I have now been a journalist for 40 years. The forces ranged against my profession have never been so powerful.
Once, I believed that humanity’s problem was an information deficit. Now, I know you can’t speak truth to power if power controls your words
The BBC I joined on my first day of professional journalism – 40 years ago this week – is unrecognisable today. While, for most of its history, the corporation had largely defended the status quo, under the director general at the time, Alasdair Milne, its journalists were sometimes allowed to stick it to power. This, I believe, is what journalism exists to do – and seldom does.
As a student, I’d hammered on the doors of the BBC’s Natural History Unit, insisting there was a major gap in its coverage: investigative environmental reporting. If they took me on, I argued, I could help them fill it. The phone rang as I was leaving the house for one of my final exams. It was the head of the unit, saying: “You’re so fucking persistent you’ve got the job.”
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