Michael Buerk has slammed the BBC's coverage of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.
Buerk, an employee of the corporation for more than 40 years, called the event's female presenters "airheads".
The former newsreader wrote in an end-of-year commentary for the Mail on Sunday: "The one enduring British institution [the Monarchy] was mocked by another that had shamefully lost its way.
"On the screen, a succession of Daytime airheads preened themselves, or gossiped with even more vacuous D-list 'celebrities'.
"With barely an exception, they were cringingly inept.
"Nobody knew anything, nobody cared. The main presenter couldn't even work out what to call the Queen."
Buerk went on to criticise the BBC's coverage of the Thames Jubilee Pageant and Tess Daly's presenting skills.
He wrote: "The Dunkirk Little Ships, the most evocative reminders of this country's bravest hour, were ignored so that a pneumatic bird-brain from Strictly Come Dancing could talk to transvestites in Battersea Park."
Buerk's career highlights include the 1984 report on the drought bringing famine to Ethiopia, which prompted singer Bob Geldof to launch Band Aid and Live Aid.
He quit his estimated £175,000-a-year newsreading job in 2002, but still presents the Radio 4's ethical programmes The Moral Maze and The Choice.
