Comments on Obsolete: The BBC leaves an open goal. Again.

Tode: agreed. Clearly we need to hear from Rippon...

2012-10-23T16:58:32.783+01:00

Tode: agreed. Clearly we need to hear from Rippon exactly why he stopped the investigation outright rather than saying keep searching, and it's possible, if still not likely that he had worries about the upcoming tributes if they kept working but still couldn't pull it all together. Whether he feared going to his superiors though is quite different from them directly putting pressure on him, for which as yet there's no evidence whatsoever for.

The idea of a BBC conspiracy is simply gibberish -...

2012-10-23T15:13:49.319+01:00

The idea of a BBC conspiracy is simply gibberish - even if the paedo allegations were likely to have undermined Xmas scheduling, Rippon (if cynically minded) could have simply resumed the Newsnight investigation after Xmas.

Far more likely that Rippon simply lost his nerve. As you point out, the story was too explosive, and the evidence (then) too slight.

According to Panorama, Rippon did not even view th...

2012-10-23T12:58:10.719+01:00

According to Panorama, Rippon did not even view the material they had. Then he stopped not just the transmission but also the investigation.
What sort of investigative journalism is that? They have a story of potentially huge public interest but not quite enough solid information ... so they just drop it instead of looking further.
Then Rippon gave misleading statements on why the programme was stopped.
And Entwistle did not wake up in the middle of the night wondering what would happen if a newspaper broke the story on the morning of their tribute programme.
It might be gigantic cock-up rather than conspiracy but there are still questions about the BBC with no sensible answers.