Veterans at war:
John Simpson: Peter Oborne wrote in The Guardian recently that senior BBC execs had told him it was wrong to expose a British prime minister‘s lies because it undermined trust in politics. In 50 years at the BBC I’ve never heard this said once. Oborne has a public duty to name these execs.Peter Oborne: I'm not naming the people I spoke to. John Simpson should contact Tony Hall, director general of the BBC, and ask Hall's opinion about whether the BBC should expose Johnson as a liar. Rightly or wrongly (there are honourable reasons) I understand it's against BBC policy to do so.John Simpson: If you don’t want to name the people who told you this, then you should at least give us some idea of their jobs or their seniority. And tell us how many there are of them.
Peter Oborne: Top management jobs in news and current affairs, all top of the tree, 22 in total. Satisfied now John?
ReplyDeleteActually, Simpson has indicated how ludicrous the "secret source" approach to journalism is. Thing is, it's the BBC's stock in trade - from Deborah Cohen's "A chief executive at one general hospital..." to Laura K. "Someone very close to the Prime Minister... "