BBC slammed for ignoring author of The Fraud

You may have seen that BBC just helped out disgraced Labour Together MP Josh Simons with a softball 40 minute interview. The Beeb’s arch anti-Left journalist Laura Kuenssberg even conducted it. You can read our first report on the interview here.

Simons was forced to resign from his cabinet job on 28 February. He’d instructed a PR firm to investigate multiple journalists, it had been revealed. Ex-Canary journo and Declassified UK reporter John McAvoy was one of those affected. Paul Holden – author of The Fraud, a forensic, gritty, play-by-play takedown of the right-wing project to lie a Starmer government into existence – was another.

Holden has now responded to the BBC interview at length:

BBC flunks on journalistic basics

Holden, unlike the hacks at the BBC it seems, is an old-fashioned muckraking reporter in the South African tradition. As he told the Canary recently, that’s a model built on journalists not being pals with politicians. Imagine?! Naturally, Holden was not happy that the vaunted corporation hadn’t even got the basics right:

Yesterday, BBC Newscast published a lengthy, forty-minute interview with former Cabinet Minister Josh Simons MP. The interview addressed how Simons, as a director of Labour Together, had appointed a firm called APCO Worldwide to investigate me and my colleagues.

He went on:

I was not told by the BBC ahead of the broadcast that the episode was being recorded or aired. I was not approached to respond to the lengthy comments made about me or the small anti-corruption organisation Shadow World Investigations, that I run with my colleague Andrew [Feinstein], who is also repeatedly mentioned, was also not approached for comment.

Holden only found out that the BBC interview was going ahead from a friend:

I only found out last night, when a friend texted me, that the person who hired a major multinational reputation management firm that produced a despicable and defamatory report on me and my colleagues, and who reported me on the basis of these false and defamatory reports to the UK’s security services, was being given forty minutes to give his version of events on a major podcast published by our national broadcaster.

Holden reiterated that the BBC hadn’t so much as whispered in his direction about what is clearly a major story in which he is a key figure:

To be clear, the BBC has NEVER – not once – approached me to comment on a story that is, ultimately, about me, my investigations, my family and my colleagues. They did not approach me when the story first broke, and they did not approach me for this episode.

False ‘hack’ allegations

The BBC seem to have given free and unchallenged rein to Simons. He then painted an allegedly false picture – unchallenged.

Here’s Holden’s take:

If the BBC had done so, I would have raised several issues with the way in which matters related to me were discussed. For example, Simons repeatedly stated in the interview that he instructed APCO to investigate whether my reporting or sourcing derived from a ‘hack’ of the Electoral Commission.

He added:

The word ‘hack’ is used eight times in the interview. At no time was it acknowledged in this discussion that this allegation – that I might have received hacked materials – is entirely false, and I have repeatedly proven it to be false.

Holden contacted the BBC about the major issues with the interview. The BBC said additional reporting would be added.

However:

This has not yet happened with regards to the podcast, although I note some online reporting finally reflects a very small and limited sampling of my comments. I will wait to see if amendments and updates will follow. If they do not, I will be escalating this matter to OFCOM.

Point-by-point debunking

Holden used his initial statement to advance many criticisms of the interview and to defend his work.

Holden set out how:

• his reporting on Labour Together and Morgan McSweeney was entirely factually accurate and based on impeccable, legal sourcing
• Revelations based on his book, The Fraud, had subsequently been covered widely across the mainstream media in outlets such as The Times, Daily Mail, The Guardian, The National and ITV.
• Josh Simons states that he never intended for APCO Worldwide to investigate Holden or his colleagues. However, a copy of the contract between APCO Worldwide and Labour Together, addressed to Simons, has now been published. The contract sets out a scope of work written in plain English.
• This contract is clear. APCO were hired to investigate Holden to produce materials that would ‘proactively undermine’ my factually accurate, public interest reporting.
• Josh Simons was provided with a report called Operation Cannon. It is the result of a lengthy investigation into Holden by APCO Worldwide. Holden has seen a copy of this report and claims it mades a series of extremely defamatory allegations against him.
• Multiple media freedom advocacy organisations, including the NUJ, have strongly criticised the APCO investigation and these related matters.

Holden added that he is “still reviewing the Newscast interview”:

I will be responding in due course and I hope that the BBC will, this time, give me the platform to set out what really happened and why.

If you’re a disgusted by the BBC’s mate’s rates style of softball journalism, you can start reading part one our twelve-part serialisation of Paul Holden’s investigative masterpiece The Fraud here. The Canary will be covering this story as it develops further – have no doubt. And we have our own deep-dive interview with Paul Holden in the works as we speak…

Featured image via the Canary