Michael Buerk brands BBC coverage of jubilee ‘cringingly inept’

BBC VETERAN Michael Buerk has launched a stinging attack on the corporation’s “cringingly inept” coverage of the Queen’s diamond jubilee celebrations.

Reviewing the year gone by, the former newsreader said it left him “ashamed” of the company that has employed him for decades.

Referring to the way June’s Thames river pageant was covered by the BBC, Buerk said: “The one enduring British institution was mocked by another that had shamefully lost its way.

“Out on the water, a tribute to the monarch that resonated back to the Middle Ages, rich in historical continuities, a floating salute to past glory and present fortitude.

“On the screen, a succession of daytime airheads preened themselves, or gossiped with even more vacuous D-list ‘celebrities’. With barely an exception, they were cringingly inept.

“Nobody knew anything and nobody cared. The main presenter couldn’t even work out what to call the Queen. I would have wept if I hadn’t been so angry.”

The BBC received more than 2,400 complaints from the public about some of its live broadcasts over the weekend.