Daily Mail: BBC 'probing hiring of five presenters' after claims process a 'sham'

Story from Daily Mail:

The BBC is probing the hiring of five senior presenters on its news channel after claims the recruitment process was a 'sham', a report has said.

The presenters who got the top jobs, which come with salaries of as much as £230,000 a year, were allegedly told they were a shoo in before the appointments process officially began, several sources told The Times.

Human resources chief at the corporation's production wing, BBC Studios, Daryl Maitland, began an inquiry into the hiring of presenters on June 8, eight weeks after the revamped version of BBC News launched, the paper said.

The single channel took the place of separate UK and international TV news services as part of a move to help the BBC save £400million amid inflationary pressures and a two-year freeze on the licence fee.

Bosses also want to make sure that characters recognised by international viewers are kept on air, The Times report said.

The investigator has reportedly been looking into claims that BBC bosses had already made their minds up for the presenter roster as early a last autumn, before interviews for the positions took place in January this year.

Journalists Christian Fraser, Matthew Amroliwala, Maryam Moshiri, Yalda Hakim and Lucy Hockings were announced as the New Channel's five top presenters in February. The Times has reported they understand that around 15 stars applied for the jobs.

Presenters who had worked for the BBC for years including Tim Willcox, David Eades and Joanna Gosling took voluntary redundancy before the BBC started the hiring process.

However the fate of a third group of five presenters - Martine Croxall, Geeta Guru-Murthy, Kasia Madera, Karin Giannone, and Annita McVeigh - has not yet been finalised.

The presenters have not been on the air for nearly 20 weeks while on full pay - and The Times reports that the BBC are trying to get them back in work so they do not have to force compulsory redundancies.

A presenter who went through the recruitment process branded it a 'sham', when talking the paper.

They said that the broadcaster's bosses who repeat values of truth, accuracy, impartiality and transparency 'were behind a fig-leaf selection process that was predetermined months before anyone did a job interview'.

Sources at the BBC also told The Times that they concerned that the investigation was launched by bosses at BBC News who will be 'marking their own homework'.

Another presenter told the paper the process was 'rigged' and a third said it was 'common knowledge' that it had already been decided who was getting the top jobs.

But other presenters said the jobs were handed out 'fair and square', and that it was not known in advance who would get them. They added that it was standard for an investigation to be launched if parties believe they have been wronged.

A leading presenter, Yalda Hakim, left her job with the BBC to join Sky News less than four months since the new channel launched.

The corporation is heading up mounting pressure to take the female presenters off air whilst paying them - with a journalist not in the affected group telling The Times it was 'outrageous'.

A BBC spokeswoman told MailOnline: 'We don't comment on HR issues.'