BBC boils Barrie's blood

Posted by: Giles Barrie

5 November 2010

Property Week has a strong history of investigative journalism – in recent years we have delved deep into the worlds of Ian McGarry, Achilleas Kallakis and `Lord’ Eddie Davenport to name but a few. 

I also applaud the Sunday Times’s investigation into alleged corruption among the Fifa officials – denied by those concerned – deciding who hosts the 2018 World Cup.

But my blood boiled this morning when I read a story in the Daily Telegraph about one of my old bête noires – the BBC. 

It reads: `England 2018 officials have visited BBC director-general Mark Thompson to express fears that a Panorama investigation into Fifa could fatally harm their World Cup bid.

'Bid leaders already admit that the recent Sunday Times investigation into Fifa members has caused `significant damage’ to their campaign for 2018, and are worried that the Panorama programme will intensify the backlash against them.

`Although England 2018 refused to confirm the visit, it is understood bid chief executive Andy Anson visited Thompson this week to detail the likely implications of the Panorama investigation being screened...’

And then the bit which really wound be up:

`...but was told the programme could not be blocked’.

This beggars belief. First, Panorama should have more class than having to follow up another team of journalists’ good work. This is what my colleague James Whitmore calls `sloppy seconds’.