It is no longer enough that the BBC's journalists and presenters report the news. They must also manufacture it.

Kenneth Roy

It cannot be easy to fill a five-minute news bulletin on Radio 2 – there being so little news to choose from – but, as the bloodshed in Gaza continued, the recession deepened and the disruption on the west coast railway line became a national scandal, Radio 2 found it possible one morning last week to devote a quarter of its 10am bulletin to a claim that men who haul their luggage on wheels are wimps. It was the day of an apparent breakthrough in the prevention of breast cancer. The cancer story led the bulletin, although was reported in such a sketchy fashion as to be almost incomprehensible. The wimpish blokes, however, got the full treatment, including an interview with the non-wimpish bloke making the claim.
     Of course this wasn't news: not in any sense of that degraded word. One supposes there must be many people in pubs who believe that men who haul their luggage on wheels are wimps, but they wouldn't expect their views to be aired on a BBC news bulletin. Why then was this fatuous conceit allowed the dignity of inclusion? There can be only one explanation: the author of the theory was none other than a BBC journalist, a presenter of the motoring programme, Top Gear.
     Once, in an unguarded moment, I found myself watching this programme. A car was being driven at frightening speed across rough terrain and the person behind the wheel, male needless to say, was voicing-over in a state of near-orgasmic excitement. It was macho posturing, intentionally or otherwise promoting the notion that cars are aggressive machines. If the alternative is the feminisation of society and a new generation of limp-wristed men hauling their luggage on wheels, I will happily subscribe to the alternative. But I digress: the point is not that Top Gear is a wretched exhibition of male vanities but that Radio 2 news bulletins are considered an appropriate vehicle for the expression of any old prejudice by someone on the BBC's payroll.
     A new phenomenon seems to have gathered pace since the behaviour of Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand, two other minor irritants on the BBC's payroll, monopolised the headlines for days on end. It now seems to be accepted by the BBC – not only accepted but encouraged – that there are few things in the world more fascinating than people who work for the BBC. It is no longer enough that the BBC's journalists and presenters report the news. They must also manufacture it.

Just before Christmas, so near that it was easy to overlook, Panorama on BBC1 was devoted to a profile of the corporation's business editor, Robert Peston. The programme was not billed as a profile of Robert Peston – such transparency might well have invited ridicule. According to the TV schedule in the newspapers, and the only reason I watched it, this was a Panorama about the recession. Up to a point it was – but only as a loose framework for a celebration of the life and times of Robert Peston. We were told about his education, there was an interview with his father (who rejoices in the name Lord Peston), and the annoying son was everywhere, marching like a colossus across newsrooms, blogging to the nation, chatting to the Chancellor of the Exchequer at No. 11, every inch a hero of our confused times.
     Incredibly, it took not one but two other BBC journalists to present the testimonial. Jeremy Vine stood in the bitter cold, wrapped in a woolly scarf, to tee it up and the disembodied commentary was spoken by Vivian White, an experienced journalist worthy of more satisfying assignments. Add Peston himself and you have three presenters. Add the backroom production staff and the technicians and you are talking about a small army to bring us the Robert Peston Story.
     I remember Panorama from my childhood. It lasted 50 minutes in those days and was presented by Richard Dimbleby, the greatest broadcaster in the world. It was required viewing in households across Britain; for important editions at times of international crisis, events in towns and villages were postponed to allow people to be at home to see Panorama. A 'window on the world' the BBC called it, this programme of high seriousness, superb journalism, inquiring zeal. Unlike Robert Peston, Richard Dimbleby really was a fit subject for a profile, although the word profile in relation to television personalities had yet to be invented and, even if it had been, the BBC would never have dreamt of making such a programme. Panorama is now a populist shadow of the original; a parody. The title should be buried with dignity.
     Only one question, or rather series of connected questions, about Robert Peston is of the slightest interest. Who is the high-level person who leaks to him like a sieve? What are his source's motives? What is Peston's own psychology about these leaks and their consequences? None of this was explored by the programme. Even the BBC's self-regard has its limits.