Lord Dyson’s report reveals BBC breaches of journalistic ethics and inadequate editorial scrutiny
The BBC, the media, and even the Britain described in Lord Dyson’s report on Martin Bashir’s 1995 Panorama interview with Diana, Princess of Wales, may seem in some respects to belong to a bygone era. Most of those involved have departed the public stage, while the princess herself has been dead for nearly a quarter of a century. No one under 30 is likely to have a direct memory of a broadcast that took place when online journalism barely existed. Yet no one who watched the interview will have forgotten it, the explosive impact it made, or the sense that the BBC had pulled off a journalistic coup that left the entire media at home and abroad green with envy.
Lord Dyson’s report is a quietly piercing exposé of the journalistic skulduggery and editorial shortcomings that lay behind this sensational event. The retired senior judge was asked to investigate because Diana’s brother, Earl Spencer, made a series of accusations last year about how Mr Bashir, who was relatively unknown at the time and not a senior interviewer, secured the scoop, and about the BBC’s failure to probe his methods adequately. Lord Dyson has pieced the story together more authoritatively than the BBC ever did at the time, or since. As a result, Earl Spencer’s case has been vindicated.
