Going toe-to-toe with the BBC over Savile scandal

Hi everyone, 

Meirion Jones is a man, a myth, a legend. And he used to be my boss. 

Hailed by the former newsreader Emily Maitlis as one of the best investigative journalists of his time, he spent years at the BBC before joining TBIJ as editor. I had the pleasure of working with him for a year and a half of that, and he came back to our office last week to tell me about the investigations he’s most proud of. 

You may wonder how a former producer of Panorama, the BBC’s top investigative programme, ended up working at my small (but mighty!) newsroom. Well, Meirion made enemies at the BBC. And the fall-out centred on the notorious abuser and one-time BBC golden boy Jimmy Savile.

Savile spent his career as a leading light of the BBC, presenting popular shows like Top of the Pops and Jim’ll Fix It. His persona was that of a lovable eccentric. He was famed for his charity work. 

Behind this veneer, though, was a far darker truth. Rumours had swirled for years within media circles that Savile was a sexual predator. But nobody could prove it was more than hearsay.

Meirion, however, knew Savile in a way others didn’t. When Meirion was a child, his aunt ran a strange institution, Duncroft School for Girls – “part prison, part finishing school for highly intelligent girl criminals”, as he describes it. She would raise funds by hosting summer garden parties that were attended by celebrities, film stars and minor royals. Into the weird world of Duncroft drifted Jimmy Savile.

Savile’s Rolls-Royce would be parked on the gravel outside Duncroft most weekends, a detail that stuck in Meirion’s mind. Years later, as a journalist hearing rumours about Savile, it all began to make sense.

So Meirion and a few colleagues began investigating – and soon discovered there was a huge amount of evidence to support the allegations. Using Friends Reunited and other early social media sites, they tracked down women who had been attacked by Savile years earlier and were prepared to speak.

Once they had around 10 women, they managed to get an exposé film commissioned for the BBC’s flagship show, Newsnight. It was scheduled to go out before Christmas of 2011. 

But in the meantime, Savile had died. Which meant the BBC bosses had a decision to make. 

Despite being aware of the Newsnight exposé, the organisation planned a Savile Christmas: programmes in his honour were set to air on BBC One, BBC Two and Radio 1. They would even screen a special edition of Jim’ll Fix It.

Now two trains were set on a collision course: the Savile Christmas commemorations and the Newsnight show revealing the truth. Ultimately, the bosses took the decision to block Meirion’s programme. So he handed his evidence to ITV, which eventually broadcast the story, and he quit the BBC.

In Meirion’s words: “If they’d put the original story out, it would’ve been, ‘The BBC was bad back in the past, but it’s good now.’ By suppressing it, the story became ‘The BBC is still bad now.’”

Meirion made sure that the facts about Savile were brought to light – but it only happened after he had died. Savile never had to face justice, brought by either his dozens of victims or the wider British public duped by his TV persona.

Following the investigation, Meirion told reporters, “I hope the BBC now takes measures to make sure nothing like that ever happens again. Today I am confident that the BBC has taken measures to make sure that children are safe here.”

In 2016 the BBC issued a public apology to the survivors of Savile’s abuse, with the director general describing it as a ‘dark chapter’ in the organisation’s history.

In the end, the Savile episode has gone down as a both story of journalistic bravery and of media cowardice. But thanks to the former, the public did eventually learn the truth – and the survivors’ voices were finally heard.

There’s no doubting the weird meta-situation of the media having to report on itself – and the Savile investigation is perhaps one of the most explosive and indeed bizarre examples of this. The suppressed episode of Newsnight became the subject of a separate journalistic investigation … by the BBC’s other flagship current affairs show, Panorama. And this time the exposé, titled Jimmy Savile: What the BBC Knew, did make it to air, in October 2012.

But to some extent, the damage was already done. In the wake of the Savile story, Meirion’s colleague, the late Liz MacKean, said: “I think the decision to drop our story was a breach of our duty to the women who trusted us to reveal that Jimmy Savile was a paedophile. Many found it difficult to share their experiences as vulnerable girls.”

And it wasn’t just the Newsnight scandal that showed how the media can close ranks around one of its own. Part of the reason Savile got away with his crimes for so long, Meirion believes, was because of a reluctance among reporters to go after media personalities.

“I think people are terrified of reporting wrongdoing by other media,” he told me. “When I was reporting on the “fake sheikh” Mazher Mahmood, I had really good journalists get in touch with me and say, ‘You can’t do the story. Whatever he’s done, it’s going to bring shame on the industry.’”

Given the recent reporting of allegations about Russell Brand, Tim Westwood, Noel Clarke – as well as the BBC’s own reporting of the recent Huw Edwards episode – perhaps it’s fair to say that things might be changing on that front. In that regard, the Savile investigation was a milestone moment in UK journalism. 

We hope the tide is shifting. And that these investigations not only give other survivors the confidence to speak out – but give other journalists the confidence to chase the important stories, regardless of the subject’s identity. 

I hope you’ve found this week’s edition interesting – do let me know if you have any thoughts or comments, just reply to this newsletter and drop me a message. 

See you next week!