There are shades of grey. The BBC is at arm’s length, and you just need to glance at the Dyke story or how Cameron steered coverage by leveraging the funding negotiations, to see how short that arm is. They keep up appearances by letting a few big guns free to shoot, while everyone else is on a comfortable leash. It’s not NK but it’s not total freedom either, as much as we’d like to pretend it is. The BBC does some excellent work but there is no point trying to pretend it’s perfect.
