Reappointing the TV journalist in 2016 was bad enough, but the report clearing staff over this matter is embarrassing
For many years, as head of news and current affairs at Channel 4, the first thing I did every morning was read the Daily Mail or, on my day of rest, its sister paper, the Mail on Sunday. I’m guessing from the revelations this week that that isn’t something top BBC News executives do.
I read the Mail because it carries a lot of great stories, many of them actually true. Also, what the Mail says today, a Conservative politician is likely to say tomorrow and I like to hear news first from its true source. In contrast, it seems some BBC News supremos know nothing at all about some major stories, even when those stories are about their own institution, if they have not been broadcast on the BBC.
This week the BBC published a hilarious report into how on earth, or indeed in heaven, they managed to appoint as their religious affairs correspondent one of the most notorious television journalists of our time, Martin Bashir, and then promote him to editor, religion – which in British establishment terms is just one step down from the Archbishop of Canterbury. Some have asked if it was part of an evil BBC cover-up, but even Satan himself would draw the line at something this ridiculous.
