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Kevin Marsh to leave the BBC after 33 years

By Press Gazette

Former Today programme editor Kevin Marsh is to leave the BBC after 33 years admitting that he was ‘resigned to a lifelong association [with] the Hutton inquiry”.

Marsh, who is currently editor of the BBC College of Journalism and a columnist for Press Gazette, is to take voluntary redundancy at the end of the month.

Also understood to be taking redundancy next month is head of editorial development for multimedia journalism at the BBC Peter Clifton.

His exit comes amid a 25 per cent budget cut for BBC Online which will see hundreds of jobs go.

Announcing his departure on his blog this afternoon, Marsh said he would finally be able to give his own account of the BBC’s battle with the then Labour Government ahead of the second Iraq war.

Marsh was editor of the Today programme when Andrew Gilligan reported the infamous claim of the ‘sexing up’by Downing Street of a dossier about readiness of Saddam Hussein’s regime for chemical warfare ahead of the invasion by US and British troops.

‘I’m resigned to a lifelong association [with] the Hutton inquiry, report and fall out,’Marsh wrote.

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‘Maybe one of the first things I’ll be able to do outside the BBC is something I was unable to do inside it – finally give my own account.”

Marsh joined the BBC as a news trainee in 1978 and worked there for his whole career save for a year in the 1980s when he worked for ITN.

In addition to editing the Today programme, Marsh also edited The World At One, PM and Broadcasting House

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