Murnaghan 11.11.12 Interview with Lord Patten, Chairman of the BBC Trust, on the resignation of George Entwhistle

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

ANNA JONES: We can actually now talk to the Chairman of the BBC Trust, Lord Patten, right now. He joins us from outside BBC’s new Broadcasting House. Lord Patten, thank you very much indeed for joining us, you cited shoddy journalism last night as one of the reasons why George Entwhistle had to go but the day started with what some people described as an extremely difficult – and I’m being polite – interview on the Today programme yesterday, where he appeared to show a lack of grip on the situation. What part did that interview play in the decision for him to leave?

LORD PATTEN: Well it was his decision, to be honest I didn’t try to argue him out of it because I think he’d made the right decision that editor of one of the greatest news organisations in the world, he had to take responsibility for a very shoddy bit of journalism but I think with great respect, which one would always show to John Humphries interrogative journalism, it was an example of the way the BBC quite rightly tries to expose the truth, even when it’s horrible, about itself. I don't think anyone can grumble if you are working for the BBC and you get from John Humphries exactly the same sort of tough questioning that he’d give anybody else, I think it’s a mark of the BBC actually looking at itself in a beady eyed way and I think if I may say so, the way that Sky itself covered the phone hacking stories was another example of a broadcaster being absolutely honest about what it says about itself. Look, George was a very fine broadcaster, it was a tragedy that he was laid low by a lot of the things which he wanted to deal with at the BBC because as soon as he got into the job he found himself facing a crisis in which he was at least implicitly involved because he’d been Head of Vision at the time when the Newsnight film wasn’t show. That was all part of the tragedy but I hope people will recognise, other editors will recognise, that he has actually done a very honourable thing.

AJ: What did you think when you heard the Today programme yesterday though?

LORD PATTEN: I thought it was John Humphreys at his strongest and George had a very difficult … what did I think about George Entwhistle? I thought it was a difficult interview for him but I’ve heard lots of other people have trouble with John and other broadcasters, I’ve occasionally done lousy interviews myself.

AJ: However the criticism is of course that he showed a lack of grip of the situation, that he showed a lack of leadership, he wasn’t aware that very serious allegations were going to be aired on Newsnight even though they were allegations of child abuse and given the sensitivity of the situation surrounding Savile, wasn’t that extraordinary that he didn’t know about that? He also didn’t know about the doubts that were being raised about those allegations later in the week, he hadn’t read the newspapers. Is that the reason why he went, because he showed a lack of leadership?

LORD PATTEN: He went because there was a bad piece of journalism for which he took responsibility, that’s why he went and it was an honourable and decent thing to do. What we now have to do is to get a grip on what’s happening in the BBC, including the journalism which is at the heart of what of what we do and what we’re about and we have to make sure that Tim Davie, the acting Director General, has all the support he needs and that in making an appointment to the post permanently we have to make sure that a very large and complex organisation has a leader who has the right sort of support and that that organisation doesn’t operate on the basis of siloes, that its procedures aren’t too bureaucratic but actually work. One of the problems that I’ve mentioned about the BBC, though I don’t have executive responsibility for it, and one of the problems that the last Director General was trying to deal with, was the fact that we are at one and the same time both over-managed and under-managed and we’ve got to get that right. 

AJ: Well let’s look at that regulation because isn’t it part of your job at the BBC Trust, as head of the BBC Trust, to invigilate BBC executives like George Entwhistle in the public interest? You are effectively the regulator and some are saying this morning in the newspapers, if you’ve seen them, that you in that role have possibly failed. What do you make of that?

LORD PATTEN: Well I think my job is to make sure now that we learn the lessons from this crisis, that we learn the lessons from the two inquiries that are being done by Nick Pollard and by Dame Janet Smith, that we get to grips with the issues raised in the investigation of Newsnight and that we put those things right. If I don’t do that and if we don’t restore the huge confidence and trust that people have in the BBC then I’m sure people will tell me to take my cards and clear off. I am not going to this morning take my marching orders from Mr Murdoch’s newspapers. I think there are big issues which need to be tackled involving the BBC and insofar that they are the responsibility of the Trust, which is above all about restoring confidence in the BBC on the part of the people who pay for it, that’s what I want to give my attention to.

AJ: Well yes, that is a very big problem isn’t it, public trust in the Corporation, it’s shot to pieces isn’t it?

LORD PATTEN: I don't think it’s shot to pieces but it has taken a very, very big hit. Look, I’m sure you’d report this when it happens, all the polls show that the BBC is the most trusted news organisation in the country by a mile and we’ve got to restore that trust because it is the main basis for our relationship with the British public who pay for us through the licence fee, we are part of the national life of this country, we’re part of the national psyche and in order to restore confidence in us we have to make sure that our journalism is of the highest quality.

AJ: Well yes, and George Entwhistle, as you say, as editor-in-chief has taken responsibility for that journalism and in this case, as you described it, ‘that shoddy journalism’, should anyone else take responsibility?

LORD PATTEN: Sorry, I didn’t hear that because there’s a bus behind your camera.

AJ: Does anyone else need to take responsibility for the ‘shoddy journalism’ to use your words, that Newsnight displayed in those programmes?

LORD PATTEN: Well that’s something which the new acting Director General will have to consider with us over the coming days and weeks. Certainly the bigger inquiries that we’re doing on the original Newsnight programme and on the culture of the BBC in the 60s and 70s will I’m sure involve us in taking some tough managerial decisions.

AJ: And what about your Head of News, Helen Boaden, when this happened yesterday, was she there, did you speak to her?

LORD PATTEN: No, I didn’t speak to her because one of the complications of the present situation is she’s been recused, to use that awful legal expression, from responsibility for anything relating to Savile because of the original Newsnight investigation. It hasn’t been a perfect time in terms of management but in terms of the Newsnight …

AJ: Okay, I think we’ve lost the sound as you can see there to Lord Patten. We lost it briefly earlier in the interview and it did reappear so let’s just give it a moment or so to see if we can re-establish that line to Lord Patten, the Chairman of the BBC Trust, talking about George Entwhistle’s resignation as Director General of the BBC yesterday. We still don’t have any sound there at the moment, we will try to re-establish it, I had so many more questions to ask him but it seems that we lost him … Oh we’ve got Lord Patten back I’m told. Lord Patten, apologies for that interruption, we lost your sound for just a moment, can you hear me now okay?

LORD PATTEN: Well I can only just hear you, I don't know what’s happening with your technology but it’s not as good as Sky normally is.

AJ: Okay well hopefully we’ll try and redeem ourselves in the next couple of questions and see if it works. Let me put to you one other question, Jeremy Paxman called George Entwhistle a talented man, to quote him, brought low by cowards and incompetents. Do you recognise that BBC?

LORD PATTEN: Well I recognise, and I’m not sure that Jeremy Paxman was entirely talking about people from the BBC in that criticism, I think he may have had some other people in mind as well but I recognise the man that Jeremy Paxman described. Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight had George as his editor for many years and one of the paradoxes about this whole situation is that George himself was a fantastically successful editor of Newsnight and I am not remotely surprised that Jeremy Paxman, who is a very loyal man, has expressed his strong feelings about George Entwhistle. I have to say I feel myself he was a very, very good man, is a very good man.

AJ: Yes, and a lot of tributes have been paid to him but I was particularly interested though in what you thought about the cowards and incompetents part of what Jeremy Paxman said. What do you think about a management structure that appears to have failed to tell the Director General that some very serious allegations were being made on their flagship Newsnight news programme, is there something wrong with the whole management structure at the BBC?

LORD PATTEN: Well look, there are plainly lessons for us to learn about the management structure at the BBC otherwise I wouldn’t be answering your questions, with some respect, so yes, we’ve got to make changes and we will make changes. That’s what actually George Entwhistle was attempting to do when he came into the job but unfortunately eleven days into the job this appalling problem hit us, okay?

AJ: One more question, should Newsnight survive?

LORD PATTEN: Well that’s one thing we’ll be discussing with the acting Director General today, what should survive is the investigative journalism which it’s represented along with Panorama at the heart of our news offering has to be uncompromising investigative journalism but you have to get it right.

AJ: Lord Patten, we appreciate your time and your patience with our technology, thank you.

LORD PATTEN: Okay, thank you.