Can we trust the BBC?

8.00 pm Monday 10 December.

Cafe Oto, 18 - 22 Ashwin St, Dalston, Hackney, London, E8 3DL.

Tickets :£4 advance / £5 on the door.

openDemocracy invites you to an open discussion on the future of the BBC. It will be kicked off by the panellists, but the main participants will be you, the public.

Panellists - Peter Oborne (chief political commentator of The Telegraph), Dr Jacky Davis (Co-Chair of NHS Consultants Association, founder member of Keep Our NHS Public), Omar El-Khairy (writer for stage and screen), fourth panellist tbc.

This is an openDemocracy / OurKingdom event. openDemocracy website: http://www.opendemocracy.net

The UK's most important cultural and current affairs institution is in turmoil, its future uncertain. The most recent scandals, Savile and McAlpine, alone shake its foundations: the apparent burying of the story of an alleged serial pedophile and the false implication of a Tory ex-minister of the same crime. Heads have rolled and are rolling.

A spanking new Director General has gone, a new one put in place by the same 'old boys'.

The enemies of public broadcasting are delighted.

The Murdoch press smells the blood of others. 

The Corporation talks of “re-gaining the trust of the public".

But perhaps the BBC needs to belong more to us, the British people, and feel answerable to us, if the meltdown of management is to be solved by it becoming a broadcaster fit for the 21st century.

How can it be open, transparent, engage with the creative digital age and above all give us creative and relevant drama, music and documentaries?

What would such a BBC look like and how would we get it?

If the BBC wants to revive it needs to learn to trust and listen not 'know best'.