Perhaps it is just one of those matters solely of interest to journalists, so forgive me; but it has been fascinatingly horrible watching the BBC's Greg Dyke come a cropper at the Beecher's Brook of the Hutton enquiry, Kevin Myers.
With him tumbled much of the self-esteem and corporate vanity that has afflicted the corporation for so long. And as for the wretched Andrew Gilligan, well, he was the mishap which was waiting to happen, the actuarial certainty that the BBC would sooner or later fall ankle over eyebrow.
Of course, there's not just one BBC. There are many regional BBCs, and one of them is BBC Northern Ireland. Throughout the almost impossible pressures of the early days of the Troubles, its journalists stood hard by the principles of their remit. These men - and in those days, journalists were male - David Capper, Robin Walsh, Barry Cowan, Don Anderson and David Dunseith set personal and professional standards that remain even today as shining examples of the duty of radio and television broadcasters.
One striking characteristic of these broadcasters was their personal modesty. They didn't think that their talent, and - as they would say - their good luck, actually put them above other journalists. They had no side, no airs, no graces. All of the above were Protestant, and David Dunseith was a former policeman, who had repeatedly to report on the murder of his former colleagues. Never once did their personal backgrounds influence the way they did their duty.
The BBC reporters from London were not so blessed with personal reticence. They held forth. They sneered. They were used to being fawned upon, and so they expected it. They behaved like creatures from a superior planet, where the inhabitants were both brighter and more important than the worthless citizens they were now favouring with their presence.
I have seen many senior BBC reporters, and there are exceptions to the norm, Kevin Connolly, the present Irish correspondent, being one; but invariably, their most common characteristic was a superciliousness that to their eyes must have been justified by the abject welcome they were so often given. At news conferences in Beirut or Belgrade, Addis Ababa or Sarajevo, BBC correspondents were repeatedly singled out for particular attention. Merely the trinity of letters attached to the journalists' names opened doors in a way that was impossible for us lesser mortals.
Rare is the human spirit that can withstand such effusive flattery, uncommon the mind which can realise the truth that this is not a profound and personal compliment. Instead, it is only human to conclude that this respect is purely personal, and no more than what you as an individual deserve.
In my time, I have met a good many of these BBC eminences. They seldom descended from the lofty heights of diseased self-esteem to which life had raised them. I spent a week with one at a journalists' conference some years ago, and between sessions we shared a good few drinks together. I got to know a great deal about her life; but at the end of that week, she knew as much about me as she had done five minutes before we had first met.
This sense of being more important institutionally and individually than all the things and all the people you are reporting on must, unchecked, have a profoundly corrosive effect. And so it has proved. A culture of chic, know-all, casual superiority came to infuse the Corporation. The BBC knew best; and if the BBC did it, then axiomatically, it was best.
Therefore if the Beeb does it, it's right.
How many times in the course of the war to liberate Iraq did we hear the grave words, Another set-back for the allies today. . ? The BBC agenda, unspoken, undefined, almost subconscious, was of a ceaseless moral superiority over the lesser beings upon whom it reported.
BBC canteen culture would permit a journalist to admit to any -ism - socialism, egalitarianism, feminism, vegetarianism - but it would never permit patriotism as a legitimate emotion.
Arrogance and an abiding political sub-culture of dissent was allowed to grow through the organisation like dry rot, until one of the central principles of journalism - the word-perfect reporting of a wholly protected source - was abandoned. Thus, the BBC could allow Andrew Gilligan live on air to accuse the British Government, using unscripted and improvised words, of deliberately lying to the public about what it knew about weapons of mass destruction - and even, God help us, partly identify
his informant.
To be parochial for a moment, it is inconceivable that such rampant unprofessionalism would have been permitted on RTÉ. Only very deep-rooted institutional corruption could have allowed that kind of disregard for the profound constitutional implications which must flow from broadcasting such a report.
But of course, in the semi-undergraduate, right-on, look-at-me, I'm-so-important culture of the BBC, matters of constitutional law, and of duty to tell the truth, and only the truth, had now come to bear little weight. Worse still, so all-pervasive was this disease that the director-general of the BBC then didn't even listen to the original report for several weeks after it had been made.
Hutton will make mincemeat of the BBC. Utter mincemeat. This will be such a slaughter as was never before seen in public broadcasting; and with potentially tragic results. When the greatest free broadcasting organisation in the world is humiliated, then free broadcasters - and their less powerful cousins, newspaper journalists - should tremble. For the BBC has done not just a disservice to itself: it has done a far graver disservice to journalists everywhere.