The crisis in which Donald Trump (inevitably) is center stage is probably its deepest yet. The details are both important and arcane. It boils down to these accusations: that a documentary program (that wasn’t aired in the United States) defamed the U.S. president by splicing together two parts of a speech to suggest he was inciting violence in the assault on Congress in January 2021. It is habitually anti-Israel, particularly in the news division’s Arabic-language service. Oh, and it’s pro-trans, too. And, generally, “woke.”

What do you call an organization that over the past two decades has seen a string of recent chief executives leave under a cloud? Dysfunctional? The best way I describe the BBC—a broadcaster I have worked for, contribute to, and in which I have many friends and colleagues—is that it is in a permanent nervous breakdown. For as long as I have known it, it has been both a wonder for the world and a mess.

What do you call an organization that over the past two decades has seen a string of recent chief executives leave under a cloud? Dysfunctional? The best way I describe the BBC—a broadcaster I have worked for, contribute to, and in which I have many friends and colleagues—is that it is in a permanent nervous breakdown. For as long as I have known it, it has been both a wonder for the world and a mess.

The crisis in which Donald Trump (inevitably) is ce