BBC cops a serve over Novak Djokovic ‘mega scoop’

Controversial interviews with Novak Djokovic and Jeffrey Epstein’s lawyer have raised wider concerns about editorial standards at the BBC.

The BBC’s interview with unvaccinated Novak Djokovic has provoked disquiet in the corporation and has been used by antivaxxer groups to promote their cause online.

It was billed as a “mega global scoop” by presenter Amol Rajan and given blanket coverage by the BBC on radio, TV and online.

But Rajan’s interview last week with unvaccinated tennis champion Novak Djokovic has provoked disquiet among his corporation colleagues, and been used by antivaxxer groups to promote their cause online.

Current and recently departed staff have expressed concern that editorial standards have been damaged by extensive voluntary redundancies, in which many experienced reporters, editors and producers have left, and reorganisation of the news operation. Colleagues were frustrated at the prominence given to Djokovic’s views, the “chumminess” of the interview and Rajan’s failure adequately to rebut claims about Covid-19 vaccines.

The interview has also been shared by antivaxxers online, including Joseph Mercola, a US doctor described by The New York Times as the “most influential spreader of coronavirus misinformation online”, and an antivax Facebook group, Physicians for Informed Consent. It has also been promoted by antivaxxers on Telegram through the World Doctors Alliance, according to research by the Centre for Countering Digital Hate for The Sunday Times.

Djokovic, 34, told Rajan, the BBC’s media editor, that he would prefer to be unable to play in grand slams than to get a Covid-19 vaccine. He was deported from Australia last month. Djokovic denied being part of the anti-vaccination movement but said as an elite athlete he had to be careful about what he puts in his body.

Novak Djokovic interview with the BBC on February 14. Picture: BBC

The interview was the lead news story on Today on Radio 4, ahead of the crisis in Ukraine, and more than 30 minutes were devoted to the interview. The story also took up the top three spots on the BBC’s app and the first 10 minutes of the BBC News at One, before a half-hour special on BBC1 that evening.

One journalist called it a “puff piece which failed to address the science” and accused Rajan, who called Djokovic “intense and cerebral”, of “doing a showbiz interview, not a news one”.

The interview, understood to have been arranged through Freud Communications, took place in Belgrade, Djokovic’s birthplace. It is understood there were “intense” discussions on Today over the interview’s merits, and that some of the presenters were unhappy at the coverage.

“A different interviewer would have approached it differently,” another BBC source said. “The chumminess was unedifying and un-BBC. And could you imagine John Humphrys or Andrew Neil behaving (in the way) Amol did? There’s an austerity to serious interviews with people who need to be held to account – or there should be.”

A third source said that Fergus Walsh, the BBC’s medical editor, was “used to correct the interview all day, which is most unusual, trying to make clear the science about how safe the vaccine is”.

Journalists who have left the BBC in recent months were even more critical, with one calling it “disgraceful”, another “an editorial disaster” and a third as “damaging to the BBC’s reputation”.

The BBC has already been criticised for asking unvaccinated people to join the Question Time audience.

Novak Djokovic gave an exclusive interview to BBC journalist Amol Rajan. Picture: BBC

Jonathan Munro, the interim director of news and current affairs who took over last month, had oversight for the interview, but a source said he was “rather more preoccupied with Ukraine”.

The BBC has tried to justify the prominence given to the interview: “(It) is the first time Novak Djokovic has spoken about his position himself, following significant interest in his story from audiences around the globe … The BBC has always made clear the scientific and medical consensus on vaccination and its effectiveness and we have done so throughout our coverage of this story.” However, on the BBC’s Newswatch, Samira Ahmed, the host, asked: “Could the coverage of the tennis star have discouraged some people from taking a Covid vaccine?”

The BBC is also currently being investigated by the regulator Ofcom over its reporting of an antisemitic attack in London in November. A month later it was criticised for interviewing Alan Dershowitz, Jeffrey Epstein’s former lawyer, shortly after Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty of trafficking young girls.

Dershowitz has been accused of sexual abuse by one of Epstein’s accusers, a charge he denies. The BBC has admitted that this did not meet editorial standards.

Last week the BBC also pulled two episodes within a week of its new regional affairs program, We Are England, on the grounds that it also did not meet editorial standards.

“There are always controversies at the BBC,” said a senior journalist, who left recently. “But now there’s a perfect storm, where the BBC has lost a lot of experienced staff in a very short time and you had the reorganisation in news, which has caused a lot of bad feeling … and meant that a lot of people are in new positions.”

The BBC said: “We don’t feel that highlighting a few unrelated pieces of output from across the BBC says anything meaningful about a 24-hour worldwide news operation.”

The Sunday Times