Roger Mosey, who oversaw coverage of London Olympics, also says BBC fails to reflect diverse views on issues such as immigration

The former BBC executive who oversaw coverage of the London Olympics has accused the corporation of liberal “groupthink” and a failure to reflect diverse views on issues such as immigration.

Former BBC editorial director Roger Mosey – who left in 2013 – said the corporation sometimes suffered from “a default groupthink – a set of assumptions that seem reasonable to everyone they know”.

In memoirs serialised in the Times, he said debates about immigration at the corporation sounded like “a pure liberal-defensive response rather than a quest for range and diversity in journalism”.

He cited a Ten O’Clock News package on immigration which included only one interview with a white person because the views of other non-ethnic minority people a reporter spoke to were too negative.

However, he said the BBC did not have a problem with political bias and editors did not skew the agenda in favour of any party.

Mosey also revealed that pay inflation at the BBC had led the corporation to consider offering a salary of £1m in its hunt for a new director general and that Newsnight had almost been taken off the air during the Jimmy Savile scandal.

He said the separation between the BBC Trust and management gives the corporation’s structures “additional jeopardy” that was getting worse, and described the trust as a “shadowy force” facing an existential crisis.

He said the BBC has been unable to form a cohesive response to crises such as the Savile scandal and the flawed Newsnight investigation which mistakenly alleged a senior Tory was a paedophile, which led to the resignation of director general George Entwhistle.

An accompanying Times leader article said Mosey described “a news management system inclined to distort the news rather than report it” and called for the BBC to have “less naked ambition and more focus on what it does best”. The Times is among those newspapers that have ramped up pressure on the BBC as it approaches charter renewal negotiations.

Mosey was appointed BBC editorial director – seen as a troubleshooting role – in May 2013 by director general Tony Hall, but left just two months later to become master of Selwyn College, Cambridge. His roles at the BBC included editor of Today, controller of Radio 5 Live and head of TV News, as well as overseeing the move of BBC Sport to Salford.

The memoir is not the first time Mosey has criticised the BBC. He wrote in the Times shortly after leaving that the corporation should share the licence fee and that he was “uncomfortable” with its estimated 70% share of news consumption across TV and radio.