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Femi Oluwole and Carole Malone clashed on Jeremy Vine on 5 when discussing the BBC in the wake of the revelations surrounding ex-BBC journalist Martin Bashir’s interview with Princess Diana. A report published last week by an inquiry into the interview found that Mr Bashir had forged bank statements and misled Diana to gain access to her. The report also found that the BBC had covered up the findings of its internal probe of the interview from the public.
Femi said that he condemned the actions of Mr Bashir but disagreed with the “politicisation” of the story.
He said: “I think that obviously what Bashir did was wrong.”
“I think the politicisation of the issue, for example Oliver Dowden the Culture Secretary saying that the BBC needs to start projecting British values if it wants to maintain its funding is a little worrying because they’re capitalising on this.”
Carole Malone disagreed with him on the connection between the two issues, however.
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“That’s nothing to do with this though, Femi,” she said.
Femi responded: “He capitalised on it yesterday.”
Carole shot back “It’s still got nothing to do with what the BBC actually did.”
“Yes, of course,” Femi replied, before a stony silence.
Host Jeremy Vine intervened to say: “Well yes I suppose he wrote an article about the BBC because the BBC’s in the news because of this.”
“The issue of whether the police should be involved in investigating Martin Bashir keeps coming up.”
“What do you think?” he asked Femi.
To which he responded: “I think that given that he forged documents and then attempted to secure the interview I think that’s definitely something that could be looked into, and if the BBC was complicit in covering that up and rehired him without question then that also should be looked into”
Mr Bashir’s 1995 interview with Princess Diana attracted over 20 million viewers, but the recent report found that he had obtained it through “deceitful behaviour.”
It found that Mr Bashir had made fake bank statements which he showed to Diana’s brother, Earl Spencer, which suggested that a member of Diana’s staff was leaking details of her private life to win their trust and gain access to an interview.
The report also concluded that the BBC had fallen short of “the high standards of integrity and transparency.”
It also added that its internal investigation into the incident had been “woefully ineffective.”
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