“Impartiality is a choice”: BBC Director-General Tim Davie discusses his career, the free press and pushing media power out of London

Over 130 members of staff, journalism students and alumni were in attendance to hear his thoughts and ask questions.

An atypical career

Tim’s trajectory to the top of the BBC has been one in which he has followed his interests rather than heeding a linear path.

He credits his success to a combination of hard graft, being “chemically competitive”, a deep sense of curiosity instilled in him by his family, and a “fear of failure”.

He first met Professor John when they were both English students at the University of Cambridge. As a first-generation student who hailed from Croydon, his profile was atypical compared to many of his peers.

While at Cambridge, Tim wrote for the student magazine, was president of the student union and briefly ran a nightclub.

He then rose the corporate ladder as a marketer, first at Procter & Gamble, then at PepsiCo, before joining the BBC in 2005.

After a few years, Tim moved into the music division of the BBC and then into management roles, finally stepping into the role of Director-General in 2020.

In this role, he ensures the public service broadcaster follows its mission to educate, inform and entertain; and makes sure it remains impartial, unbiased and operational.

Impartiality, public service and the role of the BBC in democracy

“I came into this role with impartiality as my number one priority,” he said. “Our first goal is fair and fact-based journalism, and everything else comes second.”

For Tim, this means journalist employees should not wear campaign apparel into the office – such as campaign t-shirts or flag pins.

It also means giving respectful and fair coverage to political parties that journalists might be uncomfortable with, unless the political groups’ views veer so far into the extreme that they become illegal.

He wants the BBC to become a kind of town square which rebuilds societal trust and cohesion.

“To be the real deal, you must do the work, have an impact, and be clear on who you are serving: the public and the audience,” he said. “You want to work with people who are different to you and have an open mind.”

Tim credits events and rooms like this one as an important part of that process. He said:

One such example is the BBC’s upcoming broadcast of Glastonbury, where bands like Kneecap have been booked by the festival.

The band made headlines when its member Mo Chara was charged with a terrorism offence for chanting pro-Palestine and anti-Tory slogans at a concert. He is due to go to court a week before his Glastonbury performance.

When grilled by a journalism student on whether or not the performance would be aired, Tim said that the BBC would reserve judgement until they saw the performance, with any coverage subject to BBC editorial guidelines.

The future of the BBC

Tim expressed concern in response to an audience question about the fact that the American national broadcaster Voice of America had been hit with a Trump-backed order to remove its federal taxpayer funding.

He called on the British Government to better champion a free press by investing in the BBC’s World Service.

The BBC has diversity metrics as part of its hiring practices, but he would like to see the introduction of further metrics around employees’ socioeconomic background to better reflect the British population and the people it serves.

While he acknowledged that local press is under “enormous pressure”, he added that there has never been a better time for British journalists to build a career in the BBC outside of London and plans to keep pushing more power out of the capital.