writes Chris Hastings in the Sunday Telegraph:
…BBC employees are furious that the corporation has spared Mr Yentob from disciplinary action after it forced a wave of resignations last week from junior members of staff who committed similar breaches.
Staff contacted by The Sunday Telegraph, including some of the BBC’s best known names, said Mr Yentob’s “extraordinary” behaviour should be the subject of disciplinary action.
“The Alan Yentob business is the most serious allegation”, said one senior broadcaster who asked not to be named.
Another said: “He is guilty of deception and should be for the high jump like all the others.”
And in defence of ‘Noddy’ Yentob we have:
One senior figure in broadcasting said: “Alan Yentob is guilty of self-regard and foolish vanity. But I don’t think he is alone in that respect. I simply cannot accept that he is the only person in television to have behaved like this.”
It’s not much of a defence is it? Still, it sounds like there’s more sleaze to come out if that’s true.
This could be a useful and painful lesson for the BBC and other broadcasters about how easily the stupidity and dishonesty of a few can tarnish and smear everyone else – a lesson that the BBC gleefully meted out to the Conservatives with their endless ‘Tory sleaze’ mantra in the years before 1997. Let us hope that it takes as long for broadcasters to regain the trust of their audiences as it is taking the Conservatives to regain the trust of the electorate.