Union speaker resigns

The Editor of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BiJ) resigned from his post yesterday in the wake of the Newsnight fiasco days after leaking the story that would cost him his job at the Oxford Union.

Iain Overton’s organisation was behind the story falsely suggesting former Tory politician Lord McAlpine was a paedophile, leading to the departure of BBC Director General George Entwhistle on Saturday.

Overton spoke successfully against the Union motion ‘This House believes that British politics is in the pocket of the media’ on November 1st.

In that debate, he told the audience that Newsnight was about to break the news of the politician paedophile.

And when fellow guest Michael Crick, Newsnight’s former political editor, asked if he meant Lord McAlpine, Overton replied: “Well, you said it”.

Iain Overton is second from right on the front row

At 10am the next morning he tweeted: “If all goes well we’ve got a Newsnight out tonight about a very senior political figure who is a paedophile.”

However Lord McAlpine’s stringent denial and the subsequent withdrawal of victim Steve Messham’s accusation showed the story to be baseless.

A statement on the BiJ’s website reads “Iain Overton has resigned his appointment as Editor of The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Deputy Editor, Rachel Oldroyd, will assume responsibilities for editorial control of The Bureau. An appointment of an Interim Editor is likely to be announced in the near term”

The BiJ is a not-for-profit organisation based at City University, London founded in 2010.  On its website it claims that “Our team of journalists bolsters original news by producing high-quality investigations for press and broadcast media”.

They also hold “the aim of educating the public and the media on both the realities of today’s world and the value of honest reporting”.