The Observer’s editor-in-chief has called for the BBC to be “put beyond the reach of politicians” – and has compared the fight for survival within television to the zombie fungus in The Last Of Us.
Speaking to Sky News about his James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival on Wednesday, James Harding said it “is not the golden age of TV, it’s more like The Last Of Us… just trying to stay alive as the fungus of new things eats through all of us”.
The co-founder of Tortoise Media – which bought The Observer from the Scott Trust and Guardian Media Group in December – said he believes establishing the independence of the BBC is critical “if we want to build confidence in shared facts and respect for the truth”.
“At the moment politicians choose the chairman, they choose the licence fee, they have enormous influence over it,” he said.
“Let’s face it, there’s a suspicion that there’s a certain worldview attached to the BBC. Let’s make sure that it’s obvious to people that actually different points of view are really welcome.”
Mr Harding, who ran the BBC’s news and current affairs programming from 2013 up until the beginning of 2018, said the government must consider separating itself from the institution.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Should BBC merge with Channel 4?
He explained: “When the government established the independence of the Bank of England in 1997, it put confidence in the central institution of the economy ahead of politics; the government today can and should do the same for the shared institution…
