TV exec ends interview abruptly, worsening PR crisis for BBC

Here’s the story, as summarized by New York magazine:

“Entwistle has been having trouble ever since it was revealed that BBC host Jimmy Savile had sexually abused hundreds of children, but things boiled over on November 2, when the celebrated ‘Newsnight’ program ran a program implicating a senior Tory politician in child sexual abuse at Welsh care homes. While no one was specifically named on-air, it later leaked online that the man in question was Lord McAlpine, a treasury secretary under Margaret Thatcher, who called the allegations “wholly false and seriously defamatory.”

Shortly after his resignation, the BBC’s newly appointed acting director-general, Tim Davie, gave an interview to Sky News.

It didn’t go well.

It rarely looks good when a spokesperson abruptly ends a live interview, particularly when the walk off occurs in the midst of a raging crisis. It’s even worse when a spokesperson walks off an interview that asks him about his predecessor’s poor handling of the media.