If it is truly going to change its ways, the BBC needs our support

But I would like to add two points which are worth considering as we campaign. The first is that the existence of the BBC is very much in the interest of Jews.

I have long been worried about the way the BBC has expanded, particularly in its online news offering. But the last few years, in particular, have emphasised how important its core offering really is.

While working on a book about my parents over the last few years, I have spent a lot of time studying my grandfather, Alfred Wiener, and his early campaigning against the Nazis. And one of its most striking features was the time he spent combatting conspiracy theories.
He saw the huge danger to Jews posed by people believing outlandish things. Such as the idea that the Kaiser was really a Jew, Queen Victoria having had an affair with her Jewish doctor. And, of course, there was the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

My grandfather spent years helping to sue those who distributed this forgery.
With the growth of social media, and increased economic difficulties for less educated workers, has come a new growth of conspiracy theory and rumour. Demagogues can exploit ignorance and build movements upon lies. And very often those lies involve the Jews and a false notion of Jewish power.

Having a national broadcasters that tries, at least, to be factual and neutral then becomes very important. There is a reason why some of the worst political actors spend so much time attacking the “mainstream media”. They want to undermine anybody attempting to counter conspiracy theory with facts and objectivity.

It is of the utmost importance that this effort does not succeed. Our campaigning should stress the importance of the BBC to us, and our disappointment when it fails to achieve its usual high standards.

There is a reason I put it like that. A reason that constitutes the second thing we need to consider in our campaign. People copy each other. They follow what other people do.

So if, to use a made-up example, you launched an anti-litter campaign by complaining that everyone throws litter on the ground, the result wouldn’t be what you hoped. People would think: “Oh I didn’t realise everyone else was doing that, I may as well do that too.” More litter would get thrown.

If we don’t frame our criticism of the BBC correctly, we could end up spreading the behaviour we are trying to eliminate. BBC staff might get the idea that the reports we are complaining about are the sorts of things that real BBC people are supposed to do. So they may end up doing it too.

So instead of saying, “this error is typical of biased BBC reporting”, we should be saying, “we so value the objectivity of the BBC that we are disappointed by this lapse. The reporter has let their usually excellent colleagues down”. In other words, we should isolate the behaviour we are trying to criticise, rather than stress how common it is.

For some understandably angry people, this advice may seem quite annoying. But it is basic social psychology. We have to consider whether we enjoy the act of complaining or whether, as I do, we actually want to change the broadcater for the better.

To win this argument we have to be robust, we have to be energetic. But we also have to act in a way that won’t make the problem worse.

Daniel Finkelstein is Associate Editor of The Times