Director General of BBC Resigns Over "Poor Journalism"

dryriver writes "George Entwistle, the new Director General of the BBC who had been on the job for a mere 54 days, has voluntarily resigned over a BBC program that featured 'poor journalism'. The program in question was 'Newsnight', which typically features hard-hitting investigative journalism similar to American programs like '60 Minutes'. On Friday night, Newsnight accused a prominent Conservative MP and former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, Lord Alistair McAlpine, of having sexually abused a number of young boys at Bryn Estyn Children's Home in the 70s and 80s. Only after Newsnight aired with the allegations in the UK did the BBC realize that 'the wrong photographs were shown' to the alleged sexual abuse victims, who are now adults, and that Lord Alistair McAlpine had nothing whatsoever to do with the abuses committed. Newsnight's 'poor journalism' caused George Entwistle, the Director General of the British Broadcasting Corporation, to resign voluntarily over the scandal caused by the erroneous allegations. This example of an important media chief 'resigning voluntarily due to bad journalism' is interesting, because many TV, Web and Print journalists make 'serious mistakes' in their coverage at some point or the other, and quite often no heads roll whatsoever as a result."

Comments

Summary is misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

What actually happened, is that the victim went to the police at the time the alleged incident took place, which was IIRC in the 80s. He was shown photographs by the police and told that they were of Lord McAlpine. The case collapsed and the evidence was destroyed for whatever reason. Police corruption wasn't exactly unheard of back then (see: Hillsborough).

Now after all this Jimmy Saville stuff came out, Newsnight picked up the story from a legit witness who believed he had been assaulted by McAlpine, BECAUSE THE POLICE TOLD HIM THAT'S WHO IT WAS. Remember that Newsnight was recently blasted for NOT showing a story about paedo Saville based on evidence that was actually less solid than this. This is a witchhunt against the BBC. They had no way of winning this, damned if they did, and damned if they didn't.

Re:Summary is misleading

[N1AK]

Someone goes to the BBC an tells them he was abused by Lord McAlpine. The damned if you don't is that as the BBC has just been slagged off by the UK press and politicians for not airing a story about another child abuse case if they didn't air the show and it turned out that it had been Lord McAlpine then they would have been eviscerated for 'another cover-up'.

Factor in that Newsnight didn't name the person in question, that they certainly did some checking and it is clear that they didn't have a 100% clear case but also that they felt the story was strong enough to air. Did they make a mistake airing it? Possibly but where do you draw the line on when evidence is strong enough? If they were 95% confident it was him, would it be acceptable to tell the story (without naming the individual)? How about 99.9%? The view of the victim was that it had been covered up by the police in the same manner that much of Saville's behaviour had been so again if the BBC kept it quiet they risked a mass of criticism. It really was a case of damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Re:BBC Forward!

[Cederic]

Nice way of misrepresenting the facts.

Editorial judgement determines that there's insufficient evidence to safely publish: story stopped. Note that the police had also decided not to prosecute despite having criminal evidence gathering mechanisms available to them and despite having multiple complaints registered with them.

Editorial judgement determines that a first-hand witness is happy to state on the record what he believes the police told him: story broadcast. The "internet" goes into overdrive and names the wrong man.

Now, tell me exactly, what did the BBC do wrong here? Put it objectively, and explain it simply, because right now your post is snide misinformation.

Re:BBC Forward!

[Blue Stone]

>Big deal. You accused an innocent man of being a pedophile. But at least you didn't cover up an investigation of another man being a pedophile. Oh wait!

Wait, indeed. The Newsnight report didn't name the alleged abuser, who turned out to be completely innocent (well, as innocent as a Tory can be). It actually merely reported that one of the victims of abuse named him. The victim of abuse named him because the police dealing with the case a decade ago, TOLD the victim that it was this senior Tory chap, showing him a photo of the abuser and saying it was the Tory. The victim believed this to be true and told the BBC, who reported it without naming any names.

The police also mislead another victim, having him also believe that the person who abused him was this Tory.

So obviously, despite naming no names and simply repeating the victim's accusations, which they believed to be true (albeit without enough rigorous checking) the BBC must be at fault here and people should resign!

Meanwhile the police .... have taken no responsibility. And the enemies of the BBC, yet again, jump on it for the smallest of errors (or even non-errors) at any chance they're given.

Re:The right thing, but the wrong person resigned.

[squiggleslash]

A variety of reasons:

The BBC didn't name him, but the journalist who was working on the story claimed, on Twitter, a few hours prior to broadcast that they planned to name a major Conservative politician. Ironically, McAlpine isn't - and never was - a major politician by most standards (he did at one point "lead" the Conservative Party, but that's more of a fund raising position), and hasn't been a Conservative for about a decade.

To make matters worse, the story was shoddy journalism to begin with. Leaving aside the fact that at least one of the witnesses does, actually, have a credibility problem (see if you recognize any names in this 1999 New Statesman article, appropriately about another dubious bit of journalism: http://t.co/eZ1drMcV), there was no attempt to even contact McAlpine beforehand.

(It doesn't help that the BBC, by both bringing it up while not naming names also managed to reserrect an awful conspiracy theory from the homophobic pen of Simon Regan, which added virtually anyone rumored to be homosexual in the Conservative Party to a giant fictional pedophile ring headed by McAlpine himself. It's this rumor that actually ended up on the Twitters. Much as I don't like the victims of the smear, it was a nasty attempt to equate homosexuality with pedophilia, and frankly I'm glad Regan is dead.)