Lord Birt, who was BBC director-general when the Panorama interview was broadcast, queried the later rehiring of Martin BashirA former head of the BBC has condemned Martin Bashir as “deeply wicked” and “a serial liar on an industrial scale” for his deceit in securing an interview with Diana, Princess of Wales. Lord Birt, who was director-general at the time of the 1995 Panorama interview, told MPs that he could not think of anyone who had behaved in such a way in “100 years of BBC journalism”. SponsoredHe described the episode as “an absolute horror story” and said that more due diligence should have been carried out before Bashir was rehired in 2016. Birt said that he did not know why Lord Hall of Birkenhead, director of news at the time, had not informed him of an investigation by a senior colleague which had

Source: The Times June 15, 2021 11:04 UTC