Stand By Your Man

“If you want to be an opinionated columnist or a partisan campaigner on social media,” the BBC’s director general Tim Davie wrote in October 2020, “then that is a valid choice, but you should not be working at the BBC.” When Davie took over from Tony Hall as director general in 2020 (and in the wake of prominent BBC presenters voicing their political opinions on social media, most notably former “Match of the Day” presenter Gary Lineker), Davie doubled down the corporation’s social media guidance for employees. The new guidance told them “not to express a personal opinion on matters of public policy, politics, or controversial subjects.”