Church’s Vital Role in Society Goes Unrecognised in New BBC Charter

The key role being played by churches and the faith communities in society in England has gone unrecognised by the British government’s White Paper on the BBC’s Royal Charter, the Church of England has declared.

|PIC1|The Church of England has expressed its discontent with the recognition given to the churches’ work by the government in its report, and in response it has made a submission to the government’s final consultation on the BBC Charter Review.

In its submission, the Church warns that “high quality” could become just an option for new programme’s by the BBC if the new Charter is followed.

The Bishop of Southwark, who was leading a panel of senior members of faith communities to give evidence to the House of Lords’ BBC Charter Select Committee in November 2005, this week spoke out at the seeming lack of influence religious programming looks to get in the new BBC Charter.

He asked, “Where do religion and many other programme types fit into the six new purposes for the BBC? Religion could fit into all of them yet it is given a passing mention under only one. Many observers may think that religion has been sidelined or could be excluded at some future date.

|TOP|“We do not want things just to be left to the good will of the Director-General. We feel that there should be a formal public service commitment which includes fair reflection of religion and other matters of faith. We would like to see that built-in to the Agreement accompanying the Charter.”

The Church of England has urged for an acknowledgement to be made of the BBC’s all-embracing nature of religion in the BBC’s purposes.

The Church submission states that religion is “too significant an area to be left to chance. The new Charter must make clear that there is a place for programmes where moral and ethical dilemmas are discussed. It must also make provision for the broadcast of religious services when the nation can come together at times of grief or celebration.”

“Effective news reporting needs to be informed about the religious perspectives that often underlie world events”, the submission argues, according to the Church of England.

|AD|The Bishop of Southwark at the Select Committee said, “I do not believe you can understand much of what is going on around the world today in terms of hard news without having some understanding of religion. When you try to understand, for example, what is going on in Iraq, without some depth of understanding of religion, you can make some grave errors.”

He added, “I do not believe you can do that without a religious perspective.”

For the first time, the government’s proposals have made “high quality” an option for BBC programmes – something the Church expresses deep disappointment with.

According to the White Paper, programmes must show “at least one” of five characteristics, one of which is high quality. However, the Church urges the government to make it compulsory for all BBC output to be of “high quality”.

Another major concern is that plans could result in smaller in-house specialist teams for programmes, such as Religion and Ethics, which could lead to these areas no longer having enough programme commissions to be viable.

The Church of England Ministry Division website states: “The Church accepts that there must be fair and open competition between in-house and independent producers but wants to see safeguards in place against the loss of expert knowledge.”