Summer of Scandals Leaves BBC in Crisis

The Brits are having a crisis of conscience over the BBC: A summer of scandals has left the BBC's squeaky-clean image compromised. The UK's public broadcaster has aired rigged call-in games, sneakily edited news stories, and credulity-straining reality shows. A leading broadcaster charges the station has suffered "a catastrophic loss of nerve."

Jeremy Paxman, the host of the BBC's flagship show Newsnight, will say in a lecture tonight that the network must stop chasing higher ratings and aping private stations, regaining a sense of "moral drive." Meanwhile, the BBC's director general says in today's Guardian that the scandals have "damaged public trust in us." (More television stories.)