Is Martin Bashir 'cover-up' new Watergate? Andy Webb says BBC stonewalled him over Princess Diana interview info
Earl Charles Spencer, Princess Diana's brother, thanked journalist Andy Webb for bringing the Bashir-Panorama-BBC scandal to the fore. It was Webb's dedication to uncovering the truth that led to the damning report that revealed "deceitful" methods employed by Martin Bashir to secure the bombshell 'Panorama' interview with the late royal.
Webb has now likened BBC's "coverup" to the Watergate scandal that rocked the United States in the '70s. Spencer took to Twitter to praise Webb, who wrote and directed the 2020 Channel 4 documentary, 'Diana: The Truth Behind The Interview'.
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“I’d like to thank the TV journalist Andy Webb for his tireless professionalism in bringing the Bashir-Panorama-BBC scandal to light,” Spencer tweeted. “If he hadn’t have pursued this story for well over a decade, and shared his findings with me last October, today’s findings wouldn’t have surfaced.”
I’d like to thank the TV journalist Andy Webb for his tireless professionalism in bringing the Bashir-Panorama-BBC scandal to light. If he hadn’t have pursued this story for well over a decade, and shared his findings with me last October, today’s findings wouldn’t have surfaced.
— Charles Spencer (@cspencer1508) May 20, 2021
It's worth noting that Webb was instrumental in finding out the truth behind how Bashir scored his historic talk with the "people's princess." He first started looking into the scandal back in 2007.
“There was always something not quite right about the Diana interview,” he wrote last year in the Sunday Times. “It simply did not make sense that the BBC’s Panorama, the stolid grey lady of television journalism, had pulled off the greatest tabloid sensation of the age.”
Now, in an op-ed for the Daily Mail, Webb has recounted how he shared details with Spencer, who was "convinced there were dirty dealings, but he’d been unable to prove it." Spencer reportedly used Webb's findings to eventually uncover how Bashir had forged bank statements to convince Diana to do the interview.
Webb remembered how he was led to the scandal after seeing a play titled 'Frost/Nixon' at London’s Donmar Warehouse nearly 15 years ago.
"It starred Frank Langella as the US President Richard Nixon, confronted in a face-to-face post-Watergate interview by David Frost — a mesmerizing Michael Sheen," Webb remembered. "I left the Donmar inspired to branch into playwrighting and create my own play. All I needed, I believed, was a historic interview of equal importance. One came instantly to mind: the heartbreaking encounter in 1995 between a total unknown — Bashir — and perhaps the most famous woman in the world, Princess Diana, the estranged wife of the Prince of Wales," he wrote.
According to Webb, the BBC had concealed the lies and the forgeries behind the sensational royal scoop "so efficiently" that he had no idea of the cover-up before he began to investigate.
"I have witnessed the state broadcaster’s feints and dodges over this affair repeatedly," Webb continued. "My requests for information — information the BBC was legally bound to provide — have been blocked and barricaded. Even when crucial documents were finally handed over, it had the whiff of cynical determination to obscure the real facts. I believe the BBC deliberately manipulated their release to make it as difficult as possible for me to see what was hidden," he explained.
Webb shelved his plans for a play after being faced with a "wall of silence" from BBC about Bashir's activities -- reminiscent of the obstruction caused by President Richard Nixon's administration during the Watergate scandal that rocked the United States in the 1970s. Webb lamented that he never got to write his Bashir/Diana play, and noted how Peter Morgan, the guy who wrote 'Frost/Nixon', had moved on to write big-budget projects like Netflix's 'The Crown'.
"Martin Bashir is, as Lord Dyson has discovered, a chancer who struck gold," Webb declared. "These people come along from time to time but we all hope an organization as venerated as the BBC will spot them before they do damage — or act swiftly to root them out once exposed," he added, noting the disgrace of this episode would haunt the BBC forever. "And had I not thought of writing that play it may never have properly emerged," Webb concluded.