The BBC Radio 4’s Today programme’s Thought for the Day slot will remain closed to non-religious contributors after the BBC’s governing body rejected recent complaints that it breaches editorial guidelines.
The BBC Trust said on Tuesday, 17 November, that allowing only religious contributors on the slot did not breach editorial guidelines on impartiality. They said it was a ‘matter of discretion’ for the corporation’s Director General Mark Thompson and the BBC executive to decide whether to keep the religious slot as it is, or to change it to include non-religious perspectives.
The ruling comes after 11 complaints about Thought for the Day and one complaint about BBC editorial policy on non-religious programming were sent to the corporation. Complainants objected to a policy of not inviting atheists, secularists or humanists to contribute as speakers to the religious themes of the slot.
In a recent debate in the House of Lords on 4 November 2009, Lord Birt, the former Director General of the BBC, has called for atheists and humanists to contribute to the slot. He said that the BBC must ‘soon loosen the stranglehold’ of established religious organisations and ‘fully embrace’ the humanist movement.
(See the CCFON report)
Lord Harrison, an outspoken humanist, also said that the BBC had given a platform to Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party, but ‘we humanists are still denied even a walk-on part on Thought for the Day’.
(Click here to read the debate)
Their arguments however were challenged by other Lords. Lord Griffiths of Burry Port, among others, said that the secularists and humanists should be encouraged ‘to be a little more generous and a little less sectarian in the way they view religion’.
(Click here to read the debate)
After the decision of the BBC was announced, Rev Giles Fraser, canon chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral and a regular contributor to Thought for the Day, said:
‘I am delighted, it is the right decision to keep the slot distinctive. It would be like allowing hockey on Match of the Day, which does not make any sense. The minute something loses its distinctiveness, then it dies.’
A Church of England spokesman added:
‘We are glad that the BBC Trust has protected a unique slot in Radio 4's schedule where religious views from across the faith communities of the UK can be expressed openly.
‘Thought for the Day is highly valued by people of all faiths and none as a distinctive slot that, if diluted, would have become nothing more than just another comment slot.’
The National Secular Society said the decision was ‘a rebuke’ to people who did not have religious beliefs.
The British Humanist Association said the policy was an ‘ongoing injustice’.
Richard Tait, the BBC Trust editorial standards chairman, said:
‘We understand that some people feel strongly about this issue and have given it careful consideration. However, we have concluded that the current arrangements do not breach BBC editorial guidelines and specifically requirements of due impartiality in content.’
Thought for the Day is a daily scripted slot on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 offering ‘reflections from a faith perspective on issues and people in the news’, broadcast at around 7.45 each Monday to Saturday morning.
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