh, we made an error.

And the thing is, from what I saw from the people that I were around were pretty much seemed to be of that ilk that they are, you know, nobody’s going to rock the boat, nobody’s going to like around the whole, you know, Joe Rogan Ivermectin thing that you. That opened my eyes to a media landscape where people are pushing. I know it’s such a cliche, pushing a narrative.

And you get the feeling that within the BBC they can’t see beyond, you know, their own, as I said, their own bubble. And it not only goes. It’s not only in news and current affairs that this, you know, their whole ideology that you get scripts in EastEnders which are sort of pushing a narrative that you get Doctor Who, where you’re having non-binary aliens and a very camp Doctor Who. And you realize that it’s not the organization that it’s, you know, purported to be.

There are people within the BBC who I admire and met and met in passing. And so let’s say Frank Gardner is the security guy. But anyway, I met Frank Gardner in the cafeteria one morning and I’d just seen him on. In the. There’s a massive Jumbotron and as you go into the reception at the BBC, I’m sure you’ve seen it. And I’d just seen him in the morning as I came in for my morning shift or in the morning and I met him in the. And I have a great deal of affection for that guy. I mean, who can’t have affection for a guy who is blown up in Saudi Arabia by Al Qaeda?

You know, you would expect that guy to be the. But then, you know, we have affection for the BBC and I think that the worry is how long is that affection going to last? How many mistakes can. Mistakes can they make before people say, hang on a minute, this isn’t the. How many people are going to see cups on news, social engineering, on kids programs and entertainment before they say, hang on a minute, this is not, it’s not worth the license fee. And I think it was, is it 100,000 people last year stopped paying their license fee.

FRANCIS FOSTER: I read that it was 300,000. 300,000 either refused or stopped paying.

DAVID CHAUDOIR: Yeah, I mean, extra. I’m not here to, you know, to bomb the BBC and prevent them. I would like them to get their act in order. But how long can they ask people for money in this plural, pluralistic media landscape that you guys are getting people like Netanyahu on your show and he probably won’t go on the BBC.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: That’s because you know, she’s not going.

DAVID CHAUDOIR: He’s probably going to be clipped, you know, so you know, and I find that very interesting. How long can you re effectively run a state run media organization where you get and effectively tax people to own a color TV and you’re putting out mistruths, you’re putting out lies and you’re putting out entertainment that people are saying hang on a minute, I just wanted to see a Time Lord traveling around. I don’t want to see non-binary aliens.

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The Problem of Class and Background

FRANCIS FOSTER: It’s quite a profound point, I guess. My question is this. Part of the criticism of the BBC has always been, look, the reason the BBC is in the mess it’s in is because it employs a lot of people from the same type of background. They tend to be very middle class, they tend to be university educated, probably red brick, probably Oxbridge. And as a result of that, you get the same type of people, you get the same type of opinion. This isn’t representative of the average person in the UK.

How much do these type of people, how much does Emily Maitlis have in common with someone from Middlesbrough, for instance, in a council estate? Do you think that is at the nub of this problem?

DAVID CHAUDOIR: I think so. And I saw that with. Occasionally they would send a producer up in a car somewhere and I thought that they weren’t.

FRANCIS FOSTER: Somewhere direct. Go meet the plebs, don’t stay too.

DAVID CHAUDOIR: Long, you might catch something. And I don’t think that they were doing that enough. And I think you’re absolutely right. There was a particular type of person, but there were people willing to do proper investigative journalism. Like you had Hannah Barnes, who did the, you know, the trans story and the. What was that clinic called?

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Tavistock.

DAVID CHAUDOIR: The Tavistock and going to the Tavistock. So there are people still wanting to put out really important stories. But there are a lot of people, as you say, who are, who are of that ilk, as you say, they’re a university educated, you know, you have to be fairly bright to work there. And they all have that same kind of left wing-ish. And I think that it goes deeper that, that the left see themselves as the good guys and that, you know, like the Guardian, we are the good guys and you’re the Nazis, stuff like that.

So yes, you’re right. I think they need to get out more. I think they need to hire people. It’s that whole question, isn’t it? It’s not diversity of skin color, it’s diversity of thought.

FRANCIS FOSTER: Because I don’t understand, and maybe people do have these discussions and they’re having them behind closed doors, why they’re not looking at the numbers of people not renewing their license, of people not coming back to the BBC, declining viewing figures and quite frankly bricking it going. We’re all going to be out of a job here if we don’t sort ourselves out.

The BBC’s Arrogance and Declining Trust

DAVID CHAUDOIR: I think there’s a certain arrogance about the BBC. There’s a certain arrogance about people that they are the gold standard. And that’s sort of, I’m sure you two watched TV in the 1990s and you had Paxman on, you know, Paxo on Newsnight, you had brilliant comedy, whether it was Only Fools and Horses. And we all have an affection for it and that’s why it’s sort of, I think, clinging on. But they are constantly eroding that affection.

And I thought what was interesting was in the news article about the whole Panorama thing, it said the BBC is still the most trusted news source. And I thought Google that, you know, where is that coming? Is that true? How long can that remain that they are the most trusted source? If they keep doing stuff like this and how long are they going to realize that? I can’t remember when you said 300,000. It’s like a massive amount of money that they’re missing out. It’s almost like a billion, isn’t it, or something. You know, if you keep losing a billion a year, you know, where is that organization going to be in five years, 10 years?

And why aren’t they doing something about it? And I think this is the struggle at the moment. And I don’t know the politics within the. All the higher ups, I can’t remember what they call the. So you’ve got the chairman and you’ve got the trustees. What are they saying to each other in that room? You know, are they saying, for God’s sake, get it together? You know, we need to get some right wing people, we need to have other viewpoints.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: But this is why I think the point about diversity of background is actually so important. And Francis makes a very good point, as he always does, about the working class being underrepresented.

FRANCIS FOSTER: Thank you.

Geography and Representation

KONSTANTIN KISIN: But I actually, I think it’s not even just about class. Sometimes it’s as simple as geography. I remember making this point at some point while I was on the BBC about the fact that, well, diversity of skin color is really important because we have to reflect our community. And even if you accept that as a premise, the problem is that all of these people live in big cities which are very diverse ethnically. And I made the point, well, what if you’re watching a BBC program in Hastings?

DAVID CHAUDOIR: Yeah.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Are you still representing your local community? Because, you know, I was just in Crowborough filming protests against an asylum hotel, a military base that is going to potentially be used for that. Crowborough, through no fault of its own, a very welcoming place, is 96% white. Now, if I’m watching the BBC in Crowborough, that is made by people who want to represent their local community, which is inner city London, does that represent me? Am I watching a program that reflects my community, the values of my community, the backgrounds of the people in my community.

So sending someone on an expedition to Crowborough for a couple of hours isn’t enough to give you the perspective of what it’s like to be living in one of those communities. And that’s why it’s really, actually, I think, important that the BBC is not allowed to do what it has done, which has become an elitist club for people with one particular worldview in a way that Rod Liddle, who I mentioned earlier, who was the editor of the Today program, I think, or the Newsnight.

DAVID CHAUDOIR: Now, I think it was Today.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Yeah. Would never in a million years be allowed within a barge pole of the BBC.

DAVID CHAUDOIR: Yeah, right. Oh, absolutely.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: That is what’s happened, and that’s why it has become so closed off to differences of opinion. So if they get me or Rod or Matt Goodwin or someone on Question Time every now and again, I think that’s good and important. But I actually think unless you deal with the staffing issue, which Francis brings up, you’re always going to have this problem where you look at people who don’t have your politics, who don’t have your worldview, as some hostile foreign force that must be appeased, instead of half the country whose views really have to be included and represented in a fair and balanced way.

The Westminster and London Bubble

DAVID CHAUDOIR: And the other thing that they are in is they’re very much in the Westminster bubble because, you know, and they’re all. Lots of the political correspondents have got, you know, people that they can talk to within the political parties on. Pretty much on speed dial. And I think it is that Westminster, you know, London bubble.

And when they would go to other places, I remember they went to Cardiff. So you’re taking a whole load of BBC people to another BBC location, another bubble. So one bubble to another, and, you know, oh, wait, you know, we’re being diverse in our location. And they did. I remember they also did a like a town hall, almost like a Question Time type thing. But how are they vetting the people?

Yeah, it is absolutely. There is this. They are living in and even the edifice of the BBC, you know, this sort of palatial building. You can’t help that, obviously, but it gives you this sort of. It’s almost like the Castle of Mordor or something.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: To me, that’s a little bit extreme. I actually think it should be the other way around. When you go into the BBC, you should be stunned into the significance of the thing that you’re working in. And therefore, the principles to which that organization adheres should be burned into your mind as the North Star by which you’re operating, so that you can never doctor a clip of a guy you happen not to like, both as an individual who did that and as the institution that oversaw that, because you have a greater purpose and that greater purpose is objective reporting of the truth and setting the standard.

This is, you know, this is why I feel so passionately. Sorry that I’m ranting, but I do. My grandfather living in Soviet Russia, right, he freed his mind by listening to BBC World Service. The BBC has been an incredibly important institution.

DAVID CHAUDOIR: I don’t.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: And, you know, a lot of the conversation after the story broke was, oh, these people who want to destroy the BBC, they’re using it as a weapon. No, what we’re saying is the BBC should be what it’s supposed to be, and then we would be the first people to celebrate it.

DAVID CHAUDOIR: Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, and the fact is, you’re saying you should walk in and you should say, you know, I need to uphold my values, I need to have values. And outside the BBC is a statue of George Orwell, and it says, if the truth means anything, or I can’t, I’ll mangle the quote. But if something means anything, it’s the ability to tell people the truth.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: If freedom of speech means anything, it means the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear.

DAVID CHAUDOIR: Exactly. And I think that the BBC are afraid of that.

FRANCIS FOSTER: And I also think as well, it’s not that they don’t. They’re afraid of telling people what they don’t want to hear. It seems to me that they’re scared of the staff almost.

The Culture of Fear and Whispering at the BBC

DAVID CHAUDOIR: I think so. And I think that if you were to, you’re in a bubble, and if you would, and as I said, there was a producer who would throw hand grenades in the editorial meeting, and he was seen as a bit of a sort of live wire. And, you know, he was seen as, you know, a contrarian. But you need people like that. But you also need left and right. Of course, you need somebody.

And this is what I remember you saying about your cousins from Venezuela. Whispering. Yeah, that’s what we used to do at the BBC was we’d be sort of whispering. You would pick your allies. You knew who was on the graphic design team, who was on the left and who was on the right, just through their reactions to various stories. And we’d be whispering because you don’t want to be heard. You don’t want to give yourself away, that you are possibly counter. You know, you’re doing a story about somebody and you’re thinking, is this true? You know, what are they saying about this guy?

Can the BBC Be Saved?

FRANCIS FOSTER: Do you think that the BBC as an institution can be saved?

DAVID CHAUDOIR: David, I’m not the person to ask, but since I’m your guest, I will. It can be saved, but I think it’s going to have to choose a different model. I genuinely think that the days of the license fee are over. I think that it’s going to have to become a, what’s Netflix? What’s that? That’s a construction subscription. It’s going to have to become a subscription model.

I think if you want the BBC, you’re going to have to pay for it and they are going to have to massively slim down and they’re going to have to change their remit. You know, they can’t be everything to all people. They’re going to have to choose. They’re going to be an entertainment channel. Are you going to be a news channel? They’re trying to do too many things, you know, their remit is too broad. They are going to, I don’t want to see them die. I genuinely don’t want to see. Nobody does because we all have this affection for Auntie, you know, and it was the voice that we trusted. I’m not sure you can ever get back that trust if you tell lies.

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The Challenge of Ideological Staff

FRANCIS FOSTER: I think part of the challenge the BBC faces is that you’ve employed all of these people who are fiercely ideological, who, let’s be honest, don’t really care about the truth as long as they get their message out and they smear, stop or do their best to try and get someone elected. I mean, what do you do when you have a whole cohort of people working in your organization like that?

DAVID CHAUDOIR: Well, I think the thing is, what is interesting is it’s not like you go in and there’s everybody’s wearing, you know, Palestinian flags. You know, it’s not so easy to spot. It’s not a sort of rabid. Like when I went to St. Martin’s you had a sort of rabid National Union of Students. It’s not like you’re walking into that. You’re walking into very pleasant people talking, but you are talking to the North London set, the Islington set. You are with those people.

And it’s very, very hard. How do you make sure you have an ideological mix within an organization? How do you, you know, do you have to have your own struggle sessions within the BBC so that you open people’s minds? But do you, or do you police it much more and you have like the hand grenade thrower in who says, let’s do a right wing story. Let’s, you know, how do you balance? So you have like guests like yourself, more off the cunts on speed.

The Importance of Leadership and Debate

KONSTANTIN KISIN: The short answer is that’s what Francis was saying. This is why it starts with leadership. Because if the head of the organization says what we are about is a mix of opinions and every editorial meeting should be fierce debate about how to cover a particular story, that’s how you get balance. You don’t get balance by having, people won’t realize this. We have fierce arguments about how to cover certain things in trigonometry, and that’s just between me and Francis. And they’re not arguments that are nasty. They’re arguments about what the right approach is.

And the right approach is found through the bringing of different perspectives together. Those challenges, those two things being challenged against each other, other voices coming in as well. That’s how you get some attempt to get to the truth. Whereas if you have an ideology, if you have a worldview that you’re trying to project, that’s a whole different thing.

And look, trigonometry could be incredibly biased if we chose to and we made more money doing it. But the BBC doesn’t have that luxury. The BBC is a publicly funded organization where I, I hope you’re wrong. I don’t, I’m not saying you are necessarily wrong, but I hope you’re wrong is I think the moment the BBC ceases to be publicly funded, it will cease the, it will lose the ability to be an attempt to reach an objective coverage of news. Because that business model in the highly polarized world that we now live in, I don’t think that really works anymore.

And so I do think it should be publicly funded. But in order to be a publicly funded news organization in the 21st century, you have to go up a level of integrity, you have to go up a level of objectivity, you have to go up a level of neutrality if you want to survive. And I hope they do that.

DAVID CHAUDOIR: Absolutely. I mean, and they’ve made these strange attempts like BBC Verify and you know.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: It didn’t quite work out. Let’s be honest.

The Opportunity for Gold Standard Journalism

FRANCIS FOSTER: The tragedy for me, for the BBC is that it still has this opportunity to be the gold. This, it has the opportunity to assume the mantle of high quality journalism that nobody else can do. Nobody else can do. Nobody else can do it in America because they’ve got their own declining views and they’re so partisan, there’s no way back. And we’re going the same way over here.

And it’s almost like seeing this hero of yours who you had right the way through your childhood and your early youth and you just want to shake them and go, there’s still time, there’s still time. If you do objective fact based reporting, you will be one of the few people, organizations that can actually still do it.

DAVID CHAUDOIR: But don’t you think that you too, and other people like you are the beneficiaries of this because the BBC is so biased that you can have views outside of.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: No, I don’t agree. I think that, look, of course for us to be able to say, look, the mainstream media is not covering this story, we’ll cover it, that’s beneficial. But the BBC doesn’t have to compete with us. The BBC does not have to compete with a podcast. What the BBC could do is be the platform that everybody goes to and goes, okay, here are the facts as they’ve been reported. Now we get to argue about our opinions.

And Emily Maitlis and Lewis Goodall can have their opinions. We can have our opinions. People who are, you know, on the, on the right can have their opinions. That’s how it should be. If the BBC was willing to act in the role that it actually has. To say nothing of the fact, by the way, look, one of the things that’s going to happen, we’ve just come from America and we already see this is happening.

The mainstream is going to try and start bringing, Brett Cooper is a good example. She’s a right wing presenter, formerly of the Daily Wire. Now she has a slot on Fox News. Every now and again, the mainstream media is going to start bringing people from our world into that. And I guarantee you the BBC is not going to do that. I guarantee you they’re not going to bring in, you know, I don’t know.

DAVID CHAUDOIR: I’m trying to think of Russell Brand.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Well, Russell Brand has got his things more difficult. But I’m trying to think of a, I was trying to think of a, they’re not. They might bring Gary, Gary’s Economics, right, to do a documentary, but they’re not going to bring me and Francis on to do a documentary. And this is the problem, right, because it’s a lack of balance in the approach.

If they fix that, we would celebrate the BBC. People in the middle like us would celebrate it. People some people on the right would abandon. And I can tell you, on the right in this country, if you speak to people, there is no appetite for the BBC to survive in the way that we have it. And if they just did their job, people are dying now for objective journalism. People are crying out for it.

Messaging Beyond News

DAVID CHAUDOIR: But I also think that the messaging within drama as well. Yes, I think the messaging across the board. I mean, I used to love Radio 4 and you can’t listen to it without being. I mean, I remember switching on and there was a drama about a gay Muslim. Now I’m sure there are gay Muslims, but it was.

FRANCIS FOSTER: They’re probably not that vocal.

DAVID CHAUDOIR: No, they’re probably not that.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: There’s so many dark jokes.

DAVID CHAUDOIR: I know I was going to say, yeah, yeah, my mind went there. Yeah. So I was listening one. The last time I listened, I listened to the Money program, what you call it the Woman’s Hour. And then this drama is when I switched off.

But Woman’s Hour is somebody saying, you need to get angry. This woman saying, you need to scream. And I was thinking, my God, you know, this show has changed so much. And I’m not sure whether you two do this, but I now watch BBC4. It’s about. It’s the BBC that I know that’s very old fart. You know, you’re watching old stuff, but you watch that and you think, my God, you know, how the mighty have fallen.

And I think that you need to do something. You need to police the news. You need to have. You need to have somebody who is right wing and is unashamed and is proud to be able to say that. And I think the thing is, in editorial meetings, after a couple of times, I stopped putting my hand up. Not because I wanted to give stories, but I thought, well, there’s no bloody point. I know you’re just a graphic designer. You’re not. You’re not a. But your opinion on things and your idea of things is so far from what they’re saying. I’m not even going to bother. I’m not going to be listened to.

So you need to have. You need to have different editorial voices in news and current affairs. You also need. In entertainment, you need to actually have somebody reading through these scripts and say, what’s this got to do with space aliens? You know, what’s this? You know, were there really black people who were Roman centurions who came to the UK? Is this a proper. Should we be teaching this? There should be actual questions and that.

Because the BBC farms out a lot of stuff to independent production companies like October Films. Who was on that? Who on the BBC was on that? There’s a lot of people, senior people within the BBC correspondence. And they come back and this is, I’m doing the story on this. I didn’t know the machinations of how stories appeared out of the ether. But you’d have a correspondent saying, I’m going to do this story. And you see them writing it. Where do they get their stories from? You know, and who’s checking them? Who’s saying, you know, is this correct?

And in the. Hannah Barnes, did she have somebody mentoring her? I don’t know, saying, you know, this is what we need to say. There were obviously editorial meetings. They’d have editorial meetings and discuss their shows. But apart from that guy that I said was the hand grenade man, there were very few different opinions. And you need to do that across the board. You need to do that in entertainment, you need to do that in so light programming. You need to do that for the One show, for Strictly Come Dancing, everything. And I think it’s a monumental task for them to turn the ship around.

The Challenge of Politicization in Organizations

FRANCIS FOSTER: And I think as well, look, they’ve also. Let’s also be fair to the BBC. They’re facing this major challenge which every big organization is facing, which is the politicization of everything and in particular young people. And I think we need to get back to a culture of, you know what, you have your religion, you have your politics. If you identify as a fish from Friday to Sunday evening, identify as a fish. I don’t care. When you come into work, you do your job, just do your job. And I saw it in teaching, people started to bring their politics into teaching. I’m going, why are you teaching the kids about Brexit when they can’t even write their own name and they’re eight years old.

DAVID CHAUDOIR: Good. Yes. I think you need to be the doorman on, on the BBC.

FRANCIS FOSTER: See, this is a classic thing, because I make a point. I’ve got a self Exactly. I’m the doorman.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: You should be the cleaner, mate.

DAVID CHAUDOIR: Yeah.

FRANCIS FOSTER: You know what you’d be good at, mate? Cleaning the bogs. Why don’t you do that?

KONSTANTIN KISIN: On that happy note, David, we appreciate you coming on and thank you for helping the story to come out the way it has. It’s really important that people like you speak up when, when organizations that we all love and want to succeed go off the rail. So thanks for coming on.

DAVID CHAUDOIR: Thank you.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: We’re going to ask you some questions from our supporters that they’ve submitted in a second. But before we do, what’s the one thing we’re not talking about that we should be?

FRANCIS FOSTER: Before David answers a final question at the end of the interview, make sure to head over to our substack. The link is in the description where you’ll be able to see this.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Was there anyone at the BBC that you could tell about your concerns about what’s, what was going on?

FRANCIS FOSTER: Is the BBC doing any similar antics with other right wing leaders?

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Will the person or persons who actually did the Trump edits ever be sacked or identified?

The Future of Independent Media

DAVID CHAUDOIR: Okay, this might be a bit of a curveball, but I think you should be producing comedy and drama. You too. I think that trigonometry, you should set up a division. I think you should crowdfund original content, original written drama, comedy and start putting, you’re doing this, which is great, you’re in this sphere, but people need to be producing stuff where there isn’t the ideological weight of someone like the BBC, where you can cast the people that you want for the stories that you want.

And like your podcast, it might grow slowly, there’ll be lots of challenges ahead. But I think that you need to be starting. People like trigonometry and other people need to be making drama. Start by making short films, start trying to get features made, get people in who unfund this stuff and take it on the road because you’re going to have difficulties getting it shown up, mainstream TV, etc, but you need, we need in this country a groundswell of independent journalism, independent drama, independent advertising even.

I’ve got friends who work in film and drama and also in advertising. And you know, some of the, the lunacy that we see in news and current affairs is all there in advertising and drama. So I think that it’s, I think I see it as an opportunity. I think that you guys have got a great opportunity, you’ve got a wonderful, you know, you’ve got a growing audience and if you were to ask them, we’re going to make a horror film. We’re going to make a series of short horror films. Does anybody want to get involved financially? We’ll package it all up. I think that you guys are the future of independent media. And I think you need to be. I think you need to be. What’s the right word? Exploiting that a bit more. All right.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: We will be exploiting everything. We are called exploitative by many people, so we’re going to lean into it. David, thank you so much for coming on.

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