Spotlight

Jewish Renaissance is hosting a series of online events to mark 100 years of the BBC "focusing in particular on Jewish contributions to its prolific output." 

Tonight, Alan Yentob, occasionally glimpsed, beautifully framed,  on imagine, steps into the spotlight, in conversation with a so-far unnamed interlocutor. Perhaps the conversation can discuss how to reduce the current animus between the editorial leadership of the Jewish Chronicle and the BBC Director General. 

It may be easing off a little. Daniel Finkelstein (Lord and Times columnist) has been given space to write that in his view "the existence of the BBC is very much in the interest of Jews", and call for calm. 

"If we don’t frame our criticism of the BBC correctly, we could end up spreading the behaviour we are trying to eliminate. BBC staff might get the idea that the reports we are complaining about are the sorts of things that real BBC people are supposed to do. So they may end up doing it too.

So instead of saying, 'this error is typical of biased BBC reporting', we should be saying, 'we so value the objectivity of the BBC that we are disappointed by this lapse. The reporter has let their usually excellent colleagues down'. In other words, we should isolate the behaviour we are trying to criticise, rather than stress how common it is."