My Greatest Mistake: John Simpson, world affairs editor at the Bbc

'I didn't realise that the British press doesn't have a sense of humour'

Coming off the road to read the news 20 years ago was something I bitterly regretted. But in recent times, the thing that I most regretted was making a joke about the fall of Kabul. I didn't realise, in my innocence, that you don't make jokes, because the British press doesn't have a sense of humour. I've been a journalist for 36 years, but until you're on the receiving end of the violent spite of journalists, you don't know how dreadful it is.

It never occurred to me that other journalists would think that the greatest achievement in the BBC's recent news history would be gall and wormwood. Last year, to have two correspondents in Kabul with a camera, when nobody else could get in there, and then to have the only team that got in there at the fall, was a triumph of planning and of the effort that all of us had put into it. So when Sue MacGregor said to me, "I don't quite understand this, but Northern Alliance troops stopped at the entrance to Kabul and the Taliban have fled: who liberated Kabul?", I laughed and thought I'd make an amusing self-deprecating joke, and said, "I suppose it was the BBC."

What a terrible thing to have done. The knives are always out for the BBC, especially when it achieves something. So the papers were abominable. The Daily Mirror – which was supposed to be going upmarket, although it's difficult to tell – ran a headline that said: "A prize burka". Somebody from the Mirror who later did an interview with me explained in a nice way (as though it was the most obvious thing in the world), "Well, it's because The Sun's been nice to you – we've got to be against you." I thought, "Of course, how stupid of me not to realise that."

All the other papers with either ideological or business opposition to the BBC were absolutely horrendous. It was quite amusing after a bit.

Somehow, the word went out that I said I'd done it, when it wasn't just me; it was a group of people: the planners in London, the six BBC people who were there with me in Afghanistan, and all sorts of other people. Now, when I talk to Australian or South African newspapers, for example, they all ask: "Is it really true that you announced that you personally liberated Kabul?" I think, where do I begin? For a start, how do I begin to explain how violent the British press is? Most of their papers are quite reasonable.

It was a lesson to me not to make a joke, and to be careful not to put your head above the parapet because that's when the press chops it off. You've got to be careful. But what depressed me was that this was really the moment when the BBC finally emerged as the dominant force in international television news.

Most people in Britain – certainly the press – don't realise that the BBC has audiences of 300 million, and a far better reputation than CNN or anything like that. It was absolutely dominant, and the thought that it should all be made into me crowing on the battlements of Kabul that I personally had captured it, just really irritated me. I thought that British newspapers would recognise an achievement. It was a mistake of judgement.

The third volume of John Simpson's autobiography, 'News from No Man's Land – Reporting the World', is published by Macmillan, £20