Of all the ridiculous things the BBC has ever said to me, while trying to pretend to be impartial, perhaps the most absurd is this: ‘‘Where the BBC’s editorial guidelines refer to ‘due impartiality’, the term ‘due’ refers to requirement for impartiality ‘adequate and appropriate’ to the output in question. This means that for drama the bar is set lower than for, say, a documentary.”
The opposite, of course, should be the case. Nobody now recalls the scores of radical BBC documentaries on social issues from the 1960s. But millions will never forget the radical “Wednesday Plays” of the same era, such as Cathy Come Home and Up the Junction, which were watched by millions and changed the terms of the debate.
