My contribution to the Panorama programme on Mazher Mahmood ended up on the cutting room floor at the last minute because the producers needed extra space to accommodate his legal complaints. No matter.
It was much more important for the BBC's viewers to get a measure of - and to see, finally - the man who has been responsible for so much shoddy, dodgy journalism.
Mahmood has given undercover reporting and the use of subterfuge a bad name. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with journalists employing deception as a last resort in order to expose wrong-doing in the public interest.
Too often, Mahmood used subterfuge inappropriately against weak and vulnerable targets in order to reveal very little of genuine public benefit.
The "targets" as he calls them, or "victims" as we should regard them, included young, naive people such as actor John Alford, singer Tulisa Contostavlos and Page 3 model Emma Morgan, who were lured by ambition into walking into his traps.
The victims also included newly-arrived immigrants, such as the "gang" entrapped into a supposed ploy to kidnap Victoria Beckham.
But worms have turned against Mahmood. His photographer, Steve Grayson - who described Mahmood as "Pinocchio on speed" - now says he feels remorse at what he did.
Florim Gashi, who helped to engineer the Beckham charade, which resulted in five innocent men spending seven months in jail, also wishes he could turn the clock back.
A third man who acted out a role in the entrapment of Emma Morgan apologised for "my part in stitching her up."
Who could not be moved by Alford's tears as he spoke of the 18 years he has spent in the wilderness following a nine-month jail sentence for supplying drugs to Mahmood?
But the programme, Fake Sheikh: Exposed, should not be seen as an end to the matter, but the start of a genuine investigation into Mahmood's "investigations" for the News of the World and Sun on Sunday.
It is time, also, to ask some pertinent questions.
The outstanding questions from the Panorama programme...
Question one: Why did the attorney-general, Jeremy Wright, ask the BBC not to screen Panorama? It was an unprecedented intervention by Britain's senior law officer to prevent the screening of a current affairs documentary that was clearly in the public interest.
Mahmood had not been charged with any offence. He may be under investigation because of the judge's comments about him when staying the trial of Contostavlos. So what?
Note what a former attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, told the programme about Mahmood's record of convictions needing to be re-examined:
"The fact that somebody who has been accused by a judge of apparently not telling the truth may be instrumental in those convictions would certainly be a reason to look at those convictions again and to examine them to see whether they are safe."
(A word here of praise for Panorama's editor, Ceri Thomas, and the BBC's head of news, James Harding, for being so supportive of their journalists in the face of dire legal threats).
Question two: Why did the Metropolitan police go on acting in concert with Mahmood on a series of occasions after evidence had emerged (as in the 2003 Beckham kidnap case) that he had used an agent provocateur?
Question three: Why did the Crown Prosecution Service continue to prosecute people entrapped by Mahmood after so many court-room reverses (such as the kidnap and the red mercury case)?
Question four: Why have News UK's two daily newspapers, the Times (paper of record?) and the Sun, not covered the story about Panorama's struggle to be aired and, of course, about the substantive issues it has raised?
Answers on a postcard to Mike Darcey, chief executive, News UK, The News Building, 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF.
(And while you're writing, please ask why News UK funded Mahmood's legal action against Panorama when he is supposedly under suspension and undergoing an "internal investigation).
Question five: What was Mahmood's relationship with Southern Investigations? He told the Leveson inquiry he had never paid for the services of a private investigator.
But Panorama revealed that a member of that company, a former police officer, took part in at least one of his sting operations. How come?