The BBC seems not to have learned its lesson wrt rigging phone votes etc, as it was revealed that Florence Jackson the 9 year old girl who won the Olympics 50p coin is in fact the daughter of Andrew Jackson (the head of the BBC's Natural History Unit and a former BBC reporter).
The BBC said:
"We strongly refute any allegations of wrongdoing. The judging panel who short-listed the finalists was not given any indication of the name, sex or age of any of the entrants.
Their decision was based purely on the design of the coin.
Any suggestion that anyone at the BBC could have had undue influence on the selection of the winning entry is totally wrong and without any foundation whatsoever. The competition closed in March, before any discussions between the NHU and Andrew Jackson.
The eventual winner was selected as a finalist in March. Andrew is due to start at the NHU at the end of October".
I don't doubt the impartiality of the panel for one moment, nor the fact that Florence deserved to win. The trouble is the BBC is media organisation and should have seen how this would play out in the media, and would have known before Florence was announced as winner that Andrew was joining them again.
Olympic Medals won during the Beijing 2008 Olympics
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