BBC Panorama and the LSE North Korea row: why the BBC needs to take a wider view of its ethical responsibilities

The LSE row with Panorama came just days after some top BBC journalists spoke at a journalism conference run by my LSE think-tank Polis, where we were debating ‘trust’. One of the reasons that we do trust the BBC, despite scandals such as Savile or the Newsnight children’s home film, is that it is prepared to be held to account when it gets things wrong and that it stands up for its own values in the face of criticism. So I don’t think that the North Korea fracas is a sign of the BBC’s ethical decline, but it does sound alarm bells. ‘Ding Dong’, as it were.