The BBC lies heavy with doubt. Uncertainty over whether they will limp past the Centennial mark remains as vague as anyone’s hopes or fears for the future. Uniquely set up to avoid competition while entering it too, the Licence Fee taxes Britons, bolstered by law to ensure those who wish to view TV must purchase a licence, totalling £147 per year. In 2015, the mandatory levy from the BBC earned the broadcaster £3.1 billion and a large portion of the money is earmarked for “talent.” Talent is a catch-all term referring to the actors, presenters and newsreaders that keep the public tuned in, and that means coughing up big bucks.

The issue of pay has raised hackles, not least discussion, recently. A report last year found an apparent gender disparity throughout all levels at the BBC, with male talent receiving greater renumeration. Chris Evans topped the list with his annual salary of £2.2 million, while Claudia Winkelman had the highest female salary, with a £500,000 annual paycheque. Acrimony over supposed inequality flared up again recently when Carrie Gracie, Senior China Editor for BBC News, quit, citing unfair and illegal pay existing between her and male Senior Editors.

Gracie remains at the BBC and attended a public enquiry at the end of January 2018 to discuss her findings, as well as that of the Corporation. At certain points Gracie displayed emotion and irritation at her mistreatment, despite the BBC offering £100,000 in retro-active pay she refused. The BBC claimed they had inadvertently underpaid £100,000 as her Senior Editor status was “in development.” Gracie joined the BBC in 1987 as a trainee producer and the job as Senior China Editor paid her £135,000 per annum, resulting in a number of male journalists and presenters taking a voluntary pay cut.

Hearing Carrie Gracie’s impassioned broadside against the Beeb, those whose ideological allegiances chime with hers will no doubt swell with misty-eyes and ignited hearts. However, when a journalist able to turn a phrase, a graduate of Oxford and daughter of a wealthy Scottish oil executive, such as Carrie Gracie, endures the ignominy of earning a salary five times that of the average UK wage (27,600 in 2015), indignation disintegrates into little more than feminist snake oil, blurring the misty-eyes of her sisters.

Two men in Senior Editor positions are in fact paid more than Carrie Gracie — Jeremy Bowen, on £150,000 a year and John Sopel paid £200,000 annually. What Gracie and the media furore around her ignores is that ten women also earn higher salaries as journalists at the BBC — the highest, Fiona Bruce, earns £350,000 per year and even a woman of colour over 65 (Moira Stuart) earns more than Gracie. Furthermore, arguably the extra pay of Jeremy Bowen and John Sopel is justified. Bowen, as Senior Middle-East Editor, faces constant danger in a region racked with conflict: IS, Assad, Israel/Palestine, an area of the world producing far more news time than China. Jon Sopel, as US Senior Editor, oversees news from a deeply divided America and a world that still reels from Trump’s victory — surprise even his supporters shared!

News that snares more viewers entitles journalists working on the story more money and it is likely that Carrie Gracie got more than £135,000 per annum. She probably received expenses in terms of flight, travel and accomodation, not to mention any payments received for work outside the BBC. To watch Carrie Gracie sit and whinge in front of a panel of other publicly paid Civil Servants that her publicly bestowed wage discriminated against her was sickening! The level of Establishment entitlement on display showed how out of touch modern mainstream media is with the commoners it claims to “inform.” The sole information most gleaned from Gracie’s displeasure comes across as merely an elitist anachronism at the heart of an elitist organisation that bemoans its slide into irrelevance.