Two of the BBCâs longest serving journalists will be leaving the corporation after one final Panorama appearance later this month.
John Ware and Vivian White, who have collectively served over two decades with the BBC, have both voluntarily left the organisation, according to a report by The Guardian.
Whiteâs final report as a BBC journo, Murdoch’s Satellite TV Pirates, will air on Panorama on Monday 12 March. According to the corporation, it will be “an investigation into fresh hacking allegations but at the heart of [Rupert Murdoch’s] pay TV empire ⦠exposing how former police detectives were used to recruit people to break the law in order to bring down Murdoch’s commercial rivalâ?.
The 65-year-old has covered everything from party political conferences to rising train fares over his 20 year career with the Beeb and has said: âFor a reporter, it’s an absolutely fantastic privilege to work there.”
One of the reporter’s recent Panorama investigations, Cheap Labour on the Minimum Wage, provoked nearly 8,000 phone calls to a BBC helpline number.
Ware, 64, who since 2007 has worked more broadly across BBC current affairs as well as for Panorma, is taking âvoluntary redundancyâ?.
“I have other things to doâ?, he said. âProbably a BBC2 programme, a book I want to write about the policing inquiry into the Omagh bombings. Panorama has got a tremendous momentum currently. It’s on song.”
The veteran reporter has emphasised that, despite describing former BBC controller, Jay Hunt, as âshallow as a paddling poolâ? in a leaked email, he is not being forced out.
Panorama editor Tom Giles said: “I have known them both for ages and admire their work. I certainly envisage them doing more for me in future as freelancers.”
