Broadcast Prism — Story: George Michael's Faith guitar sells for £180,000 despite family criticism

How it was covered

BBC One was the only channel found covering it, concentrating on the Faith guitar sale, family objections and the auction house defence.
Channel 5, BBC News, BBC Two, Channel 4, GB News, ITV and Sky News: not found in tracked broadcasts.

The Full Story

A plain summary built from the channels that reported this story. Facts only one channel reported are attributed to it.

George Michael's Faith guitar has sold at auction for £180,000. The instrument was among dozens of items the singer gave to Siobhan Bailey, his personal assistant for 20 years, and it was sold despite objections from her family.

Bailey died in 2014 before her divorce from Ian Belcher was finalised. Belcher inherited her belongings and was legally entitled to sell them, and he declined to comment. Her brother, Gerard Bailey, said she would never have consented to the sale. He said: "Sitting in that auction was very painful, frankly. I mean, seeing her whole career laid out just to be sold was deeply distressing." He added that she valued her working life with George Michael more than anything and that the sale was heartbreaking.

The auction also included Bailey's Filofax from the 1988 Faith tour, full of her notes, which sold for £3,500, seven times its guide price. Gold and platinum discs dedicated to her to mark sales milestones went for several thousand pounds each. In all, her George Michael memorabilia raised nearly £240,000.

Gerard Bailey told the BBC he would have liked the Faith guitar to be donated to a museum. He said the family found the sale of the more personal items that meant so much to her entirely devastating. He had asked for the auction to be pulled.

The auction house chairman said the vendor had been "nothing but delightful" over two and a half years. He said there were two ways of looking at the sale: "It can be cashing in, or it can be a bit of a memorial, a bit of a tribute to Siobhan."

Key Claims

Claims reported during this story's coverage, grouped by how many channels reported each one. Select a dot to see the source excerpt.

Claim
Only on one channel
Gerard Bailey said his sister would never have consented to the sale of her George Michael memorabilia.
Siobhan Bailey's George Michael memorabilia sold at auction for nearly £240,000, including his Faith guitar for £180,000.

Channel Perspectives

What each channel focused on, with key quotes.

BBC One

BBC ONE West's coverage was a culture-led report by Katie Razzall, built around the £180,000 sale of the Faith guitar and the objections of Siobhan Bailey's brother, Gerard Bailey. It set out the legal position of Ian Belcher, who inherited the collection, and gave space to the auction house chairman's defence that the sale could be seen as a tribute. The later bulletin repeated the same package without adding new developments.

Key Quotes:

“Sitting in that auction was very painful, frankly. I mean, seeing her whole career laid out just to be sold was deeply distressing.”
“She valued it pretty much more than anything.”
“I think there are two ways of looking at this. It can be cashing in, or it can be a bit of a memorial, a bit of a tribute to Siobhan, and I think that's the way we've looked at it.”

Who was on air

People and organisations each channel put on air while covering this story. Channels' own presenters and reporters are not listed. Names as transcribed, and the list can miss people.