The BBC is under threat like never before. This is how to save it | Pat Younge

A moment of peril demands a new approach - on everything from funding to the BBC charter

• Pat Younge is the chair of the British Broadcasting Challenge

We have not been here before. The BBC is used to coming under pressure from political parties, well-funded pressure groups and powerful newspaper publishers. But the threat of a lawsuit from the US president is unprecedented.

This latest furore is dangerous because it comes at a time when democracy faces an information crisis. The foundations of informed democratic debate are under attack across the globe from a combination of AI-generated deepfakes, hostile state propaganda and algorithms that amplify divisions through social media. We have already seen how Elon Musk, the wealthiest man on the planet, is prepared to use his own social media platform, X, to interfere in the affairs of other countries and exert a chilling influence on democracies.

Pat Younge is the chair of the British Broadcasting Challenge, whose recommendations are contained in the report Renewing The BBC