Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris
I don't think the BBC bloodletting is a bad thing. We've gone through the search for evidence of a cover up - there isn't any - and on to Peter Rippon's reasons for spiking the report, which seem to me to be a reflection of the very attitudes that allowed Saville's activities to carry on in BBC premises over so many years.
The other institutions where Savile abused girls will all have questions to answer but the BBC is a national institution which finds its way into every home in the country and its activities are directly paid for by all of us.
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I don't mind the BBC being investigated. I hope additional abusers as well as any who conspired to let it happen face criminal proceedings. That's what should happen and hopefully is going to happen. I don't resent an investigation into why the Newsnight investigation is dropped either.
I do think there is too much focus on the News investigation presumably because it's one of the few aspects that has taken place in recent times with those responsible still at the BBC. However it's a relatively minor aspect of the entire story. Newsnight's failure to run the investigation didn't result in the abuse of child or contribute to Savile getting away with it.
There may well be people guilty of abuse or covering up that abuse who worked at the BBC or other organisations during the time these crimes took place. This seems to interest the press less because it's unlikely to bring down anyone currently high up in their respective organisations. Why did Saville have such access to children at BBC studios? Was this common? Why did he have access to patients in Broadmoor? Was he unsupervised? Same with Leeds Hospital?
It just seems to me that the press isn't focused on the scandal of child abuse but more on the question of BBC News' impartiality which is of course very important but not the only, or most serious, aspect of this story.