A former BBC newsreader has been criticised after he described One Direction star Liam Payne as a “drugged-up, faded boy band singer” following his tragic death.
The 31-year-old died falling from the third-floor balcony of the Casa Sur Hotel last week, leading to an outpouring of grief across the globe from One Direction fans and his former bandmates.
But ex-presenter Michael Buerk, 78, said he was surprised by how much weight the BBC placed on the news of Payne’s death.
Asked on the Today programme about how foreign journalism had changed, he said: “There was more of an appetite for seriousness.
“It was only last week this programme decided that the most important thing that had happened in the world was that a drugged-up, faded, boy band singer had fallen off a balcony.
“Even the 10 O'clock News, which is normally good on these things, thought it was the second most important thing that happened in the world.”
But his comments received wide backlash on social media, with one person calling for Mr Buerk to be “cancelled not just from broadcasting but from the face of the Earth”.
He was criticised for his “nasty comment” and labelled as “horrible” and “insensitive” by X users.
However, other BBC listeners agreed with Mr Buerk with one describing him as the “official spokesman for a majority of the nation”.
The veteran broadcaster’s reporting of the famine in Ethiopia in 1984 woke the world up to its devastating impact and is thought to have inspired BandAid.
By the end of the year, a charity single, “Do They Know It’s Christmas” had sold more than 3 million copies, with every penny going to Ethiopian famine relief.
He spoke to Radio 4 40 years on from his famous dispatch from Ethiopia.
Mr Buerk also worked as the BBC’s South Africa correspondent during the apartheid.
