It has been a bad weekend for the BBC. The fall-out from Lord Dyson’s report on Martin Bashir and his infamous interview with Diana, Princess of Wales, has exposed not just individual wrongdoing by a rogue journalist but an institutional desire—and ability—to look the other way and excuse appalling behaviour because it delivered a scoop watched by 23 million people.
Many have been burned by this inferno. Bashir himself retired as the BBC’s religious affairs correspondent earlier this month, citing poor health. Lord Hall of Birkenhead, the former director-general of the BBC, conducted an internal review into Bashir in 1996 and found that Bashir was “an honest and honourable man”. And all eyes are on Tim Davie, the current DG, to see how he and the organisation he leads respond to Dyson’s damning findings. He should have little doubt that Bashir will be used as a stick to beat him and the BBC.
Read more: BBC: Boris Johnson ‘very concerned’ about Princess Diana interview scandal
This would be a volatile enough situation for the state-funded…
