Recent weeks have not been very comfortable for the BBC. A documentary about Gaza it refused to broadcast was aired instead by a competitor, to critical acclaim. A livestream of the Glastonbury Festival turned into a political nightmare, after a performer led the crowd in a chant of “Death to the IDF”—leading the network to ditch plans for future “high risk” live shows.

But Alan Rusbridger, who spent twenty years as the editor of The Guardian and is now the editor of Prospect magazine, believes the BBC’s problems go much deeper—at a moment when it’s more needed than ever. “The BBC has never really recovered its nerve,” he says.

Read More:

*Listen to Media Confidential, Rusbridger’s podcast on the media, cohosted with Lionel Barber

*Rusbridger: “The BBC Claims Impartiality over Gaza but There Is a Conflict of Interest at Its Heart” — July 2025

*Rusbridger: “How the Government Captured the BBC” — January 2024

*The Gaza documentary the BBC refused to broadcast

*Controversy over an earlier Gaza documentary

*The David Kelly saga

Hosted by Josh Hersh
Produced by Amanda Darrach