The Sunday Times has a headline today that really caught my eye:
BBC whistleblower: bosses suppressing Russia stories:
A top investigative reporter says politically sensitive programmes are buried
A top investigative reporter says politically sensitive programmes are buried
How disappointing that the "BBC whistleblower" turns out to be John Sweeney!
He's still obviously bitter after his departure from the corporation and resentful that his Panorama on Tommy Robinson was dropped:
He's still obviously bitter after his departure from the corporation and resentful that his Panorama on Tommy Robinson was dropped:
BBC bosses have been accused of pulling the plug on politically sensitive reports into the close links between leading politicians and Russia.
John Sweeney, a BBC investigative reporter, has turned whistleblower and filed a complaint against the corporation with Ofcom, the broadcasting watchdog. He alleges investigations into Labour’s Lord Mandelson, the former Tory cabinet minister John Whittingdale, the Brexit funder Arron Banks, the oligarch Roman Abramovich and the far-right activist Tommy Robinson were all dropped.
He claims that other potential reports into “the pro-Russian sympathies of Labour spin doctor Seumas Milne” were never even commissioned by BBC editors and raises more concerns about Boris Johnson’s links with Russian oligarchs.
Wonder if there's any substance to his claims? If not, then he isn't 'a whistleblower'.
(Question: Can you be 'a whistleblower' after you've left your job?)
Anyhow, John Sweeney has his own article in The Sunday Times under the headline:
He writes:
(Question: Can you be 'a whistleblower' after you've left your job?)
Anyhow, John Sweeney has his own article in The Sunday Times under the headline:
BBC’s ‘jellyfish’ bosses sting investigative reporting to death. They must go.
He writes:
I found film of Robinson saying “for too long the German people have lived under the guilt of Adolf Hitler” in a bierkeller in Bavaria. We hoped to let the public see Robinson as the sock-puppet for neo-Nazis that he is. But our Panorama was never broadcast. Instead, the BBC threw the book at me, “jellyfish” charge and all.
Being attacked by a far-right cult while undefended by the BBC was maddening, literally. I felt bewildered and betrayed and, eventually, I cracked up.
I am back to my old self but have left the BBC. However, I love it too much to just walk away in silent dismay.
So, I have complained to Ofcom about our Panorama on Tommy Robinson: not broadcast. Our Newsnight investigation into Peter Mandelson’s undeclared money from a mob-connected Russian firm: not broadcast.
As he's still spinning that yarn about Tommy Robinson in the Bavarian bierkeller, I think we can be forgiven for approaching his other claims with some scepticism.
