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Welcome to a new series of Newswatch. This week allegations | :00:17. | :00:22. | |
are made on an ITV documentary of sexual abuse by the late Sir Jimmy | :00:23. | :00:25. | |
Savile, but why didn't the BBC air its own investigation into the | :00:25. | :00:30. | |
subject a year ago? And has the corporation been keeping a bit too | :00:30. | :00:34. | |
quiet about claims it must find deeply uncomfortable? Also on the | :00:34. | :00:38. | |
programme, how do reporters sent to cover lengthy live events fill the | :00:39. | :00:44. | |
air time, with I nain questioning according to some viewers. And how | :00:44. | :00:54. | |
come an offensive swear word came to be broadcast on Breakfast. | :00:54. | :00:58. | |
(BLEEP) First, back in the 1970s Sir Jimmy Savile was one of the | :00:58. | :01:00. | |
best known television personalities in Britain and this week, his | :01:00. | :01:04. | |
reputation is in taters, after a stream of allegations that he | :01:04. | :01:09. | |
sexually abused teenage girls. The BBC's reputation is also under | :01:09. | :01:12. | |
question, partly because some of the offences are said to have taken | :01:12. | :01:15. | |
place on its premises and partly because of the charge that it's | :01:15. | :01:22. | |
been slow to report on the accusations. The BBC has said : | :01:22. | :01:25. | |
It's horrified by allegation that's anything of this sort could have | :01:25. | :01:29. | |
happened at the BBC and added that it's working closely with the | :01:29. | :01:33. | |
relevant authorities." This week's headline sprang from a documentary | :01:33. | :01:37. | |
shown on ITV in which five women said they were sex lay salted by | :01:37. | :01:41. | |
Savile as teenagers. It's emerged that Newsnight was pursuing its own | :01:41. | :01:43. | |
investigation last year into the case against the presenter, but | :01:43. | :01:48. | |
that report was dropped. Some news watch viewers detected a lack of | :01:48. | :01:50. | |
enthusiasm on the part of the BBC enthusiasm on the part of the BBC | :01:50. | :02:00. | |
:02:00. | :02:14. | ||
In a moment I'll speak to the BBC's director of editorial policy and | :02:14. | :02:20. | |
standards. First let's hear from another viewer who contacted us. | :02:20. | :02:24. | |
Can you sum up your concern. Did you feel the BBC was covering the | :02:25. | :02:31. | |
story as fully as they should?, I felt when it hit the news on ITV | :02:31. | :02:35. | |
on News At Ten it was the main headlines. At the time the BBC had | :02:35. | :02:39. | |
no news about it at all, which I thought very odd, which also made | :02:39. | :02:44. | |
it very uncomfortable. Immediately, one thought there was some form of | :02:44. | :02:48. | |
cover up because it wasn't, it was a big thing, though it wasn't | :02:48. | :02:52. | |
presented as a big thing, hence me writing to the BBC and saying | :02:52. | :02:56. | |
exactly that, that I thought that maybe there's some form of cover up | :02:56. | :03:00. | |
because it was not broadcast. is your feeling about the fact that | :03:00. | :03:04. | |
there was a Newsnight investigation being done a year ago thand it got | :03:04. | :03:09. | |
dropped? I found that -- find that very odd and strange. I I that -- | :03:09. | :03:15. | |
think that the BBC should have been the first to react to anything like | :03:15. | :03:19. | |
that to make their name clear, put themselves in the forefront of the | :03:19. | :03:22. | |
investigations, whatever they're going to do. You felt that because | :03:22. | :03:27. | |
this was a BBC presenter the allegations were about the BBC's | :03:27. | :03:30. | |
role was to have been at the forefront rather than reacting. | :03:30. | :03:34. | |
Indeed, yes. What do you think of the BBC now given the coverage that | :03:34. | :03:38. | |
you've seen? I think they're moving forward. I think they're actually | :03:38. | :03:42. | |
woken up to the fact that this is quite a serious matter and all the | :03:42. | :03:46. | |
people have come forward so far, to date, have something to say and if | :03:46. | :03:51. | |
there are allegations, the BBC must delve into that and go back and | :03:51. | :03:57. | |
find out what they knew and to bring these things to prove or | :03:57. | :04:01. | |
disprove. Thank you. We have David Jordan here, representing the BBC's | :04:01. | :04:05. | |
perspective. You have done a lot of interviews on this issue. The | :04:05. | :04:08. | |
question remains the BBC's attitude to the story looks suspicious, you | :04:08. | :04:13. | |
haven't really answered that? deal with what Terry said that we | :04:13. | :04:19. | |
were slow to pick the story up. The ITV news at 10.30pm led with the | :04:19. | :04:23. | |
story. They don't tell us they're going to do that. It's impossible | :04:23. | :04:27. | |
to reflect that in earlier news bulletins. To be fair, it's the | :04:27. | :04:31. | |
sense that the BBC was slower than newspaper s and other outlets to | :04:31. | :04:36. | |
cover this story. I think you'll find that the story's featured in | :04:36. | :04:40. | |
all of our television and news bulletins since then and I know it | :04:40. | :04:45. | |
has and it's been near the top of the agenda. It's been a big story | :04:45. | :04:47. | |
for ITV. Newsnight was investigating Sir Jimmy Savile a | :04:47. | :04:51. | |
year ago. The decision to drop that investigation looks very odd. | :04:51. | :04:55. | |
I've explained elsewhere and the editor of Newsnight has explained, | :04:55. | :04:58. | |
what they were looking at was in particular the way in which the | :04:58. | :05:02. | |
Surrey Police had investigated Sir Jimmy Savile in 2007 and indeed | :05:02. | :05:07. | |
interviewed Sir Jimmy Savile under caution in relation to that | :05:07. | :05:12. | |
investigation. ITV got three million viewers for the story. | :05:13. | :05:17. | |
Peter Rippon's blog says they were investigating Sir Jimmy Savile. | :05:17. | :05:22. | |
They discovered that Surrey Police had done a perfectly decent | :05:22. | :05:25. | |
investigation and made recommendations to the Crown | :05:25. | :05:27. | |
Prosecution Service. Subsequently it was dropped because they thought | :05:27. | :05:32. | |
there was a lack of evidence. can argue about the fact - Whether | :05:32. | :05:36. | |
we would have taken... You look at that ITV documentary and you think, | :05:36. | :05:40. | |
what a story and now everyone else is reporting it. If nothing else it | :05:40. | :05:45. | |
looks like the BBC wasn't very good of news gathering. With the benefit | :05:45. | :05:48. | |
of hindsight you might say. That but the editor has to take a | :05:48. | :05:53. | |
decision at the time. We weren't there at the time. He made an | :05:53. | :05:56. | |
honest decision. He came to the decision on the basis of the facts | :05:56. | :06:01. | |
before and decided that wasn't the angle he wanted Newsnight to pursue. | :06:01. | :06:05. | |
Was that a mistake? It's difficult to say. Given that I wasn't there | :06:05. | :06:09. | |
and you weren't there. Somebody else might have made a different | :06:09. | :06:14. | |
decision. ITV made a different decision. Why not running it now, | :06:14. | :06:18. | |
because they were filming interviews? Newsnight run a story | :06:18. | :06:22. | |
now, but given the story is out there, there's a limited point. | :06:22. | :06:26. | |
witnesss are coming forward every day and the BBC is encouraging | :06:26. | :06:30. | |
people to do so. Why not show the programme now? The fundamentals of | :06:30. | :06:35. | |
the story are now well established. We know that a number of women were | :06:35. | :06:40. | |
sex lay buelzed by Sir Jimmy Savile sometimes on BBC premised in the | :06:40. | :06:45. | |
1960s and 70s. There say big concern about the damage to the | :06:45. | :06:49. | |
BBC's reputation. The major concern we ought to have is not about the | :06:49. | :06:53. | |
BBC's reputation. There's no suggestion the BBC was complicit in | :06:53. | :06:58. | |
what Sir Jimmy Savile was doing. His reputation has taken a huge hit. | :06:58. | :07:01. | |
The main concern should be for the women abused in this way and make | :07:01. | :07:05. | |
sure they have an opportunity to get it out in the open, be believed | :07:05. | :07:08. | |
and finally to put it behind them. Are you satisfied that the BBC's | :07:08. | :07:13. | |
done everything it can now? I think it needs to look at the situation | :07:13. | :07:18. | |
are by not about the women who allegedly have been abused but | :07:18. | :07:22. | |
about the people who were working at the BBC - colleagues and friends | :07:22. | :07:26. | |
and other presenters and so forth, who to me, going by what I saw, it | :07:26. | :07:30. | |
was a bit blatant and I'm sure, other people must have seen things | :07:30. | :07:35. | |
going on who never come forward. For whatever reason, maybe their | :07:35. | :07:39. | |
job security, who knows. But it's been kept quiet. It's pushed under | :07:39. | :07:43. | |
the table. You want the BBC to be investigating within... Yes not | :07:43. | :07:46. | |
perhaps for the police to look at, but for the staff to come forward | :07:46. | :07:49. | |
and say yes, there was something, I did see something to corroborate | :07:50. | :07:54. | |
the stories of these aldgeed women. Thank you very much Terry and David | :07:54. | :08:00. | |
Jordan for coming to speak to us about this. | :08:00. | :08:04. | |
Let us know your thoughts on that or any other aspect of BBC News. | :08:04. | :08:09. | |
Details of how to contact us at the end profit Graeme. Now for some of | :08:09. | :08:13. | |
your other comments -- pro-- at the end of the programme. Now for other | :08:13. | :08:19. | |
comments. In Mid Wales Tim Willcox was following the continued search | :08:19. | :08:23. | |
for five-year-old April Jones, while in Manchester, Ben Brown was | :08:23. | :08:26. | |
reporting from the funeral of PC Nicola Hughes. Both journalists, | :08:26. | :08:30. | |
normally based in London, were on air for mup of the day. Let's speak | :08:30. | :08:37. | |
now to Anwyn Morris who is a local resident. Do you know April's | :08:37. | :08:40. | |
family? I haven't spoke ton them. We're a small community. Everyone | :08:41. | :08:46. | |
knows everyone in this town. I'm sure, my thoughts are with them. | :08:46. | :08:53. | |
Let's talk to somebody who met her and who knew her, BerylCowan, who | :08:54. | :08:58. | |
worked with Nicola Hughes. When you heard the news about her murder and | :08:58. | :09:01. | |
that of Fiona Bone, what was your reaction to that? We were very sad. | :09:02. | :09:08. | |
The whole of the street pastors were very sad. Well viewer Elly | :09:08. | :09:11. | |
Chalmers thought those interviews did little more than fill in time | :09:11. | :09:14. | |
between news conferences and services and not in the most | :09:14. | :09:18. | |
sensitive way. She e. Mailed "I couldn't believe it when he asked a | :09:18. | :09:22. | |
local woman how April's family were bearing up. How does he think they | :09:22. | :09:25. | |
are bearing up. I'm sure I wasn't the only person to shout at the | :09:25. | :09:30. | |
TV." "On to the slain police officers in | :09:30. | :09:36. | |
Manchester, I have just heard a local person asked how PC Nicola | :09:36. | :09:41. | |
Hughes had been killed. I hazard a guess that they weren't jumping for | :09:41. | :09:46. | |
news. These two stories demonstrate that parachuting in presenters to | :09:46. | :09:53. | |
the area shows no nothing to the storys. | :09:53. | :09:57. | |
Mother of a miss of five-year-old breaks down in tears as she appeals | :09:57. | :10:02. | |
for the public to help find her daughter. He wrote, "The mother of | :10:02. | :10:04. | |
a missing five-year-old breaks down in tears, whatever is the point of | :10:04. | :10:08. | |
such a silly statement and why show the poor woman in her grief. This | :10:08. | :10:12. | |
is purely sensational reporter, the sort of journalism we expect from | :10:12. | :10:16. | |
ITV or the red tops." Ellen McNulty had a different point | :10:16. | :10:20. | |
later that day. "You should be absolutely ashamed of yourselves to | :10:20. | :10:23. | |
start your News At Ten with the rail news when there is a five- | :10:23. | :10:26. | |
year-old girl missing. Get your priorities right about what this | :10:26. | :10:30. | |
country is interested in." Finally those watching Breakfast | :10:30. | :10:33. | |
shortsly before 9am Wednesday morning got more than they | :10:34. | :10:38. | |
bargained for. An interview began with the conducter John Wilson the | :10:38. | :10:44. | |
voice of a reporter could be heard swearing in terms which upset | :10:44. | :10:47. | |
viewers. "Why was there someone using the F Word in the background. | :10:47. | :10:52. | |
It would be heard clearly. Leanne also heard the phrase and e. Mailed, | :10:52. | :10:56. | |
"I do not think that is acceptable." An on-air apology was | :10:56. | :11:01. | |
made. The BBC later said it was reviewing its procedures, blaming | :11:01. | :11:07. | |
the incidents on a radio microphone being inadvertantly left on outside | :11:07. | :11:13. | |
the studios. Police tell us what your reactions are to BBC News. If | :11:13. | :11:22. | |
you would like to appear on the programme call us or e-mail: You | :11:22. | :11:25. |