This is taken from The Observer

Greg Dyke: BBC at fault for the decline in its reputation
Former director general says he is partly to blame following rows over top salaries and David Kelly affair
by Vanessa Thorpe, arts and media correspondent
The Observer, Sunday 24 October 2010
     

Greg Dyke, the former director general of the BBC, believes the public service broadcaster has damaged its standing at home and abroad with a series of self-inflicted wounds.

As the corporation faces grave financial challenges following the comprehensive spending review, Dyke – who stepped down in 2004, amid the furore caused by the Hutton inquiry into the death of government weapons inspector David Kelly – accepted some of the blame in an interview with the Observer.

He said the BBC's fraught relations with government and the huge sums it has paid to top management and stars such as Jonathan Ross and Graham Norton had dented confidence in a media network that should be the envy of the world.

"The great strength of the BBC was how highly it was valued by the public; and government should recognise what a huge asset it is. But the problem with salaries started around 2005 and 2006 and was allowed to go on too long."

Dyke, who is chairman of the British Film Institute and chaired a recent Conservative-commissioned report into the British media, argues that those on the highest salaries ought to have accepted reduced terms. "The management should have started calling people up a lot earlier and telling them: 'If you don't like it, I am afraid you will have to go.' But they let it go on for a long time."

In the week the BBC learned that it will have to finance the World Service from its licence fee income, Dyke argues that BBC executives have not only failed to address the issue of inflated fees, but have also mishandled the departure of Mark Byford, who is stepping down as deputy director general.

"Mark has been made to carry the can," he said. "He is a good bloke and they could really have played it better by letting him go with more dignity. They have dropped him in it. And he was someone who did care about the BBC and who was respected."

Byford was appointed as Dyke's deputy in 2004 and became a key figure after the death of Kelly, who was exposed as the source of a controversial Radio 4 news story alleging that the case for the war on Iraq had been "sexed up". Following Dyke's resignation, Byford made a public apology on behalf of the BBC.

"This was a mistake and it was also probably the most embarrassing moment in the history of the BBC. Standing there next to the acting BBC chairman, Richard Ryder, and apologising for almost everything. It looked terrible," said Dyke.

But now, following the release of medical documents relating to Kelly's death, Dyke admits he could have done more to handle the conflict between the BBC and Blair's government. "We should have set up an inquiry ourselves," he said. "Alastair Campbell just went in hard, because he is a thug and those were his tactics. But we could have kicked it into the long grass for a while. It might have worked."

Since it became clear that Iraq held no secret weapons, Dyke has said the contentious BBC story was valid: "We know now that whatever you think about it journalistically, that government WMD report was not an intelligence report at all. It was put together as an argument as to why we should go to war."

Dyke said that he recalls every moment of the weekend of Kelly's death, and his decision, at the bereaved family's request, to hold back confirmation that Kelly had spoken to BBC journalists. "My wife was convinced that the security services had killed Dr Kelly. But I think the minute Lord Hutton ruled that the medical reports should be kept for 70 years, it was obvious there would be conspiracy theories.

"Why did he do that? Maybe this will be the end of the Kelly affair, but it is interesting that it has come back again," said Dyke. "I am not a conspiracy theorist; I think Dr Kelly killed himself, but I met some Australian spies once who were pretty convinced that MI6 had killed him."