Director of BBC News James Harding made a fascinating speech on Wednesday, setting out his mission statement for the Corporation’s newsroom:
‘Let’s start with holding people to account. In the offices of our local radio stations and regional TV operations – the places where the BBC does so much of its best work – we should play to that particular strength: accountability journalism.’
Mr S lives and breathes ‘accountability journalism’; it’s his eau-de-vie. But Harding seems to have a different understanding of the term than your humble correspondent.
You would never know it from BBC News (or, for that matter, Auntie’s in-house journal The Guardian); but Nick Pollard, who was paid the tidy sum of £96,000 and given £3 million to investigate why Newsnight’s investigation into Savile was shelved, has admitted that his report is flawed. Indeed, he has been recorded on tape accepting this error.
In the taped conversation, which has been heard by the BBC Trust, Pollard says that he was told during his eight-week inquiry by then head of BBC News, Helen Boaden, that she had, in December 2011, personally informed the then director-general, Mark Thompson, of the sex abuse allegations against Savile.
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