“BBC’s Rotten Core Has Been EXPOSED” £600k Spent On Keeping Martin Bashir Scandal Docs Secret

first of all though let's talk about the BBC uh a judge has blasted the state broadcaster for blowing more than 600,000 on a legal battle to keep documents link linked to the Martin bashier Princess Diana Scandal secret to make sure uh that we the public never got to find out about them uh now a journalist called Andy Webb has been fighting the B for a few years now trying to get all the documents that the BBC didn't want the public to know about the p b loves taking your money but then it wants to keep you in the dark about everything and uh basically uh he Andy Webb succeeded to some extent uh they the corporation uh in N 2020 reluctantly uh was forced to finally release 10,000 pages of documents but they're heavily redacted and uh Andy web still trying to get to see what was redacted uh but the judge is very unhappy with the way the BBC has been spending license fee uh money let's talk to a former BBC journalist Robin Akin who wrote a book uh I do believe called can we trust the BBC I always make this joke Robin you could have written that in one word no uh but uh what about this this is classic BBC isn't it you know I've told you before you know I've report reported on the BBC for a long time and the first thing as a journalist trying to cover the activities of the BBC is you realize that strangely for a media outfit for a broadcaster its first impulse is intense secrecy doesn't want the public to know about it does it absolutely and you know I know Andy we a bit um I've met him a couple of times he's he's he's a he's a really good honest hack he's the sort of bloke he's a dog at a bone he never gives up and he's been pestering the BBC about this story and it's ironic in this sense Kevin because how many times have you seen BBC documentary programs where they're after some corporation which has done something wrong and the BBC is beating on the door and using every trick in the book to try and get the truth out of that Corporation and here we've got the situation where the BBC is using all those same methods to prevent the truth coming out about something which I think was the worst journalistic Scandal um I use the word advisedly in the BBC history in the BBC's history I mean there have been other scandals which have been more leid in many ways but the bashier story was one where BBC's much trumpeted ethical standards and it's producer guidelines and how it says that it's much better than all the rest of the media was shown to be an organization which countenanced near criminality in getting that information that getting that interview with with with Princess Diana I mean it was an utterly disgraceful episode and the real problem Evan is the old cliche you know it's not just the initial indiscretion crime call it what you will it's the cover up afterwards I mean the BBC its hierarchy from top to bottom right up to John Bert were implicated in the cover up of how bashier went about getting that interview and we shouldn't forget that you know Princess Diana the most famous woman in the world they said she was also actually as we all now know she was she was tragically vulnerable and what Basher did was fabricate evidence bank account evidence which persuaded Diana in her gullibility and her naivity that she was being spied upon and leaked about by her very closest confidance and I think that was enormously undermining for Diana and it was the reason that she gave the interview to bashia I mean you know don't don't forget Robin he he he he he went to the extent of Faking up bank statements so it looked as if uh uh that members of her staff a security team have been paid uh for leaking information about absolute lies and if you remember the poor guy that bashier employed to print up these fake uh uh fake uh documents uh he used to work for the BBC he was expelled into Exile never to work for the corporation again so he was an innocent victim of all this now my point is uh Robin now uh as I say as you as you point out Andy Webb very uh uh perspicacious guy he got uh them to uh release 10,000 documents at the end of a long battle uh the BBC finally had to relinquish uh but when he got them uh 3,400 Pages were either partially or fully redacted he's trying to get them unredacted in fact the judge judge Kennedy uh won't allow that but when the the BBC continue with this sort of urge to secrecy to keep this all under wraps you wonder why they're doing it because you know a lot of people have paid some serious prices for this you know Tony Hall who was head of the news at the time uh subsequently became director General in the end effectively had to leave the BBC in disgrace about his part in the cover up various other luminaries also uh had to fess up uh it was a terrible cover up and don't forget the cover up uh ran to the extent that when Martin bashier on a high over this amazing exclusive was employed I think by NBC in America you know huge money over there uh he got into some trouble there with Michael Jackson so he came back within with his tail between the legs and the BBC rehired him in the full knowledge of what he' done before and made him of all things religion editor I mean you know you couldn't make this stuff up my point though is what why are they continuing with this secrecy when the cat's out of the bag and a lot of people are paid a serious price what about transparency now they got nothing to lose well you you ask a very interesting question you wonder how much how much more information how much worse could it be than it already is I mean that's that's a very interesting question I mean it's um what I what I suspect I mean I I've got no evidence for this at all but I I imagine that um some of those documents will have displayed a rather cynical um effort to protect the reputation of the BBC it will have been about managing Fallout what do we do about this what do we do about that that's what it will have been about and the thing is the BBC would then be shown well we already know it to be you know a very fallible and in my view corrupt oranization I've said this to you before Kevin I do think there is a deep level of corruption at the BBC in many different regards you know some people you know you you say the word journalistic ethics and some people fall about laughing and they think well you know journalists have no ethics but do you know that that that really isn't true I mean I know very I have known and still do know very fine journalists at the BBC people who are honest men and women who do a tough job and do it well and there are journalists like that in all our news organizations and we're lucky to have them the point is that there is an organ the BBC's rotten core has now been exposed in so many scandals I mean look I write about this Stu often as you know I've been kept in constant work for the past 20 years writing about stuff thank God you know thank God for BBC corruption you know it it's um I I you know the you know the we've had the Hugh Edwards thing and then God bless him Germaine genus a man for whom I feel a certain amount of pity I do too I mean he's a sort of semic colleague and uh you know obviously the BBC has got to seem very robust in these situations but you can't help feeling uh that Jermain Janus was a kind of victim of the new Vigor that must be uh kind of imposed on the organization after Hugh Edwards you know of course I mean that's exactly right and you know the um you know I worked at the BBC for 25 years and look it's a fact of life the BBC is full of young attractive men and women and you know it's not a it's not a monastery in there and um the what happened to Germaine genus you know another time another place someone from HR or one of his bosses would have said you've overstepped a Mark here genus you got to step back a bit and say sorry to those girls well and you know it could have been dealt with in that way but as you're saying you rightly say because it's the backwash from the Hugh Edwards thing something which actually was a huge betrayal of trust and a mighty blow to the BBC's reputation for probity to have your main presenter the man who has been entrusted as the voice of the nation with everything from the Queen's death to you know the senator Memorial every year this was the man who was the most trusted voice on the BBC for him then to be unmasked as a rather T squalid um you know sex criminal I mean it's you could hardly imagine anything worse genus the other on the other hand was a pretty boy who overstepped The Mark with a couple of girls um you know the two things are not comparable but genus has paid a heavy and ab abrupt price in the ending of his career do you think uh Robin that there's any chance I mean we talked talking about the bashier Scandal I totally agree with you just extraordinary when the details came out about this almost quarter of a century later and we we also found out that I think at the time it was like the current director General knew all about it for those 25 years Tony Hall Lord Hall of birkenhead of course I should call him with the Deep respect of course uh uh so that was a terrible journalistic Scandal subsequent you know secrecy against secrecy again uh being the problem uh the cover up being worse almost than the crime uh then came savle then came Hugh edws and so on and so forth uh always secret secret Secrets don't forget that incredible decision when news night to its credit investigated their own man savle and went to the BBC and said my God look at this we've got to broadcast this no no no no uh you can't broadcast this because we're doing a gy will fix it Memorial on Christmas Day and Shane Richie is presenting it so you could got to get rid of that uh and so on so so my question really to you is when is this organization going to learn now we come back to the Diana bashier problem that secrecy not only gets it nowhere it gets it into deep deep trouble when is it going to get a set of Executives or a director General who re who realizes that the oxygen of transparency will make it a much better organiz ization much more attractive to the people who have to pay for the TV license and perhaps preserve it as a public broadcaster because the way it behaves it isn't going to last that much longer as a public broadcaster well I would like to agree with you but I think that actually the new government the labor government is will you know it's got to pay its debts to the BBC the you know you know let's be you know you and I Kevin I think probably like-minded on this but um the BBC and the labor party have been sisters Under the Skin yeah um for as long as I've been a a sentient uh reporter and um the chances of the of the government being tough on the BBC this government being tough on the BBC are very remote so the question of whether the BBC will ever wake up to the fact that it needs to be transparent about all its you know all its uh all its operations well what that would require would be a a a leadership at the top of the BBC with the inte integrity and courage to say that the BBC has to fess up right and it's not just about things like the cover up of the bashier story it's also about their constant preaching about how holier than thou they are as a medor organization it's this self-righteousness it's this hypocrisy you know you've got an organization which proclaims itself to be the most trusted media organization in the world every time it steps into the into a puddle of of of Audia and comes up covered in the mck it looks deeply deeply hypocritical and you you ask how long can this go on well I think that the the tragedy for the BBC and I say this look I've never been somebody who has wished the BBC to be dismantled or destroyed I think actually the ideal of a public service broadcaster which is evenhanded fair to all honest full of Integrity that is a noble ideal agre any country which had such an organization would be the better for it so I want the BBC to say that it's going to be what it proclaims to be the tragedy is that it isn't and we've had this Su we've had a succession of these ghastly scandals I mean we haven't even mentioned the one which was reported in the in the telegraph my paper a few days ago about the chauffeur service which was run at the BBC which I remember all too well the nien cards which were used as a sort of internal taxi service the guy who started that was a pedophile and one of his driver was a pedophile and this driver would take this young chap he was 13 he's allowed himself now to be named he's come forward he was taken to BBC Studios by this guy and abused on BBC premises look you know I'm not saying that the BBC is top to bottom pedophile of course it's not I'm just saying that you know this these constant awful scandals are diminishing everybody's faith in an organization which was once held very dear by the public and I don't think you know anyone who who still thinks the BBC is above reproach is frankly you know it's aad really it's a sad fate and but you're right uh it's not going to get get any better under Labor uh one more reason why we shouldn't have voted for starma when I say we I suspect I don't mean you and I but the nation uh Robin what a pleasure to talk to you always a pleasure thank you so much Robin a in there former BBC journalist author of can we trust the BBC as I said one word booking it no for