The drama in and around the couch at the BBC Breakfast show has not made it on to the BBC News website. But it has capacity to damage public trust in an organisation that has rarely faced the breadth and scale of journalistic challenges currently before it.
“Bully Naga in sex jibe storm,” ran a front-page story in The Sun last week. The film industry website Deadline carries allegations that Frediani is a “tyrant on the shop floor” who once “physically shook” a female colleague. He is on extended leave while such claims are investigated.
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And yet this story is toxic for the corporation because it also comes with implications of favouritism, double standards, management negligence and poor handling of talent. Such accusations jeopardise the wider credibility of the BBC in covering sensitive stories.
Her No 2, Jonathan Munro, is also an ITV veteran. Frediani, who joined the BBC in 2019, is a former head of ITV News, where he was a colleague of Turness and Munro, though neither is said to have been aware of complaints about his behaviour.
The unseemly staff counter-briefing taking place in the tabloids has embroiled Munchetty, who is said to be one of Frediani’s accusers. It has created yet another talent crisis for the BBC, as her detractors claim she has not been held to the same standards as male BBC presenters.
Sitting on the couch, presenters are required to generate visual chemistry with colleagues and project personality. So when news websites relentlessly clip TV content for social media clickbait, breakfast shows become telenovelas. Tabloids obsess over Munchetty and ITV’s Good Morning Britain (GMB) hosts Susanna Reid and Richard Madeley. They create “news” stories from their spontaneous comments or dress choices. It is a symbiotic relationship that helps to keep breakfast TV relevant for the TikTok generation.
Significantly, GMB, which trails BBC Breakfast in the ratings, is being brought within the wider ITV News operation and made “slightly more serious”, in a revamp by ITN that emulates its rival.
After BBC presenter scandals involving Tim Westwood and Russell Brand (both of whom deny wrongdoing), the director-general, Tim Davie, promised MPs a “zero-tolerance” approach to misconduct. He is undermined by any perception that a bullying crisis has been suppressed.
Decisive action is needed. For journalists across the corporation, BBC Breakfast’s current profile in other media must be as palatable as a bowl of cold porridge.
The organisation needs to get back to focusing on the front lines of news.
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