The British Broadcasting Corporation is one of those national treasures, like the NHS or the Proms, that generate a sort of proprietory feeling. It is, after all, British, and we fund it through the licence fee, so it's 'ours'.
'We', however, are not just Christians – as Lord Reith might reasonably have assumed back in 1922 – but are the whole nation: largely secular, in favour of gay marriage, comprising large numbers of Muslims, Hindus, atheists and even the odd surviving Swedenborgian. And because of that, in the eyes of the conservative, traditional Christians in whose name evangelist Canon J John speaks in a widely-reported blog post, the BBC is set up to fail.
There's no doubt that he does speak for a constituency when he hits out at its 'sceptical liberalism'. There's a perception that not just the BBC but the secular media in general is not favourably disposed towards religion. It's easy to nurture a sense of grievance, so that this becomes something that everyone 'knows'.
And goodness knows there's plenty wrong with the BBC. There are, however, plenty of good reasons for challenging this view, even without a point-by-point rebuttal of J John's examples.
One is that he's not right when he says the BBC doesn't represent normal, mainstream Christianity. Absent from his list is A Vicar's Life, a warmly-received portrayal of just the sort of everyday Christian ministry for which he appears to be calling. We've also had multiple series of An Island Parish, A Seaside Parish and A Country Parish – all decent productions made for the BBC, with not a trace of metropolitan sneer about them.
Another is that he appears to think the BBC is there to provide a platform, as though it's a sort of Speaker's Corner, and that Radio 4's Thought for the Day ought to be opened up to conservative voices – 'Where are the church leaders, thoughtful and engaging with culture, whose church membership runs into thousands?' But TFTD is not designed to speak to a conservative segment of the population. It is designed to stop the Today programme's listeners reaching for the 'off' button as soon as it's announced, by offering something from a religious – usually Christian – point of view that is worth hearing even if you don't have a faith.
Does the BBC ignore people's Christian faith when it's profiling them? His Nick Vujicic example is odd, certainly; Usain Bolt, not so much. Here there's the assumption that what interests Christians about someone – ie that they're fellow-believers – is the same as what interests everyone else. For one thing, that's just not true, and for another the assumption that someone's faith ought to feature in mentions of them creates really tricky editorial dilemmas that busy media professionals have neither the time nor patience to deal with.
Criticism of the BBC is a national pasttime, and it should not be exempt from criticism of its attitude to religion, either. Yes, its journalists will sometimes be tone-deaf and ill-informed about religion, because they're part of a society that's increasingly so. That can legitimately be challenged. And yes, obviously there will be a disproportionate concentration in news and features on issues like gay marriage. Obviously, because moral issues become interesting where they run counter to the consensus – that's just how news works. And yes, it could certainly do more to 'normalise' faith, for instance by showing ordinary people going to church without making a thing of it – with the proviso that Christianity has declined in the UK to the extent that this is increasingly abnormal.
But what we Christians need to realise – apart from informing ourselves far better about how the media works – is that the BBC, like any other state institution, does not exist in order to advance our agenda. The news media reflect our plural society, and on the whole the BBC does its job pretty well. Attacking it for not being Christian enough scratches where a certain section of evangelicalism itches, but it's not terribly helpful.
Follow Mark Woods on Twitter: @RevMarkWoods
