BBC 'fawning over the Royal Family'

7:48pm Tuesday 7th October 2008

Jeremy Paxman accused the BBC of "fawning" over the Royal Family, claiming in the past it had seen itself as "a courtier".

The Newsnight presenter and self-confessed republican-turned-monarchist said the broadcaster - his employer - was uncertain of its relationship to the Royal Family and was confused about how to cover stories involving them.

Paxman, whose change of heart was reinforced while researching his book, On Royalty, said the BBC did not know whether to "report" or "celebrate" events such as the Queen's Golden Jubilee celebrations and the marriage of the Prince of Wales to Camilla Parker-Bowles.

Speaking on a programme entitled The Palace and the Beeb for Radio 4's Archive Hour, due to be broadcast later this week, he said: "While the BBC does report royal matters pretty straightforwardly, as it should, there is still a fawning taste, a fawning sense to the tone of voice it adopts when dealing with the heir to throne and his family.

"They do not treat them in the way they would treat other members of the public, to which it might equally reply that they are not other members of the public."

He also claimed the BBC had got itself into a tangle over the reporting of the death of the Queen Mother in 2002.

"It was unclear whether the BBC was announcing this as a piece of news or in its capacity as mourner-in-chief, really, and it got into a terrible muddle," he said.