I was intrigued by the details of e-mail exchanges given in the Pollard Review, a report by Nick Pollard, former Sky News head, of ‘an independent review commissioned by the BBC into the management by the BBC of a Newsnight investigation relating to allegations of sexual abuse of children by Jimmy Savile’.
E-mails are quick, easy, and a great aid to business decision-making, aren’t they? But they also get replicated across the corporate system, and as a result are hard to remove. They sometimes lurk, waiting to be discovered if there is a problem. And when matters are exposed to scrutiny we then start to hear the explanations: didn’t read it, forgot it, didn’t seem so important at the time, my PA read it and didn’t pass it on.
Here there were serious allegations relating to a well-known TV personality, one of the BBC’s erstwhile darlings, which should have been addressed years before his death. The Savile viewer-generating TV personality was in a powerful position, and he seemed to have led a charmed existence, avoiding various challenges over his behaviour, including several failed police investigations. Stacked against this we have the quasi-public service liberal culture of the BBC. Well paid, steady employment for many with a good pension at the end of it. People in it for the long run, a situation that wouldn’t encourage ‘rocking the boat’.
Just what are the mechanics of human psychology around an ‘avoidance decision-making process’ i.e. where doing nothing keeps the status quo, doing something has only immediate dis-benefits? How would a middle manager react? Try to tackle it themselves - hardly? Turn a blind eye, keep quiet - ‘not my responsibility’? Refer it up in an oblique way to cover backside, and don’t follow through? And just what is the risk that top management will not thank you for pointing up an issue that might apparently be ‘under the radar’ and forcing them to do something about it?
There just didn’t appear to be anywhere in the BBC chain of command that would actually react to rumours and allegations around Savile and to go on the record to ask the simple question ‘do we really want this person as one of our star personalities?’
Does this amount to a complete exercise in double-think? An ethics problem may be brought to light, but in such a low-key way that no-one in authority is listening (or maybe no-one is forced to listen). The elephant remains in the corner; the smaller cogs in the machine don’t really expect those further up the chain to react and aren’t holding their breath.
After Savile’s death we end up with e-mail chains where people now refer to a known problem but no-one actually says what it is. According to Pollard, Senior BBC managers used phrases in their e-mails such as:
‘I’d feel v
queasy about obit. I saw the real truth!!!’
‘The guy is
pretty complex and difficult and there is a dark side.’
‘We decided
that the dark side to Jim … would make it impossible to make an honest film
that could be shown close to death.’
‘I gather we didn’t prepare the obit because of the darker side of the
story.’
A dark side? Where
does the buck stop? You say you didn’t know about this, BUT SURELY IT WAS YOUR JOB TO KNOW?
Here’s a
decision-making matrix for the ‘ethically challenged’ when dealing with errant
celebs:
Hard decision – let’s expose this person,
we will have to handle the PR disaster that may well follow, but at least we remember
our integrity. Ethics score: 9/10.
Easier decision – let’s stop using
this person now, keep it low key, we don’t owe them a living, and we need to
put distance between us. Ethics score 0/10.
Even easier decision – let’s keep
using this person, they’re great for ratings and we don’t want to see them
working for someone else instead. Ethics score: (minus) 5/10.
The Pollard
Review also gives an ‘eye-opening’ insight into the attitude of public
relations people when confronted with challenging circumstances. Here’s an
example quoted in the report:
‘Thought of the hour. PR [Newsnight editor Peter
Rippon] changes blog and accepts he was wrong and goes giving panorama a scalp.
GE then goes into Select saying he backed his editor as you would expect. Turns
out he was wrong sad but he did the right thing and we all move on???’
A pet spin
phrase for the guilty – ‘isn’t it about time we all moved on?’Message for corporate leaders: DON’T LEAVE IT TO YOUR SPIN DOCTORS TO SET YOUR CORPORATE ETHICS STANDARDS.
Find the
Daily Mail article here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2250847/Chaos-incompetence-BBC-Savile-scandal--STILL-gets-sack.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
Pollard Review full text here (BBC Trust site): http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/news/press_releases/2012/pollard_review.html
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