Who is the BBC for anymore?

As 2025 draws to a close, the BBC feels permanently on the defensive. Not just facing the usual background noise of criticism, but something more persistent and unsettled. A sense that people are no longer just arguing with its coverage, but questioning its purpose.

Criticism now comes from both ends of the political spectrum. From the right, the BBC is accused of pandering to identity politics – or in the words of the White House – cultivating a “leftist propaganda machine”. From the left, it is criticised for being too cautious, too establishment and too willing to pull its punches.

The scrutiny intensified further this week after Donald Trump filed a $10bn lawsuit against the BBC over the editing of a Panorama programme relating to his 6 January speech. The BBC has already apologised for the edit, while rejecting claims of systemic editorial bias or intentional misrepresentation. Whatever the legal outcome, the episode underlines how quickly editorial decisions can escalate into global credibility tests, particularly when trust is already under strain.

At the centre of all this sits the idea of impartiality. It remains one of the BBC’s founding principles, and one of its most contested. Not because impartiality no longer matters, but because its value is no longer universally agreed. For some audiences, impartiality now reads less as fairness and more as hesitancy, or even political apathy, at a time of growing geopolitical tension.

In a more polarised media environment, the idea of “not taking a side” can feel unsatisfying, or even evasive. Many audiences now expect moral clarity as well as factual accuracy, and that expectation sits uneasily with the BBC’s traditional approach to neutrality.

Business coverage is a useful example. Much of it is well reported and accurate. But the framing often feels narrow. Profits are regularly treated as something suspect, almost inherently unfair, rather than as the outcome of margins, investment and risk. During the cost-of-living crisis, supermarket profits were frequently discussed in headline terms, with less attention paid to how thin those margins actually are. That may not be intentional bias, but it shapes how stories land.

This tension isn’t new. When Greg Dyke appointed the BBC’s first business editor in the early 2000s, it was a deliberate attempt to rebalance coverage and reconnect with a business audience that felt misunderstood. For a time, it worked. The fact that similar criticisms have resurfaced suggests some of those cultural assumptions never fully shifted.

What this points to is a broader issue. Very few major media institutions, bar the BBC, define themselves nowadays by “not taking a side”. Impartiality is increasingly an outlier position, and yet central to the BBC’s identity.

This leaves the BBC in a bind. Take clearer positions, and it risks accusations of bias. Hold the line on traditional impartiality, and it risks looking evasive or out of touch. In trying to satisfy everyone, it increasingly satisfies no one. For any organisation built on trust, the BBC’s predicament is a reminder that credibility is shaped as much by perception and context as by intent.

The BBC still matters. Arguably, it matters more than ever in a noisy, fragmented and fractured environment. If impartiality has a future, what does it mean in a modern context? For one, it has to mean being rigorous with facts, confident enough to provide context, and open about how editorial decisions are made.

“For everyone” is no longer enough for the BBC. The challenge now is to be clearer about its identity, its editorial process, and why the concept of impartiality still stacks up. The BBC doesn’t need to win every argument; it just needs to convince people it’s being straight with them.