THE GUARDIAN:
Suspended presenter remains silent over partly withdrawn claims he paid a young person for explicit images but still faces internal inquiry
It is believed that subsequent complaints about Huw Edwards messaging younger colleagues could cause him more trouble than the original disputed Sun story. Photograph: Chris Jackson/PA
Last September,
Huw Edwards sprinted out of a barbershop near his south London home after being summoned to the BBC’s headquarters so he could announce Queen Elizabeth’s death to the nation.
Now the
BBC is weighing up whether it can ever reuse footage of Edwards’s historic royal broadcast, with the presenter still suspended in the wake of the Sun’s partly-retracted allegation that he paid a 17-year-old for explicit images.
It has been almost two months since the newspaper sparked both the fiercest and shortest BBC scandal in recent history. Within a week, it went from being a story that could topple the director general to one that was barely meriting a mention in the wider media.
Yet questions remain for the BBC, the Sun and the presenter himself – and it is unclear whether Edwards will ever be able to unwind the knotty mess of public, personal and workplace issues that have him left him off air.
One senior BBC journalist summarised the verdict of large parts of the newsroom when it comes to Edwards’s employment prospects: “No one expects him to come back.”
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Jim Waterson, Media editor | Saturday, September 2, 2023
