The BBC must continue to “break ground” in its journalism and should not stop going after scoops, the corporation’s boss has said.

Director-general Tim Davie said he wants BBC journalists to be “brave” and part of a “confident” current affairs operation.

He was speaking following the publication of Lord Dyson’s report, which criticised the methods that journalist Martin Bashir used to secure his bombshell 1995 Panorama interview with Diana Princess of Wales.

Mr Davie told Radio 4’s Today programme: “I repeat this, there’s no organisation in the world that interrogates itself so actively, who goes after stories in the way we do, investigates ourselves.

“That’s precious. It’s a precious thing, and we need to protect it.

“And I want our journalists to be brave, confident, and one of my worries about this affair is that that is undermined in any way, shape or form.

“As an editor-in-chief, we absolutely need to do that.”

Mr Davie said the BBC should be an organisation that is “bravely breaking new stories, going after scoops, in the right way”.

He added: “We have an incredible set of people here, we’ve got strong editorial guidelines.

“We’ve had failings in this instance, but this should not strip us of our ambition to go after people in power who are abusing power, going after scoops, call it what you will, but we absolutely need to break ground in our journalism.”