i seem to have missed exactly what Newsnight did in respect of Lord McAlpine.

I know the whole story but as i understand it they did not name him or identify him, what exactly did they do? A link would be useful

I have to say the whole thing to me appears to be blown out of all proportion for political reasons. The BBC is still the best and most Independent TV news programme out there.

Mistakes were made about the Jimmy Saville documentary but then again most of the media , entertainment and political industry seems tio have made mistakes as well.

What happened is that with Savile they DIDN't do something that they subsequently realise that they SHOULD have done, and so the next time around (Nth Wales) they DID do something but were extremely careful not to implicate any named individual, just to be on the safe side.

Turns out they were wrong twice, well according to the people who want to have a pop at them for any old reason at all, if they had a stronger senior management they'd use a well placed "f*** off" here and there to shut a few professional critics up.

The [iNewsnight[/i in question didn't name anyone.

It appears that the police had originally shown abuse victim Steve Messham a photograph for him to identify. He said that it was a picture of one of his abusers. It was the police who then told him that it was Lord McAlpine.

There is no suggestion that I have seen that Waterhouse was all rubbish and that there was no abuse, or that an (or some) important person was involved.

The agency should have checked the identification issue – but the fact that it didn't is being used to pretend, in effect, that the entire story was a tissue of lies.

It's political opportunism – and not least since there are newspapers out there screaming for BBC heads to roll when they would never demand that anyone quit if they'd been caught do something wrong.

For instance, how many executives at the [iSun[/i, the [iDaily Mirror[/i, the [iSunday Mirror[/i, the [iDaily Mail[/i, the [iDaily Record[/i, the [iDaily Express[/i, the [iDaily Star[/i and the [iScotsman[/i after being found guilty, in a court of law, of libel in the case of Chris Jefferies?

The [iMail[/i yesterday set out to smear Messham – that's right: it set out to smear a victim of child abuse. But then given it's own proclivity for making profit from the sexualisation of underage girls, it's perhaps not really surprising. Children are simply commodities for the likes of Paul Dacre to make money from. And anyone who tries to raise the issue of abuse back from the metaphorical graveyard in which it was hidden, when the findings were, in effect, buried, is the problem.

The prime problem with the BBC is that it hasn't had the balls to tells certain people where to get off.

It does raise a slightly different issue, though: that people using social media need to learn some sense of responsibility. People rushing around to name all and sundry has done the victims no good at all either.

It's a political game of beating up the BBC. That said the BBC are so self-obsessed they think they are the news. If they weren't so abjectly 'narcissistic' no one would give it all a second thought because it is utterly trivial in the great scheme of things.

I'd agree to a point, but I think the BBC are in a catch-22 here. If they report it they can be accused of self-obsession, if they don't report it they will most certainly be accused of trying to sweep it under the carpet.

Like most people, I am at a loss to know what's really going on.
My best guess is politicians who don't like the BBC are having a pop at them.

Who would these politicians be?
At a guess, those who don't subscribe to the idea of a state-funded broadcaster, plus those who have been put through the wringer on Newsnight, plus those who seek to take control of the Beeb's output.

As previous posters have said, the Beeb should take a much more robust stance on this and tell politicians to butt-out.
But then, taking half a million quid to resign might seem a comfy option under the circumstances.

Social media is pretty much street gossip ... but available for all to see.
You're right, people need to learn to differentiate between the two media.

[url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/borisjohnson/9671346/BBC-investigation-Smearing-an-innocent-mans-name-is-the-real-tragedy-here.htmlBoris Johnson, for one[/url. Who ignores the facts (that nobody was named by the BBC) and declares that the 'smearing' of Lord McAlpine is "the real tragedy". So, not the child abuse, then, Boris?

That will have put Boris in Rupert's good books.
Nice prep for his bid for the Tory leaderfship.

It's one thing reporting it, quite another to report it to the extent they have been doing.

Would you have said that if it had been a Sky News report making untrue allegations about a Labour peer?

The BBC report did not name anyone. It did not, therefore, make "untrue allegations about a Labour peer".

Whether true or false, there have been rumours about Lord McAlpine for years – these have even appeared in blogs. No BBC programme was required to create that situation.

It was apparently the police who misnamed McAlpine when Steve Messham identified a photograph of one of his abusers. Not the BBC. That the investigation team should have checked the identification is another point, but it does not change this one.

Nobody appears to be suggesting that there was no abuse in North Wales – yet this is almost, in effect, what some are effectively using this situation to imply. The Waterhouse Inquiry never named names and there were no prosecutions, although it found evidence of abuse. The previous inquiry saw all its papers pulped. It's little wonder suspicions abound of a cover up.

Now we've dealt with the factually incorrect suggestion contained in your question – in answer to what you really want to ask: do I think any abuser should be hidden/protected? No.

If it had been Sky News who had reported on allegations without naming the Labour Peer and were then being blamed for the Peer's name being made public ... yes.

I agree, its a great shame that the incompetence of the BBC has made that more likely.

The BBC aren't being hung out to dry by politicians because they were incompetent, they are being hung out to dry by politicians with a different agenda and who think that the distraction from the subject is a minor issue in pursuing their different agenda.

When the dust has settled and there is no news reporting from the BBC at all, I fully expect the rabid print media to take up the baton and run with it instead, I just won't hold my breath waiting for it to happen though.

It's rather more complex than that, isn't it though?

After all, it was the police who told Steve Messham in the first place that the person he identified on a picture was Lord McAlpine.

The agency that made the film should have checked again. The Beeb should itself have checked once more after that. But then you could point out that the BBC has been butchering numbers of journalists (not management, but actual journalists) for years and checking and cross-checking stories takes time. Sometimes a lot of time.

However, in terms of the chance of proper justice, [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-20302198this is a very interesting development[/url.

One of the side issues (if you will) of all this is the way in which some (note the word there) on the political right are not simply playing with child abuse as a political football, but they way in which they are quite happy to rubbish a victim. Yesterday's piece in the [iMail on Sunday[/i, by David Rose and Bob Woffinden was, quite frankly, a disgrace. Fortunately, most of those commenting have seen it for pretty much what it was.

And yet the right likes to claim that it's the left that cares nothing for victims of crime.

But reading forums on the [iTelegraph[/i at the time of the Rochdale abuse verdicts, for many (not all, note) the only issue was the ethnicity/religion of the abusers – it wasn't any concern with the abused.

It really is quite sickening.



PS: and before anyone accuses me of doing another version of this, my response yesterday to Harriet Harman jumping on the Bash-The-Beeb bandwagon was not positive.

[url=http://tompride.wordpress.com/2012/11/11/child-abuse-scandal-can-of-worms-just-who-is-daily-mail-reporter-david-rose/The mysterious David Rose?[/url

A real can of worms is still yet to be opened

Well, if they've appeared in blogs then they must be true! Blogs were just the precurser to Twitter and Facebook, and about as reliable. Rumours are just that: rumours. They should never be mistaken for facts, whether on blogs or in any other context. There can be many reasons for rumours starting - malice being the most common I'm sure.

Unfortunately for Steve Messham he has form when it comes to being an unreliable witness in that he has been mistaken about things before. The police should have been more careful, bearing that in mind. But I suppose the police can't win here either because if they don't take such claims seriously then they will be lambasted.

As for the BBC's involvement, so far as I can gather their mistake was not to check closely enough the so-called research done by the company who investigates on behalf of the Newsnight programme (the name of which escapes me just now). They didn't name McAlpine but apparently the programme managed to make the link even so, although I did not watch it and so I don't know how they achieved that. Twitter then just spread the word, as it does.

I'm not sure I agree that policitians are using this to have a go at the BBC although in some ways I think they should. Although consistently left wing in its reporting, the BBC is still the channel I trust the most and of course there is a wealth of other stuff the BBC do spectacularly well which I would hate to see lost as a result of this debacle. But I do think there needs to be a serious shake up among the management of the BBC. Too long it has been a club, and one which has been shown to be outragiously cavalier with taxpayers' money - the latest example being the pay off to Entwhistle of £450,000: a full one year's salary for failing to do anything right. That is just frankly immoral and all that kind of stuff needs challenging and changing. If that means interference by the present coalition government then so be it because after all the BBC IS financed in part by the taxpayer.

What are your views on Rebekah Brooks walking away from NI with a £7m bung?

I didn't know that was the case. What I do know though is that she didn't work for the BBC. Therefore, taxpayers' money wasn't involved, and that was my point.

One small point to make that has been overlooked by critical MPs and the rest of the media witch hunt is that the BBC made a statement early this morning that at least a part of the DG's pay off was a retainer for consultancy services over the next twelve months.

Now I don't know just how much work that will involve but if they can justify the 50% of the payoff that they needn't have given him by using him elsewhere in their organisation for a fee that is normally commensurate with that duty, then is there a problem any more - and why didn't MP's hear the same news story that I did at 8am this morning ?

The BBC, as with other public services, was instructed by government to behave like the private sector – including in matters of employment (well, at least pertaining to management).

Because, as we all know: private is always better and private knows best.

So Auntie is doing exactly that.

Those same critics should also be reminded that Entwistle has worked at the BBC since 1989, so I imagine part of his severance reflected his previous service too. I never managed a 12 month notice period but have twice negotiated a 6 month notice clause. Losing a job is never easy but it helps when you know that you'll be comfortable for a few future months.

The BBC was "encouraged" to chase ratings and become more like a commercial, rather than a public service broadcaster. That would account for some of the abject sh[ii[/ite that it's been producing in recent years and its failure to inveest in what it has always done best: news reporting, investigative journalism and commissioning new drama.

Entwistle inherited the current BBC culture from his predecessor Mark Thompson, so I fail to see how he could take sole blame for what happened at Newsnight.

And just to add, like countless private-sector media organisations, the BBC has been cutting jobs in recent years and journalists have been a major target area.