BBC hasn’t learned from Bashir scandal

WHEN it was broadcast in 1995, the Panorama interview with Princess Diana was the most remarkable, and arguably most consequential, in British TV history.

Three decades on, it has become one of the biggest scandals in the BBC’s history – a towering monument to dishonesty and a dearth of journalistic integrity.

Not only did disgraced reporter Martin Bashir use appalling methods to entrap Diana, the corporation colluded in covering up the scandal. Yet three years after Lord Dyson’s excoriating report laid bare the magnitude of the deceit, the broadcaster seems to have learned no lessons.

Its bosses have fought tooth and nail to keep secret a cache of 3,000 documents linked to Bashir’s interview.

Investigative journalist Andy Webb believes they could provide evidence of a plan, drawn up by senior management as late as 2020, to mislead the public about what was known about Bashir’s tactics.

Despite dismissing the emails as ‘irrelevant’, the BBC spent more than £200,000 of licence fee-payers’ money on legal fees in a futile bid to thwart an FOI request for the data.

And when it finally handed over the files last night, after missing a deadline imposed by a judge who had questioned the corporation’s honesty, vast tracts were concealed in censor’s black ink.

If the information was truly ‘irrelevant’, why? This only fuels suspicion that the BBC is engaged in a cover-up of the cover-up.

The public interest in divulging these internal emails is overwhelming. Yet in its arrogance, there is no sign the broadcaster understands it is doing anything wrong.

On its website, the BBC pompously says its values are ‘trust’ and ‘accountability’. But the more we learn of its skulduggery, the more those words ring hollow.