Yesterday the BBC invited assorted media journos to take a peak at its autumn schedule. According to the Guardian, as BBC One boss Peter Fincham introduced a clip to promote RDF doc series A Year with the Queen he announced, “Annie Leibovitz gets it slightly wrong and the Queen walks out in a huff.”

We now know this was a cynical stunt by a conspiracy of masonic republicans to undermine the monarchy – and it nearly worked.

Clearly Fincham is now finished in television – his credibility in tatters. RDF should never be allowed in the Palace again. The BBC should have the word “royal” removed from its charter.

Actually, I think the Queen will survive this sleight, and so too should the BBC.

But the corporation might want to look at how documentary-makers treat less privileged individuals when advertising their wares.

During the Iraq War, Sky News reporter James Forlong filed a pool piece from a submarine. I was at ITN and watched it come in. (Disclosure: I worked alongside Forlong in the early 1990s. He wasn’t a friend.)

Forlong began his piece: “Beneath the waters of the Persian Gulf, the nuclear powered submarine HMS Splendid and the final moments before a cruise missile is launched.” I didn’t clear it for air. It was, self-evidently, an overwritten facility of the thumbsucking variety.

A BBC documentary team were on the sub, filming Fighting the War. They didn’t challenge the piece at the time, whilst the war was being waged. They saved it up to promote their series.

The docs team revealed that the sub was in port, and the piece was an exercise – which was pretty much how it looked. Forlong’s script certainly could have been read either way. It contained clear file material of a missile launch. If the sub had been submerged, it would have been beneath the waters of the Persian Gulf. Overwritten is a very long way from fake.

Forlong, 44, was the hors d’oeuvre for the press screening. He was quite literally served up, there and then for public humiliation, his professional reputation destroyed over an error of judgment.

The documentary series producer was quoted saying: “Viewers need to be able to trust the editorial integrity of a news report. People assume that what they see on the news is for real. This sort of thing undermines the journalistic community of which we are part.”

Forlong resigned from Sky. Despite a decade dodging bullets in places like Somalia and Chechnya, he was quite unhireable. He was married with two children. Unemployed, he hanged himself.

Trust was restored. The series was promoted. No inquiry needed. All was well with the world.