Memories of the BBC’s innovative Open Door series
Posted: 30th January 2023
While producers gave participants control, there were some lines that couldn’t be crossed, says David Griffiths, while Tony Laryea emphasises the role of Rowan Ayers
Rowan Ayers ‘argued the case for it to [David Attenborough], and found himself pushing at an… open door’, says Tony Laryea. Photograph: David Sillitoe/The Guardian
Sun 29 Jan 2023 18.40 GMTYour interesting feature on the BBC’s Open Door series (Black teachers, trans women, cleaners and cons: how the BBC’s Open Door allowed ‘real people’ to let rip, 24 January) reported that the producers gave participants “complete editorial control”. In at least one case, however, they were overruled at a senior management or political level shortly before broadcast.
All Against the Bomb, created by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and broadcast in 1976, originally included a 51-second segment of interviews with Polaris submarine crew, taken from a BBC Midweek film broadcast in 1974. It displayed a phlegmatic attitude by crew to their role in the potential deaths of millions of civilians.
These comments – one of which was the planned opening shot of the CND film – were excluded after representations from the Ministry of Defence, subsequently acknowledged in parliamentary questions. Open Door was an admirable initiative, but in this case at least, there were still lines that could not be crossed.
David Griffiths
Huddersfield
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/jan/29/memories-of-bbc-innovative-open-door-series