BBC chief resigns over abuse report

Sunday, November 11, 2012

— George Entwistle, the director general of the BBC, resigned Saturday over a TV program the station aired that wrongly implicated a British politician in a child sexabuse scandal.

In a brief statement outside BBC headquarters in London, Entwistle said Saturday night that he decided to do the “honorable thing” and step down.

“When appointed to the role, with 23 years’ experience as a producer and leader at the BBC, I was confident the trustees had chosen the best candidate for the post, and the right person to tackle the challenges and opportunities ahead,” he said.

“However, the wholly exceptional events of the past few weeks have led me to conclude that the BBC should appoint a new leader.”

Entwistle said earlier Saturday that the BBC should not have aired a report that wrongly implicated a politician in a child sex-abuse scandal, admitting that the program further damaged trust in a broadcaster already reeling from the fallout over its decision not to air similar allegations against one of its star hosts.

His comments followed the BBC’s apology Friday for its Nov. 2 Newsnight TV show on purported sexual abuse in Wales in the 1970s and 1980s.During the program, victim Steve Messham claimed he had been abused by a senior Conservative Party figure. The BBC didn’t name the alleged abuser, but online rumors focused on Alistair McAlpine, a Conservative Party member of the House of Lords. On Friday, he issued a fierce denial and threatened to sue.

Messham then said he had been mistaken about his abuser’s identity and apologized to McAlpine, prompting fury over the BBC’s decision to air the report and the suspension of investigative programs at Newsnight.

“We should not have put out a film that was so fundamentally wrong,” Entwistle told BBC radio Saturday. “What happened here is completely unacceptable.”

But Entwistle insisted he was not aware of the program before it was broadcast, saying in hindsight he wished the matter had been referred to him.

That statement drew incredulity from politicians and media watchers, who wondered how he could have allowed a second botched handling of a high-profile child sexual-abuse story. The broadcaster recently was pitched into crisis over abuse allegations against its late TV host Jimmy Savile.

“At the end of the day, the director general of the BBC is editor-in-chief,” said John Whittingdale, chairman of the government’s Culture, Media and Sport Committee. “This has done immense damage to the reputation of the BBC.”

The scandal around Savile, who died last year and who is alleged to have sexually abused many young people, put the BBC and its premier investigative program Newsnight on the firing line after the newsemerged that the program had decided to shelve its own report into allegations against Savile.

Entwistle became director general of the BBC eight weeks ago.

Information for this article was contributed by Cassandra Vinograd of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 9 on 11/11/2012