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There were some impressive winners from the coverage of the Huw Edwards story — but there were far more losers. The winners, not surprisingly, were those who kept their heads, did not make

unfounded allegations and did not call for hasty judgments until there was at least some clear evidence. Pride of place goes to some experienced commentators. First, David Aaronovitch, a

great loss to The Times, who wrote an excellent piece for Unherd. This ended with perhaps the best sentences written by anyone about the Edwards affair so far. The piece was called, “The

Young Person and the Presenter” and can be found at Substack, at https://davidaaronovitch.substack.com/p/the-young-person-and-the-presenter?utm_source=twitter&sd=pf. It ends: “One day

someone will die as a result of one of these feeding frenzies, then we’ll all be sorry. Sorry for at least a week.” Aaronovitch was right to point to the craziness of much of what passed for

comment and journalism over the last week. At times it felt like Nathanael West’s The Day of the Locust. Many lost any sense of proportion but, worst of all, they lost any sense that there

might be damaged people involved whose suffering would not be helped by a lynch-mob, people with real mental health problems. It was clear from very early on that this might be the case on

more than one side of the story, yet people called for speed and action when it would have been better to call for judgement and caution. The reasons are simple. First, from the outset,

there has been no clear evidence of criminality (so far) from The Sun or from the countless TV and radio news reports. Second, there could have been, and may still be, serious consequences

from throwing allegations around and calling for a rush to judgement. Aaronovitch’s last words are important and should be written above the door of every newsroom. Are TV and radio news

ratings and newspaper circulation figures (otherwise known in these dark times as “the public interest”) worth the loss of a life, the damage to more than one family, or even the serious

mental health problems of a single person? David Elstein is one of the best commentators on the state of TV news for some years, and himself a distinguished former TV producer (including The

World at War, This Week, the superb drama, Concealed Enemies) and TV executive. Anyone who hasn’t yet read his devastating review in Open Democracy of Jean Seaton’s volume of the official

history of the BBC, Pinkoes and Traitors: the BBC and the Nation 1970-1987 (2015) should do so. Elstein was interviewed about the Edwards story on the BBC News Channel on Wednesday evening

and asked one of the key questions which I have not heard anyone ask before in the many hours of BBC News coverage. Why do so many speak as if this is all about the BBC? There might still

turn out to be an issue of illegality, in which case it’s a matter for the police, and there may well be issues for private individuals to deal with, but why should the BBC take it upon

itself to be the judge and launch investigations into what is a legal and personal issue? There might indeed be a question about why Edwards was so over-promoted. He is no David Dimbleby and

yet there he was, fronting the BBC’s (poor) coverage of the 2019 election, the death and funeral of the late Queen and the coronation of King Charles. Secondly, there may well be more to

emerge from the allegations of unpleasant e-mails and sexual harassment made by three junior colleagues of Edwards at BBC News which became public on Wednesday evening. That will be for the

BBC to investigate. But one reason the BBC got itself into such a mess was that in the absence of any clear evidence, it decided it should do something, but didn’t know what. Other

thoughtful contributions came from the veteran broadcaster, Roger Bolton, who was calm and measured throughout and kept asking the right questions. Two BBC legal correspondents, past and

present, Clive Coleman and Dominic Casciani, both clarified the key legal issues, in particular, the laws of libel and the new laws of privacy, which meant that the BBC presenter and the

young person and their family could not be named by The Sun or the BBC or anyone else in the first few days, even though everyone and their dog was itching to do so. All these commentators

stand out for their thoughtful analysis. So who were the losers? Obviously, The Sun. It seems as if even now they have no evidence of illegality, but they effectively triggered a modern-day

witch-hunt, which led to attacks on social media on a number of leading broadcasters from the BBC. Adam Boulton, a former Sky News broadcaster for many years, made the point that even if

there was no evidence of criminal behaviour, there seemed to be evidence of behaviour which one could presume many licence fee-payers would find deeply offensive. It’s an important

distinction, but often got blurred by journalists and broadcasters alike. Many politicians emerged with little credit, calling for quick action from the BBC which, in the absence of

evidence, was not helpful. Speed was not the issue; careful judgement was. The Prime Minister said: “The Culture Secretary spoke to the BBC Director-General on Sunday and is reassured that

the process they are undertaking is rigorous and will be swift.” The word “swift” here is doing a lot of heavy lifting and the PM should have been reminded that speed was not the primary

issue. The politicians who wanted their moment in the sun made no useful contribution and just added to the feeding frenzy. Perhaps the biggest loser of all was BBC management, especially

Tim Davie. The Director-General, when he was interviewed on Radio 4’s The World at One, did not inspire confidence with all his managerial jargon, which all seemed to be about “process”.

This was not the first crisis he has had to deal with in his short tenure and you wonder what the interview which led to his appointment must have been like, given that such scandals (Jimmy

Savile, Lord McAlpine, Cliff Richard) have bedevilled the BBC in recent years and have brought down one previous Director-General. Worse still, the BBC failed to find a single robust

spokesperson who could make a clear and punchy defence of the BBC’s behaviour. They have more middle managers than Milton’s Satan had underlings and yet none of them is a good PR person.

Then there was the coverage itself, which was uneven. As the story broke on the Six O’Clock News, the presenter Sophie Rayworth incorrectly announced that Edwards had “resigned” and was then

obliged to correct herself a few minutes later. By contrast, Ros Atkins produced an excellent concise analysis for the Ten O’Clock News. Dominic Casciani had a good war, saying sensible

things clearly. Katie Razzall, the BBC’s unfortunately named Culture Editor, did not. Yet she was brought on to comment at every opportunity. Newsnight did not do well. Who thought it was a

good idea on Wednesday night to cast a four-person discussion with three old white men, two of them from Rupert Murdoch’s News UK, past and present, with Alan Yentob as the sole spokesman

for the BBC? The sole woman (from the pressure group Hacked Off) failed to get her due time and was constantly interrupted by Rod Liddle — behaviour which the presenter Victoria Derbyshire

failed to deal with effectively. By then it was becoming clear who were the really smart people in this debate and Newsnight failed to book them. Worst of all, the BBC lost any sense of

proportion. Nearly half an hour of Wednesday’s Newsnight was given over to a story which so far had yielded no clear evidence of illegality. The World at One ran the story for 22 minutes

and, despite interviewing the Director-General, shed practically no light whatsoever. This was one of the crucial problems throughout. From the very beginning, it was clear that no one had

as yet produced any incontrovertible evidence of anything. The young person’s family had conflicting versions of the story. No one could name the TV presenter until his wife did so. So why

did the BBC’s flagship news programmes think they should fill their programmes with gossip and speculation in the absence of any hard news? There is no shortage of big news out there. A

major NATO summit in Vilnius, extraordinary statistics about illegal immigration into Italy (well presented by Nick Robinson in Sicily for Thursday’s Today programme), the longest strike by

junior doctors in NHS history, an important debate about public sector pay increases. All of these were pushed to one side by a bad case of FOMO (fear of missing out). Finally, the BBC is

always at its most pompous when talking about itself. BBC presenters frequently spoke of “the values the BBC holds dear: truth, reliability, and impartiality”. This was their defence for all

these minutes of airtime. Huw Edwards, they argued, embodied the BBC’s best values. How many licence fee payers would agree, either about Edwards or, more important, about BBC News? True,

reliable and impartial? Really? Over Brexit? Over Boris Johnson and increasingly over the Conservative government? Over its coverage of Labour antisemitism during the Corbyn years? Perhaps

above all, over Israel? Just a few days ago a former Israel Prime Minister Naftali Bennett was interviewed on the BBC News Channel and was told (not asked) by the BBC news presenter, Anjana

Gadgil, that “Israeli forces are happy [my emphasis] to kill children”. The BBC was forced to apologise but even in its apology tried to justify itself: “Across the BBC’s platforms [more

jargon] – including our News Channel — these events [at Jenin] have been covered in an impartial and robust way.” It went on, “The United Nations raised the issue of the impact of the

operation in Jenin on children and young people” — as if the UN is some impartial and reliable source on the conflicts in the Middle East. For more on this see @CAMERAorgUK on Twitter.

Others will have their own concerns about the impartiality and reliability of BBC News coverage, but the point here is that whenever BBC presenters speak in this way they just seem

hopelessly out of touch with licence fee payers. The real problem they should be investigating is why there is such a crisis of confidence in BBC News programmes — long before the Huw

Edwards story broke. A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an important contribution to make, one that’s needed now more

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