Snowball fight

How predictable. The British tabloid press, wounded by the Leveson inquiry and looking to lash out and relieve some of the pressure, have picked on that increasingly familiar punchbag, the BBC. Not for alleged bias in their reporting of news events, nor for apparently ungrounded or libellous claims made in their documentaries, nor even for the purportedly offensive antics or careless comments of their presenters or their guests. No - for supposedly misleading viewers over a scene from Frozen Planet of some polar bear cubs.

Quite apart from the triviality of the issue and the attempt to smear one of the year's finest programmes, how dare the Mirror (and others) feel in any kind of position to criticise anyone else for perceived unethical practices. As the Leveson inquiry is proving, they don't have a moral high horse to straddle any more - they don't even have a moral Shetland pony.

Rather than lying down and taking the flak - or even whipping themselves masochistically, as is often their wont - it was good to see the BBC fighting back. Appearing before the inquiry, director general Mark Thompson explained and justified the footage editorially and ethically before pointedly intimating that polar bears might not actually be what has so irked the press. Fair comment.