BBC asks BBC why BBC isn’t naming presenter

In a desperate media show of ‘look how impartial and uninvolved we are in yet another pervert investigation’, the BBC has asked itself why it isn’t naming the presenter who has been accused of paying a teenager over £35,000 for sexually explicit photographs.

While the rest of the UK’s media plays ‘guess the presenter’ bingo, instead of waiting for the Met to finish its investigations, the BBC decided to get ahead of the game by asking themselves the questions that everyone else would rightfully ask in time. Here’s how that interview went.

Why hasn’t the BBC named the accused presenter?

If journalists don’t have hard evidence of wrongdoing by the BBC presenter, what is the case for breaching their privacy? There are inconsistencies in the story. We all have a right to privacy and not being named. Unless you’re Jimmy Savile. And David Griffin. And Rolf Harris. And Geoffrey Wheeler. And Stuart Hall. And Tim Westwood. And…

Why isn’t the rest of the media naming the accused presenter?

It’s a seriously confusing issue: an unnamed now-20-year-old is denying an account of his unnamed parents about an unnamed BBC presenter to a tabloid that makes a living by bullying people and running sensational headlines. What does it all mean? Where has it all come from? Why now? We don’t know either. Also, the law.

What about reputational damage?

Ah, yes. That, too. Not all claims made against people are true, after all. It’s not like there’s a pattern at the BBC and we should all be thoroughly ashamed and disgraced with ourselves for it instead of never addressing it, ever.

Then again, what can the Sun say about integrity.

Can you tell us who it definitely isn’t?

Um, well, that’s difficult for a lot of reasons – first and foremost, the public is beginning to think it looks like an anything goes situations over here, so, it’s probably best to not speculate about who it isn’t just as much as we shouldn’t speculate who it could be.

Maybe we should all just hold fire and wait for investigations to conclude and the correct procedures to be followed, but that would require journalistic integrity, and it seems like the media in general has been lacking a lot of that of late.