Enterprising journalism

The Times has been asking questions about the re-hiring of Martin Bashir by BBC News in 2016, and has been assured that he was recruited not through a "capuccino" conversation, but a standard three-person interview panel.  

The internal BBC investigation is being lead by Ken MacQuarrie; he writes short reports, saving the florid stuff for Gaelic. Will it reveal the names of the three who made this exciting hire ?  It's pretty certain that the overall Director of News at the time, James Harding, wasn't one of the three - though his lack of recall of events just five years ago is concerning. Will the report reveal the panel's scorecard ?  The names of Martin's referees ?

In describing the 'dimensions' of the job, the specification says "Reporting to the UK News Editor, the Religious Affairs Correspondent is part of the UK Affairs cluster and is managed on a day to day basis by the Assistant Editor in UK Affairs. The role will require deployments on running and breaking stories involving religion both in the UK and abroad."

The brand new UK News Editor in 2016 was Richard Burgess, now rebranded Executive Editor UK News Content.  Sometimes, in-house experts join these panels.  Aaqil Ahmed was effectively Head of Religion across the BBC in 2016; Christine Morgan was Head of Religion & Ethics and minder of Thought for The Day. Both were based in Salford. 

As we've said before, the pleasure of announcing the appointment fell to Newsgathering boss Jonathan Munro, who circulated the press release amongst his staff with this cover note: "Martin’s track record in enterprising journalism, including time in BBC News and at Panorama in the 1980s and 90s, is well known and respected in the industry and amongst our audiences. A student of theology, Martin will bring immense knowledge of the brief to his new role, and an enthusiasm to cover the broadest range of faith-based stories."

Is the role of BBC Religion Editor still pivotal to the BBC ?  The beat is currently being patrolled, quite effectively by Bashir's producer, Harry Farley, who surely must be entitled to some extra reward, from his current level of Senior Broadcast Journalist.