Close scrutiny of the post-holder is inevitable – it has been said that one of the attractions of Mason for those appointing him is that the most surprising opinion that he has voiced is that he has never watched an episode of Friends. But it’s clear that our understanding of what a BBC political editor can or cannot do has changed over the years since the role was first created in 1970. It’s now unthinkable that the holder of the post could go on holiday with a senior politician – as, for example, Oakley did, with the disgraced former Tory grandee Lord Archer, back in 1994.

Recently, in the BBC archives in Caversham, I came across a quote from a director general in the 1940s decrying “fashionable criticism” that the BBC did not produce enough new shows or nurture new talent. Eighty years on, you could imagine the same memo being penned. The BBC has always been sensitive to allegations of bias, and far from the suggestion that Auntie has been avidly promoting a political viewpoint, it often remains very cautious – to the frustration of those who fear that journalists cannot hold power to account as effectively as they might.

As David Holmes, one of the earliest BBC political editors, reflected after his tenure in the 1970s: “We were taught, more’s the pity, never to say boo to the government goose; and ministers of both parties got away with murder.” For those who think this may have changed in recent times, it’s notable that the Partygate scandals, which have rightly exposed the prime minister and others’ behaviour during lockdown, were not broken by the BBC, but by newspaper political editors and ITV.

Yet politicians who thunder at the idea of Left-wing bias in the BBC should also take a closer look at the corporation and its history. As chancellor of the exchequer during the 1926 general strike, Churchill himself urged the government to commandeer the BBC – but when the cabinet decided against it, the first director general Lord Reith noted in his diaries: “They want to be able to say that they did not commandeer us, but they know they can trust us not to be really impartial.”

And while Lord Tebbit enjoyed baiting the BBC in the 1980s, by calling it the Stateless Broadcasting Corporation, a succession of academic studies suggests that the BBC has traditionally used more conservative-leaning, business-friendly sources than Left-wing ones in its reports, even when the previous Labour government was in power. Meanwhile, the public themselves when asked in surveys what they think of the corporation have tended to argue that it is biased against their viewpoint – whichever end of the political spectrum that they come from.

But it’s a mark of where we are today that the BBC has plumped for Mason. Undoubtedly, he’s a great broadcaster, and respected by his peers. When the New Statesman ran a poll of political journalists back in January, he didn’t come top – the BBC’s Vicki Young, who later ruled herself out of the running, and Sam Coates of Sky narrowly beat him – but he came just behind, seen as a canny get, partly because of his ability to avoid controversy.

Even his Yorkshire accent is not that much of a radical departure as it may have been portrayed. Other BBC political editors have already broken the accent mould – Kuenssberg herself, Macclesfield-born Robinson, Glaswegian Andrew Marr, and most memorably, John Cole back in the 1980s, whose Northern Irish pronunciation of “hondootedly” was frequently satirised by both Private Eye and Spitting Image.

Perhaps it’s more significant that the last three holders of the post have all come from inside the BBC and its particular culture, rather than earlier appointees who were newspaper journalists. Marr, Cole and Oakley, for example, all had their previous columns and reports for different partisan papers could be pored over. (When Marr recently left for LBC after 21 years at the Beeb, he talked about “getting [his] own voice back”). The continuing focus is thus more towards reporting rather than commentary or star-personality journalism, which would fit with the current director general’s Tim Davie’s vision for impartiality in the BBC under pressure from Government complaints.

Mason has been described universally as a “nice guy”; he must have enjoyed the complimentary profiles of him this week. There may be a rude awakening once he starts in the job, though, when everyone feels the right to have opinions on the BBC’s political editor.

What we should remember before rushing to critique Mason’s first days in his new and very public role is that this is a job that we all have a stake in. As Cole himself reflected, when writing a piece of advice for Marr when he was appointed, “your ultimate bosses are neither the politicians nor the BBC, but the public”. So, at a time of crisis – and we have had both public health and economic ones over the last couple of years – we need journalists who can question our leaders and scrutinise what they do.

We only need to look at the restricted media in Russia as the war rages to see the dangers of a media landscape where free journalism is not allowed to flourish. It’s no surprise that on Thursday a fake news video made by Russian propagandists was designed to look like a BBC video: the BBC brand of journalism is still revered around the world. So, let’s learn from previous incumbents’ experience and give Mason a chance to flourish – whether or not he ever gets round to watching an episode of Friends.

Judith Woods is away