Bye-bye Guerin.
Controversial BBC correspondent Orla Guerin is to leave her post as Middle East correspondent later this year, TJ can reveal.
An internal corporation email sent on Monday revealed that the 39-year-old, who has come under considerable fire for a perceived anti-Israel bias in her coverage, will leave Jerusalem in December to start a new posting in Johannesburg.
While Israel government press office director Danny Seaman said the corporation, rather than any one person of having been guilty of “shoddy” journalism with regards to Israel, he told TJ: “Unfortunately, despite personally liking her, she didn’t always uphold the standards of balanced and unbiased journalism one would expect.”
And believe it or not, the news just gets better and better.
The announcement of former Bafta-nominated Guerin’s leaving comes weeks after the departure of another controversial correspondent Barbara Plett, who last year said she cried as a dying Yasser Arafat was airlifted from his compound.
But the question remains. Are the BBC going to replace Guerin and Plett with journalists of the same mold, or rather journalists with even a shred of integrity?
