Today Great Britain’s Sky News breathlessly broadcast a report about a visit its economics reporter, Ed Conway, recently was allowed to make to the Bank of England’s basement gold vault in London.

As might have been expected, the report was mostly gush and “gee-whiz” stuff as Conway marveled at all the shiny metal bars. While Sky News touted the visit as “rare,” it was hardly exclusive.

Fourteen years ago the bank invited practically everyone in British journalism to take a look, as well as Queen Elizabeth, an invitation that produced many dazzling photographs:

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But now, as then, the visit didn’t produce much critical journalism.

The Sky News report acknowledged the controversy over the bank’s disputed custody of Venezuela’s national gold reserves, along with the trouble the bank had last year arranging timely removal and shipment of customer gold, delays attributed to “logistical” problems arising from the bank’s discovery that gold bars are a lot heavier and bulkier than the paper claims to them that are traded by bullion banks in the financial district upstairs.

The report also noted the controversial sale of much of the United Kingdom’s gold reserves between 1999 and 2002 at the direction of Chancellor Gordon Brown, which, the video segment of the report admitted, now seems “unwise,” gold’s price having soared in the 25 years since.

Actually, the sale of the UK gold might have been wise in a sense that few people understand because the truth about gold is so seldom reported. That is, the UK gold sales back then well might have been necessary to rescue bullion banks in London that had been caught ridiculously short of gold as its price bounced up violently, with central banks having decided to stop selling their reserves down.

But the report failed to exploit the opportunity to question the bank’s governor, Andrew Bailey, about what the bank actually does in the gold market these days besides act as a custodian for foreign government reserves and bullion bank holdings. Sky News apparently considered such questions to be impolite in the context of a “rare” visit.

Source: SGT Report