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Panorama interview12/23/2023 ![]() “What is particularly galling is that those most culpable have gone on to enjoy successful careers,” The Times leader states. With cases still ongoing, maybe it will be a quarter of a century before we learn the full extent of the wrongdoing. Instead, it used the ‘rogue reporter’ defence as a smokescreen to hide not just malpractice, but wholesale criminality.Īnd where it took 25 years to determine that Martin Bashir does appear genuinely to have been a single rogue reporter, it took only four years to blow open the News International fiction and reveal that dozens of journalists were complicit. But News International (now News UK), of which The Times was and is a subsidiary, didn’t try to cover-up Goodman’s activities. But as Lord Dyson reveals, the BBC was well aware when it conducted its own investigation in 1996 that Mr Bashir had lied to them on three occasions… Indeed, the BBC’s subsequent efforts to cover-up for their rogue reporter are as serious a breach of journalistic standards as Mr Bashir’s deceptions.”īut haven’t we been here before? Wasn’t another ‘rogue reporter’ guilty of some dastardly deed related to the Royal Family? Didn’t he even go to jail for his actions?Īh yes: Clive Goodman, the News of the World royal reporter who was convicted in 2007 for hacking the phones of the advisors to Princes William and Harry. There is no question that Bashir was a rogue reporter. ![]() It says: “Lord Birt, who was Director-General of the BBC at the time, tried to blame the whole scandal on a ‘rogue reporter’ who ‘we now know… fabricated an elaborate, detailed but wholly false account of his dealings with Earl Spencer and Princess Diana. The leader article in today’s Times – headlined ‘Shocking Failure’ – says that, for all of their “pious statements of regret”, there is no sign that those responsible for “25 years of anguish” showed an understanding of the magnitude of their failures. The inadequate inquiry a year later into the matter by the then BBC Head of News, Tony Hall, made no real effort to get to the bottom of Bashir’s deceit – most damningly by failing to speak to Charles Spencer, to whom Bashir had shown fake documents to try to secure an introduction to Diana – before concluding that the reporter was generally an honourable man. But, as is the case so often, it was the cover-up rather than the crime that has come back to haunt the corporation. There is no doubt that the deception employed by journalist Martin Bashir to secure his infamous Panorama interview with Diana, Princess of Wales in 1995 was reprehensible. They may even grant the Murdochs and the Dacres their dearest wish and scrap the licence fee.Īnd all over something that happened 25 years ago. This is the golden excuse that the Prime Minister and Culture Secretary have been seeking to bring it under tighter state control. The sackcloth and ashes the corporation is wearing won’t be enough. Neil said Diana dropped her security detail as a result and ended up using bodyguards provided by her partner, film producer Dodi Fayed, who was also killed in the crash.It’s open season on the BBC, with press and broadcasting rivals, politicians and Buckingham Palace all in full cry. Spencer said the documents falsely claimed to show that two senior courtiers were being paid by the security services for information on the princess, the Daily Mail reported. ![]() Read more: Scotland’s advice on awkward pandemic social situations Watch: Prince William welcomes probe into Diana interview Last month, her brother Earl Spencer claimed he was shown forged bank statements to convince him to introduce Diana to Bashir ahead of the interview. There is a “clear line” between Princess Diana’s infamous Panorama interview and her death two years later, a journalist has claimed.įormer BBC presenter and ex-Sunday Times editor Andrew Neil said she dropped her security detail as a result of the interview, a factor he said played a role in her death in a car crash in Paris in August 1997.ĭiana gave the controversial interview to Martin Bashir for BBC’s Panorama programme in 1995. Princess Diana during her Panorama interview with Martin Bashir for the BBC in 1995.
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