Huw Edwards scandal reveals a major problem at the BBC which must be fixed
HIS crimes were nowhere near as heinous as Jimmy Savile’s — but Huw Edwards has faced a far bigger fall from grace.
Not only was he the voice of the BBC, he was the voice of authority and decency.
To find out he is a paedophile is not only damaging to him, but obviously even more damaging to the BBC.
The corporation has behaved fairly disgracefully over this whole episode.
You will remember how the BBC itself, and various other useful idiots in the media, attacked and excoriated The Sun — which behaved in a demonstrably moral way in bringing to light what happened.
We reported that the BBC had kicked the whole thing into the long grass, and hadn’t taken any action.
The real problem for the BBC is that its complaints unit is deliberately useless
The Sun had been absolutely right in everything it said.
And there should now be an apology from the likes of Jon Sopel, Emily Maitlis and Owen Jones, of course.
They need to say: “Actually, The Sun got it right.”
Ignore it and hope it goes away
The real problem for the BBC is that its complaints unit is habitually useless.
Its priority at the moment isn’t to deal with the complaints from the licence fee payers and to put right what has gone wrong.
It is to minimise trouble for the corporation, and it’s always been that way.
Usually, what it does is try to ignore something, in the hope that it goes away, and deny everything.
And then, of course, it’s all much, much worse in the end when it turns out to be true.
The BBC also ignored complaints from some of Huw Edwards’ own colleagues.
It took no action — it was scared.
It just closes in on itself and protects itself, and the truth very rarely sees the light of day until someone else — like The Sun — comes along
And this is a problem with a vast bureaucracy which operates outside the commercial sector.
It just closes in on itself and protects itself, and the truth very rarely sees the light of day until someone else — like The Sun — comes along.
You need to clear out the complaints department, and have independent people brought in from outside of the BBC.
They would sit in that complaints department and say, “Yeah, actually, you’d better not kick that into the long grass. “It looks quite important to me.’
I think that could be something useful which director-general Tim Davie does in order to put right some of the wrongs of the BBC that he has committed over the terrible Huw Edwards business.