Nicholson, the award-winning former chief foreign correspondent for ITN, said that some of the BBC’s less experienced reporters were so unprofessional that “I find it hard to believe a word they say”.
He said he had become exasperated at the preponderance of “sloppy, inarticulate, humourless, colourless, un- English English”.
His comments, which he admitted made him sound “like Colonel Blimp”, follow similar disgruntled remarks from a long line of eminent journalists who have accused the BBC of everything from employing women only for their looks to pandering to the cult of celebrity in preference to hard news.
Nicholson, now 69, whose 42-year-long career has seen him awarded the OBE for services to journalism, called on the BBC to employ a master of pronunciation such as Sue Lawley, who recently stepped down from her presenting role on Desert Island Discs, to tutor its less experienced staff, particularly those on Radio 4.
“Why not indeed give Sue Lawley a big stick and pay her to teach these stumbling, robotic, speak-your-weight machine, so-called broadcasters to commentate in a way that does justice to the grammar, pronunciation and rhythm of our language?” he said.
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“They read every sentence in the same irritating monotone, emphasising in all the wrong places and finishing on exactly the same cadence, usually in a depressing minor key. Some are so amateur, I find it hard to believe a word they say.
“If Sue is not available, there is a whole regiment of accomplished radio newsreaders who could do the job. People like Justin Webb, for example, Washington correspondent, who has wonderful delivery, Jim Muir, John Thorne, the great one [John] Humphrys himself, Ed Stourton — all these people have managed to report in a way you can easily understand, there is a flow.
“It is in the old tradition of BBC radio broadcasting where you believe what people were saying because they had authority in their voice and the words they used and the way they spoke them impressed you.
“Today these young kids have had no training, they stumble over their words, you can almost hear them breathing heavily at the end of each sentence.”
Nicholson refused to name those he was criticising but said that many of them reported from “the world’s hotspots” while “sounding like a stand-in for the real reporter who has popped out for lunch”.
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Nicholson’s views chime in with those of Michael Buerk, the former BBC newsreader who courted controversy a year ago when he said that the news agenda was becoming “coarser, shallower, more trivial, more prurient, more inaccurate, more insensitive, with each passing year”.
This weekend the BBC declined to comment on Nicholson’s remarks.