REPORT: BBC faces serious crisis

BBC Director General George Entwistle resigned on Saturday, just two months into the job, after failing to get to grips with a child sex abuse scandal that has thrown the 90-year-old state-funded broadcaster into turmoil.    

Entwistle has faced widespread criticism since a rival broadcaster carried charges last month that a former BBC star, the late Jimmy Savile, was one of Britain's most prolific sex offenders.    

On Friday, BBC apologized for its Nov. 2 "Newsnight" TV show on alleged sex abuse in Wales in the 1970s and 1980s. During the program, victim Steve Messham claimed he had been abused by a senior Conservative Party figure. The BBC didn't name the alleged abuser, but online rumors focused on Alistair McAlpine, a Conservative Party member of the House of Lords. McAlpine issued a fierce denial and threatened to sue.

The scandal around Savile, who died last year and who is alleged to have sexually abused many young people, put the BBC and its premier investigative program "Newsnight" on the firing line after it emerged the program had decided to shelve its own report into allegations against Savile.


REUTERS/AP

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