Martin Bashir

Biography

Martin Henry Bashir (born 19 January 1963) is a British former journalist. He was a presenter on British and American television and for the BBC's Panorama programme, for which he gained an interview with Diana, Princess of Wales under false pretences in 1995. Although the interview was much heralded at the time, it was later determined that he used forgery and deception to secure it. Bashir worked for the BBC from 1986 to 1999 on programmes including Panorama before joining ITV. He presented the 2003 ITV documentary about Michael Jackson. From 2004 to 2016, he worked in New York—first as an anchor for ABC's Nightline, then as a political commentator for MSNBC, hosting his own programme, Martin Bashir, and a correspondent for NBC's Dateline NBC. He resigned from MSNBC in December 2013 after making "ill-judged" comments about former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. In 2016, he returned to the BBC as a religious affairs correspondent. In 2020, the BBC's director general Tim Davie apologised to the princess's brother, Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer, for Bashir's use of faked bank statements to secure his 1995 Panorama interview with her. Former Justice of the Supreme Court Lord Dyson conducted an independent inquiry and concluded that Bashir had commissioned fake statements to deceive Earl Spencer to gain access to Diana, and in so doing had "acted inappropriately and in serious breach of the 1993 edition of the Producers' Guidelines on straight dealing." Bashir resigned from the BBC in May 2021, citing health reasons.

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