UK & World News
- 16 November 2012, 1:10
ITV And Newsnight Investigated By Ofcom
ITV's This Morning and BBC's Newsnight are being investigated for their handling of child sex abuse allegations.
Media watchdog Ofcom is examining the Newsnight programme that led to Tory peer Lord McAlpine being wrongly implicated in a paedophile ring.
And it is also looking at This Morning after presenter Phillip Schofield confronted David Cameron with a list of alleged paedophiles live on air. ITV has confirmed Schofield will continue to front the show while the probe is carried out.
Ofcom is looking at whether the broadcasters complied with "generally accepted standards" and applied them to "prevent unfair treatment to an individual, and unwarranted infringements of privacy".
The announcement came after ITV said it had taken disciplinary action over the moment Schofield ambushed the Prime Minister last week.
ITV's director of television admitted Phillip Schofield was "wrong" in confronting David Cameron with a list of alleged paedophiles on live TV, adding that the action was "misguided".
Peter Fincham said he would be responding to letters from Lord McAlpine and Tory MP John Whittingdale "very quickly".
"I think the way This Morning interviewed the Prime Minister last Thursday or that portion of the interview was wrong, was misguided.
"I'm not happy that this happened. We have editorial processes and checks in place and, to be honest with you, they weren't followed so I'm not happy about that but I think the way we have tackled this and responded to this has been quick and decisive.
"I've spoken to Phillip Schofield myself. He realises his mistake. He apologised for it extremely fully and extremely quickly and I discussed that with him and I think he's under no illusions that this was a lapse in ITV journalism; this is something we shouldn't have done."
It also followed Lord McAlpine's first interview about the affair, in which he said he felt angry "to his soul" over his treatment by the BBC.
Its Newsnight programme, broadcast on November 2, plunged the corporation further into crisis just as it was already reeling after the Jimmy Savile scandal.
The show reported allegations from a child abuse victim that he was abused by a senior Conservative figure from the Thatcher era.
Although Lord McAlpine was not named, it sparked fevered speculation that led to the peer being identified online.
Days later, Schofield produced a list of alleged paedophiles whose names he had found on the internet during an interview with Mr Cameron.
The presenter said he had found them by trawling the web for a few minutes and suggested to the Prime Minister that he should speak to those being widely named.
Mr Cameron refused to even look at the list, which the presenter inadvertently showed on camera as he passed it over.
Visibly angry, he expressed concern about exactly that sort of speculation and warned against a "witch hunt".
Downing Street later condemned the confrontation as a "silly stunt" and it sparked more than 400 complaints to Ofcom.
The following day Lord McAlpine protested his innocence in a lengthy statement and his alleged victim later confirmed he had got the wrong man.
Update:
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what do you think?
Roy E Millington
Schofield should be sacked, what he did was without evidenceand remember you cant convict without a fair trial.
Grant Berry
Schofield acted as judge, jury & ave man, who does he think he is.....Sack him to set an example. We have laws to deal with sickos, not Scofield the self promoter
J R
Good. Are they sure that Downing Street said "silly stunt" ?
Robinson56Chris
Lost in the latest twists and turns of this scandal at the BBC, and now the Schofield incident, has been the fact that hundreds of children were horrifically abused and brutalised at Bryn Estyn care home and other homes in North Wales. Powerful and wealthy people were able to prey on child residents at the homes with impunity. The authorities, police and council officials helped to cover up the abuse for years despite numerous complaints. Steve Messham's 'crime' was to have mistakenly claim Lord McAlpine was his abuser, prompted as he was by police. It seems, to some Tories, this mistaken accusation is worse than the abuse itself.
Grant Berry
Its not lost they are still investigating it. Two wrongs dont make a right.
Windows Live User
Hardly "lost". However this item is about Schofield, ITV, BBC, Cameron, McAlpine etc and this should be addressed separately. Not hidden amongst the assaults on children
Robinson56Chris
Then let's hope the investigation uncovers just who these MPs, solicitors, judges, factory directors, shopkeepers and police officers were who were not mentioned in the Waterhouse Report that got buried and 'lost'.
Grant Berry
I heard there were union fat cats involved, power corupts all.
Robinson56Chris
You never know, Grant, all their money may have corrupted them too. Maybe, if your allegation should turn out to be true, it would save us the job of getting rid of them and simply elect real socialists in their place who will only accept the average wage of a skilled worker, cut all donations of millions of pounds of members money to Labour and get on with the job of organising a new party and the fightback against corrupt capitalism.
Robinson56Chris
Would be interested to know where you 'heard' about these 'union fatcats' being involved though because I haven't seen anything myself yet. Grant?
Andrea Hill
Schofield should go.
Dave Hall
Strange how 100 people complained and Ofcom investigate in England thats less than 0.00000001 of the population I expect most of the complaints came from MP's
El Bubsio
So that would mean you think there's more than 10 billion people living in England alone. Have you been using JGS's random number machine?
t.bulgin
How many more tv celebs and so called current affairs progs are we going to witness doing their false outrage bit ? They should all shut up and let the police do their job instead of trying to gain street cred with their amateurish attempts at outing the culprits.
Martin Anderson
I would have thought better of Phillip Schofield, always admired the way he presented himself....stupid thing to do Phillip!! On a personal note, I think all this JS row is getting out of hand, a lot of completely innocent people are going to slated & libelled before they are proven innocent. The media is to blame, jumping on the bandwagon to increase sales, regardless of the dmage to the people they 'implicate'...
Grant Berry
They should be treat like New Of The World was
happymike CHESTER
Beware new hounds instead of enquiries `s in to Paedophiles you are the one being hounded ,the establishment will kill to protect their own.
shirley sutton
Double standards here they're criticised for not doing program on saville but when they do one on allegations against powerful politicians etc all hell breaks loose - cant have one rule for entertainers and Jo public and another for politicians and other powerful folk
tyneview33
What would Schofield have said if his name was on the internet list as a child molester? You need evidence to say someone is guilty. He should be sacked.
George Clement
I don't know who's names were on the list given to Cameron and I've no inclination to find out, but Cameron's reaction to it to say he'd not read said a lot. I think what we are seeing and hearing now is an engineered effort move the focus away from that list before some top politicians are really unearthed.
Annemarie Drennan
you go phill thats what they deserve they all new about so called mr savill so the rest of them need to be exposed its bloody discusting
Annemarie Drennan
they defoe need to get whats coming to the what a dont understand is y on earth was there nothing done about it wen he was alive were they all to scared incase there lost there job nd to that its tuff poo if they did what about all them that got abused all them poor bairns and there family deserve something av got bairns of my own nd a would of fought like mad to ov gottin savill in jail no matter what it took so what if he was famous just cost he was a famous person dosent meen he should get away with it now come on people get all this sorted out for all them bairns sake who got abused
Scott D
Should we still be paying for our tv licences, after all our money is being used to pay for legal costs, which will only rise once the bbc get fined for the saville and co inquiry.
ali baba
10:06am on 15/11/2012
Well done Phillip schofield. These priests, mullahs, rabbis, politicians and big shots who think they are above the law regarding under age activities need to be smoked out.
Tricky One
10:41am on 15/11/2012
Agreed all evils need to be smoked out, as you put it. But how is printing a list of names off the internet going to help do that? If anything it has already hindered the process..
ali baba
10:56am on 15/11/2012
the list was not shown inspector clouseau could have been on it, the point is that people in high positions need to be warned they are not untouchables.
Tricky One
11:29am on 15/11/2012
Again I agree people in high positions need to be brought to justice. (Although we must not forget most child abuse is committed by family members). Still don't get the internet list / random list / list containing innocent people / bit of paper thing is going to help.. Someone described Schofields actions as 'cretinous'. I have to agree.