Newsnight Scandal and The Bureau's Involvement
In November 2012, Overton alleged that a report researched jointly by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the BBC TV programme Newsnight proved that a senior British politician was 'a paedophile', a claim subsequently shown to be false. The scandal over the report's inaccuracy led to the resignation of the BBC Director General, George Entwistle.
His Tweet read, "If all goes well, we've got a Newsnight out tonight about a very senior political figure who is a paedophile." The Newsnight broadcast, made later that day, made such an allegation against an un-named politician, who was widely identified on the internet as the former Conservative Party Treasurer Lord McAlpine. Lord McAlpine issued a statement strongly denying the accusations. This allegation was subsequently admitted by the BBC to be false.
On 12 November 2012, Overton resigned from his position at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Overton withdrew his original tweet.
The Trust of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reviewed the events leading up to the report and concluded: "The Trustees of the Bureau have conducted a thorough investigation into the nature of that involvement, and are satisfied that the Bureau was not itself directly responsible for the content of the programme, which was at all times controlled, edited and lawyered by the BBC. However the Trustees consider that a serious mistake was made in agreeing to the secondment of a member of its staff to the BBC, without retaining the necessary degree of editorial control, and are taking action to ensure this does not happen again."
Writing in the reputable British trade newspaper the Press Gazette, editor Dominic Ponsford, wrote: "Overton has paid a heavy price for sanctioning the Newsnight report carried out by his lead reporter Angus Stickler. He has resigned and it is worth noting that had he not done so the likelihood is he could not have been sacked...The years since The Daily Telegraph MPs’ Expenses revelations of 2009 have, in my view, seen a resurgence of great investigative journalism in this country and the Bureau has been in the vanguard of that. Its biggest hits include: the revelation that 9,000 public sector employees earn more than the PM, GPs making millions by running their own surgeries, analysis of the extent of US drone attacks and the covert war on terror, revelations over billions of unspent European growth fund assets, the Iraq War Logs investigation and exclusive analysis of the extent that special interest groups fund UK political parties. If – as currently seems to the case – the child abuse report for Newsnight was a one-off mistake made without malice than it would be a tragedy if this error sent it to the wall. ".
Read more about this topic: Iain Overton
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