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Should Pip Schofield be sacked?

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flipnflap | 09:33 Fri 09th Nov 2012 | News
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If it was the other way round and a political figure, especially a PM, had done something as outrageous as Philip Schofield yesterday, live on ITV with a huge audience, there would be a Media witch-hunt against that politician until he finally resigned. Should squeaky Pip now do the decent thing and fall on his sword? I for one would not be sad to see him leave our screens.
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The way in which he behaved was totally infantile - a failed attempt at self-promotion.
11:22 Fri 09th Nov 2012
Quote: The BBC has issued an unreserved apology for a Newsnight report which led to Lord McAlpine being wrongly implicated in the alleged sexual abuse of children at north Wales care homes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20277732

One of the Schofield six?
He wasn't even one of the Newsnight One, as far as I can see. They didn't name him.

I didn't see this programme so I don't exactly know what they've apologised for - have you heard?
Newsnight have apologised unreservedly for their broadcast last Friday. There was a lot of hype prior to the broadcast, notably from one of the journalists at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, whose report it was on behalf of Newsnight.

They tweeted that "all being well, we will be broadcasting the name of one of the abusers" or words to that affect. That caused a twitter and media storm, with lots of speculation about who it was who was due to be named. Lord McAlpine was one of the names that was commonly being speculated about prior to the show, and that speculation only increased with the comments about someone being named on newsnight.

In the event, they didn't name anyone, for reasons as yet not explained. Either there was never any intention to name anyone, in which case the tweet was a stunt designed to boost ratings, or they got cold feet and edited out the naming and shaming.

It seems there were some basic editorial mistakes about the programme. The accuser says that the first time he saw a photo of Lord McAlpine was today, and he knew straightaway that this was not an abuser, and he offered a news release apologising for the mistaken identity. That implies that during the process of filming for Newsnight last week, no one confirmed the identity of the alleged attacker by showing him a photo.

Seems like in the SoVile investigation they sat on their investigation, for as yet unexplained reasons, and were scooped by ITV, and this time they released a report full of allegation without confirming the identity of the main person they were accusing (but not actually naming)

So all current Newsnight investigations have been put on hold, to be subject to vigorous review, and Newsnight the show will be reduced to talking heads and the papers, as best i can tell for now.
Very well put LazyGun.

In a nutshell, Newsnight did something very similar to This Morning. They didn't name anybody, but implied the name was out there if you want to go looking. Sadly for them, the name they were implying but not naming was completely wrong. In trying to back a man who was abused in childhood, they forgot all standards of professional journalism. But at least they didn't wave a piece of paper with names written on it on screen.

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