Dear oh dear. The news that ex-BBC presenter Huw Edwards has pleaded guilty to making indecent images of children has come as a shock to a nation which spent years watching the veteran TV star fronting the public service broadcaster’s biggest stories. And it will serve as a warning to those journalists who were rather quick to make sweeping judgements on Edwards’ innocence. Mr S has been looking back at some past remarks made by a certain group of stars – and it’s rather awkward for all involved…
First was the ever-online Owen Jones. The Graun columnist slammed the idea that Edwards might have done anything wrong, tweeting furiously that Edwards was a ‘vulnerable man’, and that ‘we know now there was no criminality’. The moderators of Twitter/X may beg to differ…
Up next is News Agents podcaster and ex-BBC man Lewis Goodall, who posted a rather long Twitter thread on 12 July 2023 about the coverage of the Edwards story. In one tweet, Goodall wrote: ‘Just heard a BBC News report saying they’ve seen “flirtatious” messages between Edwards and junior members of staff. There’s a difference between potential HR issues and front page potentially illegal impropriety. Astonishing how these things are being conflated.’ Mr S is more astonished by how many media commentators think they can play detective…
Then there were the remarks made by former BBC Newsnight anchor and News Agents co-host Emily Maitlis, who took to her podcast to lament the Beeb’s ‘distasteful’ coverage of the story, suggesting it was, er, wrong to ‘turn it into a news story’. Not the sentiment one might expect from a journalist of over 20 years…
And perhaps the worst example was from the BBC’s ex-North America editor and – you guessed it – News Agents presenter Jon Sopel, who told an interviewer that Edwards’ sex scandal allegations turned out to be ‘not that much’ and took to social media to lambast those who had aired complaints of impropriety:
This is an awful and shocking episode, where there was no criminality, but perhaps a complicated private life. That doesn’t feel very private now. I hope that will give some cause to reflect. They really need to. I wish Huw Edwards well.
Sopel, who worked with Edwards for a number of years, went on to tell ITV’s Good Morning Britain that he was ‘furious’ with the coverage of the BBC’s then-highest-paid newsreader. Jumped the gun a little there, eh?
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