The current external handicaps faced by the organisation in respect of Charter Review would be greatly relieved in the wake of Greg’s departure.Obviously no-one on the Today programme has read Greg Dyke‘s Inside Story.

The intro for the Dyke interview today, going over the minutes from the Governors’ meetings (which the BBC had sought to keep from being made public) said:

Greg Dyke was fired by the Governors as director-general of the BBC after the Hutton report was published, wrote to them a week later asking for his job back.

Poor old John Humphrys probably hadn’t read the script through before speaking it, because he corrected himself immediately – Dyke actually resigned.

But repeating the Telegraph‘s take on the story meant they laid themselves open to correction from the former D-G on the air: “This isn’t a news story…” Hmmm.

BBC Media correspondent, Torin Douglas, who has read Inside Story, had suggested a better line on the website:

In his book, he describes this proposal as “tongue-in-cheek” but the minutes show it was taken seriously and discussed fully.

Perhaps a debate on the Beeb’s support for Freedom of Information might have been a better use of the slot. It might also have asked why someone at the BBC released the unrequested minutes of the second meeting discussing Dyke’s “tongue-in-cheek” request. Did they want to embarrass him?

In case you are not bored by the wrangling, the key line from the minutes is in the box above. Independence is about more than governance…it’s about what you say and what you do.