Here’s a transcript from last Sunday’s Broadcasting House on BBC Radio 4 in which veteran radio reporter Nick Jones explains why the BBC and other broadcasters covered up for Charles Kennedy’s drinking (the relevant segment starts at 35:20):
Yes, dear listener, I have to admit it, I was part of that benign cover-up by broadcasters. We did collude, we didn't level with you, we didn't explain that Charles Kennedy really did have a serious drink problem. Perhaps we should, perhaps we shouldn't. I'd known for years (and so did most of my colleagues) that Kennedy was more than partial to a wee dram and, yes, another dram too.So there you have it: the BBC and others took part in a "benign" cover-up because Charles Kennedy was “nice to us”, “understands our foibles” and because “we needed him”. That’s not about reporters being “nicer than you think”, it’s simply unprincipled journalism.
Unlike newspaper journalists, we radio reporters get pretty close to the action, we know when our interviewee has had one too many. But there you go, we needed Charles and he needed us. If he was late or hung-over, we'd make an excuse. If we thought the tape couldn't be broadcast, we'd ditch it.
So you can understand why, in our frustration and wishing to give you a hint of what was really afoot, we always made so much of that coded criticism which came tumbling out when the party hierarchy were firing their warning shots.
[...]
[I]f they [Liberal Democrat MPs] didn’t mention the dreaded word “drink” then we, the broadcasters, were ready to hold back. Journos are sometimes nicer than you think. Occasionally, we will skate over the truth, especially if someone in the public eye is nice to us and, yes, understands our foibles.
And it makes you wonder what else they're not telling us.
