John Simpson (BBC World Affairs Editor) has written an article for "The New Statesman" entitled
“The BBC faces an existential crisis”.

In the article, he makes many personal comments on the present-day situation in which the BBC finds itself. From the day-to-day 'scrum' of news ... to the BBC's track-record in dealing with the incumbent government of whichever persuasion at the time. He notes the ambience created under several Prime Ministers, and he observes the pressures under which the broadcast media exist.

He accepts the BBC's 'own goals' "I do believe that the BBC has proved in the past that it’s capable of getting itself in trouble".
John notes the fact that BBC producers are frequently poorly-paid when compared with comparable outside industry, teaching and other broadcasters.

"In my career, during which I’ve done many of the senior jobs in BBC radio and television news, including political editor, no one in the corporation has ever tried to tell me what line to take on an issue."


According to the BBC News web-site...

"John Simpson is the BBC's most senior news broadcaster. He joined the BBC in 1966 and has stayed there ever since.
He has now reported from 140 countries and interviewed about 200 world leaders, including Mikhail Gorbachev, Margaret Thatcher, Colonel Gadaffi, Nelson Mandela, and Robert Mugabe.
During the Iranian revolution he flew to Tehran with Ayatollah Khomeini. John dodged the bullets in the Tiananmen Square massacre, danced on top of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and was on hand for the revolutions in Czechoslovakia and Romania.
In 1994 he covered the end of apartheid in South Africa. He watched the missiles fall on Baghdad in the first Gulf War, and was in Northern Iraq during the 2003 invasion.
He reported on the fall of Kabul in 2001, the contested election in Iran in 2009, and the revolutions in Egypt and Libya in 2011. In 1991 he was made a CBE for his reporting."