Martin Bashir is slimy and unethical, no doubt. He was able to score the Panorama interview with Princess Diana partly because he forged documents and showed them to the Earl Spencer (Diana’s brother), blackmail-style. The Dyson Report condemned Bashir’s actions and lies, but the Dyson Report also claimed that Diana likely still would have done an interview with someone else had Bashir not forged documents. Given Diana’s penchant for working with people outside of the institutional power structures, I’m not entirely positive that Diana would have been happy to sit down with just another powerful white, male journalist who would have, say, peppered her with follow-up questions. The Panorama interview was theater, and Diana wrote the play herself and rehearsed her answers and organized it just so. Following the Dyson Report’s findings last week, Bashir has given an interview:
Journalist Martin Bashir is speaking out after an official BBC inquiry found he used “deceitful methods” to secure his controversial 1995 interview with Princess Diana. In his first interview since the results of the inquiry were released on Thursday, Bashir said he is “deeply sorry.”
“I never wanted to harm Diana in any way and I don’t believe we did,” he said in an interview with The Sunday Times. “Everything we did in terms of the interview was as she wanted, from when she wanted to alert the palace, to when it was broadcast, to its contents.”
“I can’t imagine what their family must feel each day,” he continued in reference to Diana’s sons Prince William and Prince Harry.
In his interview with The Sunday Times, Bashir also spoke out against a statement William made after the report was released, in which the royal criticized the BBC. In his statement, the Duke of Cambridge — who did not mention Bashir by name — said that “the BBC’s failures contributed significantly to her fear, paranoia and isolation that I remember from those final years with her.”
Bashir has denied this. “Even in the early 1990s, there were stories and secretly recorded phone calls. I wasn’t the source of any of that,” he told the newspaper. “I don’t feel I can be held responsible for many of the other things that were going on in her life, and the complex issues surrounding those decisions.”
While speaking with The Sunday Times, Bashir specifically said that showing Spencer the forged bank documents “was wrong” and something he “deeply regrets” — although he claimed that “had no bearing” on his 1995 sit-down with Diana.
Asked if he will be able to forgive himself, Bashir replied, “that’s a really difficult question because it was a serious error. I hope that people will allow me the opportunity to show that I am properly repentant of what happened,” he added.
[From People]
Two big points here and they’re both true, from where I sit. One, “Everything we did in terms of the interview was as she wanted.” Yes. Diana stage-managed the whole thing. She knew what she wanted to say, she organized it and it was on her terms. For Diana, Bashir was a means to an end and that end was telling her story in the way she wanted. Two, “I don’t feel I can be held responsible for many of the other things that were going on in her life.” This is also true, or true-ish. Bashir probably did feed into her paranoia, but be fair to Diana and Bashir – she had every reason to be paranoid and there were a lot of people watching her and listening to her and plotting against her. She was being sabotaged from within, by the institution, and Bashir was only one small part of the larger picture.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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