This fortnight’s edition of Private Eye, out today

, includes this item:

When Radio 4’s The Food Programme devotes itself to wine, as happened on 22 July, it hands the presenter’s chair to genial wine hack Andrew Jefford. In his latest programme Jefford worked in a startling number of plugs for Waitrose and its wines, while making no mention of any other supermarket or wine merchant.

What Jefford forgot to tell listeners is that he writes a monthly wine column for Waitrose Food Illustrated extolling the virtues of the supermarket’s plonk, and has another lucrative sideline running “tutored tastings” on behalf of the supermarket.

No doubt his bosses at Waitrose were delighted with the programme. But will his bosses at the already hyper-jittery BBC be quite so pleased when they learn the truth?

This is similar to another Private Eye item from two issues back, covered by Biased BBC, about the BBC and their paid ‘talking head’ Simon Fanshawe failing to disclose his interests during a prime-time programme he presented, discussed in some detail recently on the open comment thread below (start
here
and work you way down to
here).

Our resident Beeboid, John Reith, hasn’t been seen since, though I’m sure he’ll reappear when he thinks we’ve forgotten!