BBC obituary editor says he is 'bored' of Diana coverage

BBC obituary editor says he is 'bored' of Diana coverage



The BBC's obituary editor claimed today that he is 'bored' of extensive Princess Diana coverage on the 20th anniversary of her death.

Nick Serpell was responding to a question on Twitter by BBC presenter Simon McCoy for people's thoughts on the Princess of Wales's death in Paris in 1997.

The 66-year-old journalist also said in a Facebook post this morning: 'Hopefully today will the last on which we have to suffer mawkish media Diana drivel.'



He also retweeted a post by Times columnist Iain Martin last night saying: 'Incredible drivel on BBC Newsnight about Diana. It is simply not the case everyone capitulated to the madness that week. Millions of us didn't.'

And Mr Serpell told MailOnline today: 'People have all sorts of opinions. It was a private post, though I do appreciate that social media can sometimes be a very public place.'



Salford-based Mr Serpell, who lives in Darwen, Lancashire, has held his position for 11 years and was working for the BBC when Diana died.

He started as a broadcast journalist for the corporation in 1995, but in 2006 became the obituaries editor, which he said is 'one of the best jobs in the BBC'.



He told in 2015 how he got his new role after working in the obituaries unit to help them get to grips with the demands of a 24-hour news agenda.

Mr Serpell, whose social media picture is of the grim reaper with a cat on his hood, has previously spoken about how the BBC was 'caught out' by Diana's death.

He said: 'Sometimes we have two prominent people dying at the same time. The classic case I remember is Mother Theresa and Princess of Wales, Princess Diana.

'Now obviously Princess Diana pushed a lot of Mother Theresa's coverage off because it was seen, certainly in this country, as a much more significant death.'



The BBC has about 1,500 obituaries in its file and Mr Serpell writes a few more every week. He said last year that the recent wave of celebrity deaths was the new normal.

Speaking in April 2016, Mr Serpell said: 'People who started becoming famous in the 1960s are now entering their 70s and are starting to die.

'There are also more famous people than there used to be. In my father or grandfather's generation, the only famous people really were from cinema.

'There was no television. Then, if anybody wasn't on TV, they weren't famous.'

Mr Serpell, who is originally from Cornwall and is a keen fan of Redruth rugby club, says in his Twitter biography: 'Views mine but BBC can agree'.