Newsnight: More than just a job

Gavin Esler is the favourite to succeed Jeremy Vine on 'Newsnight'. But the search for a new presenter is more than just a personality contest – it has led to a fraught debate within the BBC, says Tim Luckhurst

When the BBC stirred controversy by revealing that the Scotsman publisher, Andrew Neil, the Times columnist Matthew Parris and the former Independent and Express editor Rosie Boycott are each under consideration as a replacement for Jeremy Vine as a presenter of Newsnight, a crucial objective was to start a debate about the type of presenter that the BBC can afford to employ.

Roger Mosey, head of BBC television news, explains the official position: "In looking for a new presenter for Newsnight, we want to cast our net pretty widely, so we're looking at both internal and external candidates."

In fact, Parris has since told the BBC that he is not interested in the job and has even turned down the opportunity to make a guest appearance. Andrew Neil is less reticent. He presented for the first time last Tuesday night; the audience was 150,000 bigger than Newsnight's nightly average, and he sustained its interest throughout the edition. It was an impressive performance, one that might suggest that he had a long-term future in the role. But that is unlikely.

Only one presenter has a serious chance of joining Kirsty Wark and Jeremy Paxman when Vine completes his move to Radio 2. He is Gavin Esler, former BBC Washington correspondent and now the main face of BBC News 24, a Scotsman columnist and regular contributor to Radio 4. Esler is the benchmark. Colleagues know that he will perform well when he presents the show later this month. If he wants the job, he can have it. Fans will recall that he presented Newsnight before heading to the USA. But does Esler want to return to his old stamping-ground? He enjoys his current role.

There is a larger, ethical agenda: how far can the BBC go in replacing politically neutral presenters with lively characters who have established ideological positions? Will viewers rebel if the Reithian ideal of irreproachable objectivity is breached?

The corporation is creeping towards an answer. While staff grow angry about high-profile figures such as the Today presenter John Humphrys and the editor Rod Liddle expressing firm views in columns for The Sunday Times and The Guardian, there is scant evidence that licence-payers mind. The suspicion is that personality may be more attractive than neutered objectivity.

The BBC's latest set of editorial guidelines draws an important distinction. When a BBC employee's reputation has been made mainly by their work for the corporation, they should be required to remain neutral. If the individual has joined from outside, and has brought an established ideological position with them, there is no reason to disguise it from the public. So, Andrew Neil's free-market views are no secret, but they have not prevented him from doing a professional job as presenter of the BBC's party-conference coverage. The same is true of James Naughtie. Before he joined The World at One, and then Today, Naughtie was a partisan correspondent for The Guardian (and, before that, for a more liberal incarnation of The Scotsman).

From the arguments at Television Centre, it might be possible to conclude that nothing has changed. The BBC has always allowed ideological warriors to present politically sensitive coverage – Polly Toynbee joined from The Guardian as well. It has all been done before. But that is not the whole story. Triumphant in its newly dominant position as Britain's only global television and radio player, and with its funding secure following the frank guarantees offered by the Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell, the BBC is stretching its own rules further than before. Liddle and Humphrys did make their names as BBC staff, but they are permitted to write newspaper columns while still earning their corporate salaries.

Next step? There are powerful voices in BBC News who can see no good reason why stars should not continue to express their views in print while earning income and kudos as BBC presenters. They insist that nobody complained when Naughtie and Toynbee arrived from the impeccably leftwing Guardian. Why should the reaction be hostile when Andrew Neil, or former Tory minister Michael Portillo, contribute from a still-active right-of-centre perspective?

Roger Mosey says: "I've never accepted the caricature of the BBC as a bunch of pinko lefties, but I think it is important that we don't only see Guardian writers as potential correspondents and presenters. We've got to look equally hard at people from papers such as the Telegraph or the Mail.

"The key thing for me is that a presenter has to be scrupulously fair and impartial on air. If they become regular BBC presenters, they have to abide by the new guidelines. But it's unrealistic to imagine that we are going to find presenters who have never expressed a personal view in the past or who have never held an interesting opinion. Andrew Marr shows that it is possible to have had a past life but then become a brilliant and respected BBC figure"

It is an incomplete answer. Marr ceased to write overtly political columns as soon as he joined the BBC. Naughtie did the same when he became a presenter. Nobody is suggesting that Neil should abandon his day job, nor that John Humphrys should stop writing for newspapers.

The truth is that the BBC has got itself into a bit of a muddle. If staffers such as Liddle are allowed to express opinions while editing a show as prestigious as Today, how can it be consistent to deny the same opportunities to others?

There is danger here. Television and radio personalities reach huge audiences, their profile, and so their value as contributors to newspapers and magazines, is enhanced as a result. Columnists with television status have greater influence and thus earn larger fees. By muddying the distinction between neutrality on air and partisanship elsewhere, the BBC is walking a tightrope. At best it is creating two classes of journalist, one with the status and power to say and earn whatever he or she likes, the other still bound by impartiality rules.

Objectivity has always been a bit of a myth. Presenters hold opinions like everyone else. Kirsty Wark has expressed active support for the Scottish parliament, even taking a role in its design, while parading as neutral on Newsnight. Still more obviously, her commercial interests as a director of Wark Clements, a leading independent producer of television programmes, are greatly promoted by the status afforded her by her role on the BBC.

The confusion must end. Either the BBC drops any pretence that it will police the expression of opinion by its presenters, or it allows a free-for-all. The latter course might produce exciting programmes, but the risk is that the revolution will be complete before the debate has had a proper airing. And that is why the sceptics who have promoted discussion of the Newsnight vacancy are performing a public service.