Opinion – I mispronounced Ligeti. Joe Tidy didn’t know PHP.

The BBC’s cyber correspondent, Joe Tidy, was on air reporting a security flaw in PHP when he admitted he had only heard of it the day before. The cyber industry did not take it kindly. Within hours BBC News Channel two-way had been clipped, people had got very hot under the collar, some of them calling for him to quit.

Tidy responded with a video on various social media channels, pointing to a ‘bruising twenty-four hours’, signalling that ‘every day is a school day’ (Tidy is 41 and has been a journalist for 12 years), and that he plans to carry on reporting. On his LinkedIn post around nine out of ten backed him. Security professionals, journalists and PR people queued up to say a correspondent is not a technical expert, that the IT industry gatekeeps. Many reassured him that admitting to ignorance is a strength, and that they wouldn’t have known PHP either.

I wriggled uncomfortably when I watched the clip. After years of being told throughout my career that knowledge was key to successful work, I found the surprise perfectly reasonable (even if the tone of the commentary wasn’t).

Is there a PHP equivalent in classical music?

What is the thing a classical music writer simply must know, after years of doing the job?

I don’t think there is one specific comparison. The field has never agreed. Plenty of respected writers on music came to it through an English degree, not a music degree. Some would call them the gatekeepers. Most have a practical working knowledge of music, though I wonder how many can read a score. They are treated, rightly, as credible, some allowing that credibility to massage their ego more than is helpful for industry in a lot of cases. That having been said, not reading a score might even give a writer a useful distance from the music.

Ask around and the answers are mixed, and I’m part of the mix. I’ve long used writing about classical music to deepen my own understanding of it. My podcasts are deliberately pitched that way: me as a curious audience member, discovering the industry through the people who work in it. That ignorance is central to the premise. I cringe at some of the early episodes, but I wouldn’t remove them. They show that it’s fine not to know something, so long as you show curiosity and the capacity to learn. One day when the podcast comes to an end I might just go back to the beginning and reflect on what changed, how, and with whom behind the microphone.

So does knowledge matter?

I think it does, and I certainly know that the classical music industry sneers (even if its behind their backs) at what you not know. Some of that judgment is systemic.

A writer doesn’t need to read a score, though they might well benefit from doing so. What they might benefit from is an understanding of how a piece of music is put together: its structure, its narrative line, its melody and harmony. They may never write about those things directly. But it’s how they came to the music in the first place, and it’s what lets them write something rewarding, interesting and fulfilling, something that advocates for the art form instead of merely describing an evening. In this way, we understand the craft behind and can celebrate, praise (or critique) the output accordingly. To say in effect, that knowledge doesn’t matter and shouldn’t matter any more is to devalue that knowledge that some have, and that some practitioners understandably want to see reflected back.

Understanding then is the foundation. It can help if you have it, but it won’t necessarily hinder if you haven’t got it. Ultimately, what goes on the page is the part that counts. That’s the role of the journalist. Ros Atkins points to this in the Art of Explanation – simplifying the complex for the audience surely demands understanding the complex in the first place. The journalist, reporter, correspondent, critic, who ever needs to know their patch.

The day I got Ligeti wrong

I know what it’s like to be caught out. Years ago I interviewed Roger Wright, then director of the Proms and controller of Radio 3. I mispronounced Ligeti’s name, and he corrected me, in the middle of the interview.

I could have cut it – nobody would have known. Instead I left it in, deliberately. I felt doing so was more authentic and distinctive.

It wasn’t flattering. On reflection I wish I had cut it out. I feel as though it likely held me back from gaining a foothold. Lack of knowledge was a differentiator at a time when I was naiive about an industry’s readiness to include people like me (we’re talking 2010-2012).

But there’s ambivalence. Throwing a light on perceived shame of not being an expert in the field is vital in signalling permission to a wider audience. I believed that then and also still believe it now: that it’s all right not to know something, and all right to say so out loud. Classical music has a reputation for people who wince at a wrong pronunciation. So, on balance I would rather show a listener that a slip is survivable than let them think the whole art form is an exam they might fail. (I just wish I’d made fewer of them and leaned more heavily into that which I already knew.)

So, in that sense, I’m with Tidy. Admitting what you don’t know, in public, is honest. It’s a strength. It builds connection with the audience by giving them permission to admit ignorance. It reduces shame.

A slip is not a gap

But there’s a difference between a slip and a gap, and this is where the case for Tidy gets harder for me.

Mispronouncing Ligeti is a slip. Anyone could do it, in the moment, in a filmed interview. It’s one name, in one interview, and it says nothing about whether I understand the music. (As it happens it would take me another ten years before I actually connected with what Ligeti was doing – that’s for another blog post).

Not knowing PHP after twelve years covering cyber security is a gap. It’s not the kind of thing that happens in the heat of a live interview. It suggests that a basic part of the infrastructure beneath the stories he tells that hadn’t crossed his path. I find it hard to take someone fully seriously on a beat if, a dozen years in, the plumbing is still a surprise.

There may be a generational explanation. I’m 54. I came to blogging and website building as an early adopter in the late 90s and early 2000s. I understand how code and databases produce a website, working on one of the first pay to download financial data systems in the UK. The experience was fascinating and something I still draw on 25 years later. That likely makes me something of a hybrid. A generation has since grown up for whom that back-end knowledge acquisition was never needed, because the glossy user interfaces hid it. If you’ve never needed to look under the bonnet, little wonder what’s under there when you do look is going to look quite the surprise.

Tidy’s pile-on was unpleasant, and several of his critics showed themselves as the elitists his supporters said they were. But the gap was wide because there’s a credibility gap. At a time when the BBC is struggling reputationally, that gap is made wider when a significant number point to a seeming gaffe (regardless of those who leap to their defence).

Knowledge is an easy win; vulnerability only works in moderation

There are some things I think you just need to know. If you don’t know them, go and find out. Know your patch. You don’t need to constantly remind the audience of what that knowledge constitutes (especially if doing so is likely to distract them from the core message), but knowing it still brings value. Not least because you’re including those who know it already, rather than risking alienating them.

In a fractured world authority and credibility matters. Knowledge is an easy win. Vulnerability only works in moderation.