BBC journalists made “unacceptable” failings by airing an investigation that wrongly implicated a senior Conservative politician in child sex abuse, an internal report by the broadcaster said on Monday.
The report into the botched investigation, which has plunged the British broadcaster into a crisis that has toppled its director-general, said that some “basic journalistic checks were not completed” by staff on the Newsnight show.
Newsnight, the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme, broadcast an item on November 2 falsely implicating former Conservative party treasurer Alistair McAlpine in abuse at a children’s home in Wales in the 1970s.
In a serious blow to the BBC’s prestigious reputation, it was then forced to retract the report after McAlpine’s accuser said the politician was not his abuser and was the victim of mistaken identity.
The story unravelled just weeks after a separate scandal broke over the late BBC star Jimmy Savile, who is now accused of serial child sex offences.
The broadcaster’s director-general George Entwistle dramatically resigned over the Newsnight fiasco on Saturday and two other top BBC executives also stood aside on Monday.