1 « About us », BBC, https://www.bbc.com/aboutthebbc. 1The BBC is a nationally and internationally renowned institution, often held up as an example of excellence in public service broadcasting for the quality of its programmes and of the information it broadcasts in the United Kingdom and abroad. The BBC's reputation for impartiality and independence is one of the cornerstones of its value system, it is the first thing its website states in the “About us” section: “We’re impartial and independent”.1 This position underpins its self-declared mission to "inform, educate, and entertain". However, these values have constantly been redefined as several forms of censorship and self-censorship have been applied in the context of conflict with political or economic powers. The BBC’s choices, silences and omissions shed a light on its understanding of its own role as a public service broadcaster.

The values of impartiality set out in its Charter have contributed to building the BBC’s reputation. But it was probably the role it played during the Second World War that made it internationally renowned. During this period, the BBC actively contributed to the fight against the Axis powers, and all its news bulletins were strictly controlled by the Ministry of Information. It was, however, far from being simply over-confident propaganda, with its willingness to broadcast even the bad news being used as a proof of its trustworthiness. The Corporation’s reputation for impartiality was therefore strengthened in the event.

Since then, the relationship between the British government and the BBC has been put to the test more than once, impacting the way in which national and international conflicts have been covered, for instance. The Suez Canal crisis, the Falklands War and the Gulf War, on an international level, but also the conflict in Northern Ireland or the miners' strikes, on a national level, are all examples that have led researchers to question the BBC's mission as a public service and its duty of impartiality.

The reactions of the BBC and its journalists have varied depending on the period and on each specific situation. The study of the media coverage of each episode reveals, on the whole, a form of resistance, on the part of the BBC, to government pressure. Silences and grey areas, on the contrary, have largely been a result of choices made by journalists outside of direct political constraint.

Paradoxically, it might appear that attempts at direct censorship are equivalent to the state admitting its own weakness and trying, through sheer political force, to control an uncertain situation. During the Suez crisis, the application of the fourteen-day rule, prohibiting discussion of a topic for fourteen days after its debate in the House of Commons, was one such attempt at silencing the BBC, with little effect.

While pressure and intimidation may at times have prevented the BBC from fully honouring its duty of impartiality — namely, the need to express various points of view on a situation, whether conflictual or not, instead of limiting itself to the dominant ideologies — other strategies adopted by the government may account for the BBC's silences.

These strategies include, for example, the selection of official news and news sources or the appointment by the government of political "allies" to the BBC's Board of Governors or Regulatory Board.

2 This one-day conference was co-organised by MIMMOC (Université de Poitiers) and REMELICE (Universit (...) 8The wide variety of these strategies was the object of the one-day conference on January 22nd, 2021, a one-day conference was dedicated to "Censorship and Blind Spots: the BBC’s Silences (1922-1995)”.2 It was open to a wide public interested in media history and the relationship between the media and politics, and aimed in particular at students preparing for the agrégation (a French competitive examination to become a teacher).

The aim of the conference was to explore, almost against the tide, the shadows that surround the BBC, the blind spots, those things which have been left unsaid, or only partially said, including the unheard voices, minorities, silences, self-censorship, and the direct censorship that has affected the BBC, and which are only rarely mentioned since they may tarnish the institution's reputation.

The historian of women at the BBC, Kate Murphy, highlighted on the day of the conference just how much the institutional history of the BBC itself was full of blind spots. Women at the BBC, despite being essential to the development of the early years of the corporation, were largely erased from official history. Since the seminal work by Asa Briggs, historians have tried to shed light on these blind spots and offer a more inclusive vision of the institution and its workers.

The papers included in this issue of the Cahiers du Mimmoc offer a deeper insight into the BBC’s silences evoked during the conference, as well as an annotated bibliography including a list of references, followed by a brief annotation, about the BBC (1922-1995).

The Reithian quest for an ideal BBC was not without its paradoxes. Trevor Harris highlights the difficult balance that the BBC needed to achieve in order to retain its independence from the government. The decisions he made earned Reith a powerful enemy in Winston Churchill who never quite forgave the compromise position adopted by the Corporation during the 1926 General Strike. The two men's feud helps explain some of Reith's later choices when dealing with political power, and some of Churchill’s attitude when dealing with the BBC later on.

Although it aimed at appearing impartial, the BBC was not always successful in its efforts and the public’s reactions to its choices could be very critical. This can be seen in the correspondence sent by members of the public to political figures. Olivier Esteves's article deals with letters of support to right-wing Member of Parliament Enoch Powell and their indictment of the BBC's perceived permissiveness. Because of the Corporation’s desire to reach out to the population at large, including ethnic minorities, the BBC was targeted by Powellites for acting as the mouthpiece of an increasingly liberal society, while silencing the respectable, law-abiding and ordinary 'silent majority'. The article is an example of the perception of the BBC by certain fractions of the public as a biased, left-wing organ, involved in a form of cultural war during the 1960s.

On the other end of the political spectrum, the BBC could be seen as unduly favouring the government and employers in its reporting on industrial actions. In his analysis of the coverage of the "Battle of Orgreave" - which took place on June 18 1984 during the 1984-1985 British miners' strike — Jeremy Tranmer gives a clear example of challenges faced by the BBC in providing the audience with impartial information about a conflictual domestic situation. He reveals the complexity of the BBC's positioning and of its reporting, notably how it was influenced by other media such as the press and ITV, its direct competitor. The controversy that followed the BBC coverage of the miners' strike is reminiscent of the questions raised during the General Strike of 1926, when the BBC tried to remain neutral and impartial, even if it failed to give a truly pluralistic view of the events.

3 Hurd, Douglas, Hansard, 19 October 1988, col. 898. 15The coverage of the conflict in Northern Ireland led to similar disagreement about the right way of navigating impartiality and the national interest. Élodie Gallet argues that the introduction of the broadcasting ban between 1988 and 1994 was the most explicit and longest lasting measure taken against the British audiovisual industry. The Home Secretary at the time, Douglas Hurd, declared: "this [was] not censorship, because it does not deal with or prohibit the reporting of events. It deals with and prohibits direct access and its extra impact on terrorism and its supporters3”, a contested position given the extent of its effects on the coverage of the Northern Irish conflict, both direct and indirect.

4 Sadly, Houcine Msaddek passed away in July 2021, while the present issue was being edited. We have (...) 16Despite the instances of silence described above, however, the BBC has still largely maintained a reputation for trustworthy reporting, especially in its foreign services. The first BBC foreign language broadcast took place on 3 January 1938 with the launching of its Arabic service. Houcine Msaddek describes how BBC policy regarding Arabic broadcasting, and foreign language broadcasting in general, was formed during negotiations between the BBC and the Foreign Office in 1937. He explores three key moments in BBC Arabic broadcasting: the beginning of Arabic broadcasting in 1938 which aimed to counteract the influence of the recently launched German Arabic broadcasting in the run up to the Second World War, broadcasting during the Suez Crisis, and broadcasting during the first Gulf War. During these three moments, in accordance with the 1937 agreement with the Foreign Office, the BBC often omitted news which appeared unadvisable in time of crisis. Houcine Msaddek argues that this "silencing" of certain elements must be analysed more closely in order to ascertain to what extent the BBC engaged in pro-British propaganda, and to what extent it provided neutral and objective information. He suggests that the form of foreign language broadcasting imagined by Lord Reith in the 1930s has proven to be a largely resilient model, despite its periodic "blind spots", earning the BBC international recognition and contributing to its prominent position as a global soft power4.

Silences, blind spots, self-censorship and censorship may have been the result of economic, commercial, political issues and due to pressure from authorities, consumers and competition. John Reith considered that the BBC should be a democratic tool to educate the public and elevate popular taste. He hoped to expose members of the working classes to programmes to which they would not have spontaneously turned, for example by varying the broadcasting times each day. The BBC was therefore accused of acting initially as “an arbiter of morality”, as the Annan report of 1977 put it, which meant that the programmes’ value in terms of moral and social edification weigh more in the balance than their popularity. This paternalistic attitude was criticized throughout the history of the Corporation.

In cultural matters, the restriction of the public's freedom of choice by BBC programmers at the time when the BBC was held a monopoly of broadcasting could therefore also be seen as a form of silence, which partly explains the defection of a large number of listeners and viewers when radio and television were opened up to competition. Reith’s elitism was particularly undermined when ITV was created in 1955, since the BBC had to diversify its programming in order to survive.

It was in response to this cultural self-censorship that the Annan Report of 1974 recommended that the Corporation should address a wider audience and work to better satisfy its needs. As a result, growing ethnic, linguistic, cultural and regional diversity, along with the creation of Channel 4, transformed public broadcasting, with a desire to correct at least some of the Corporation’s blind spots, although some phenomena might always remain in the shadows. ***

The last paper included in this issue of the Cahiers du Mimmoc is a report of a one-day conference dedicated to “Équilibre(s) en études civilisationnelles” organised by the Fédération pour l’étude des civilisations contemporaines (FE2C). The conference hosted presentations around the issue of balance in different geographical areas. Through this wide topic, the participants worked towards building a definition of what civilization studies in France are.

<footnote n="1">1 « About us », BBC, https://www.bbc.com/aboutthebbc.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">2 This one-day conference was co-organised by MIMMOC (Université de Poitiers) and REMELICE (Université d’Orléans). It took place online due to the pandemic. Some video podcasts are available at https://uptv.univ-poitiers.fr/program/censure-et-angles-morts-de-la-bbc-censorship-and-blind-spots-the-bbc-s-silences/index.html (accessed on 26/05/2021)</footnote>

<footnote n="3">3 Hurd, Douglas, Hansard, 19 October 1988, col. 898.</footnote>

<footnote n="4">4 Sadly, Houcine Msaddek passed away in July 2021, while the present issue was being edited. We have chosen to publish his paper with some editorial changes. Our deepest sympathy goes to his family.</footnote>