When George Entwistle was appointed as BBC director general, he was the surprise choice. Smart, affable, he had risen from obscurity within the corporation with dizzying speed. Editor of Newsnight, controller of knowledge (how ironic that looks now) – then just a year as director of vision, the bombastic job title referring to the corporation's television channels. Few would have picked him out as the top man five or even two years ago. Lord Patten, though, did.
The most important qualities in a director general are not political or programme-making experience but simply intellectual robustness and resilience – to deal with the relentless storms of criticism that affect the BBC. His predecessor Mark Thompson, who ironically starts his next job, as chief executive of the New York Times on Monday, had that inner strength. But Entwistle clearly didn't, folding when it became clear BBC News had lost control.
The director general, who lasted only 54 days, concluded that he had to take responsibility for Newsnight's catastrophic errors. And in particular the broadcast that linked a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher to child sexual abuse. He knew that he had performed poorly on the Today programme against John Humprhys – but that was not enough for him to conclude he was not up to the job – but the failures as regards the Newsnight broadcast of Friday 2 November would prove fatal.
Insiders say the chain of approval for the ill-fated paedophilia programme went wider than is currently known – higher up the organisation (although not to the director general) and wider – to places such as the legal department. BBC News, in short, had made a catastrophic misjudgment – smearing a Conservative peer – without anybody alerting the man who was the BBC's "editor in chief".
Except Entwistle probably should not have been alerted. He was unable to be consulted, prevented from being involved in the Newsnight film because he was under investigation for whatever apparently minimal role he had in allowing tributes to Jimmy Savile to go ahead when Newsnight, in an earlier incarnation, had tried and failed to reveal the truth that the late BBC presenter was a sexual abuser. In sum, he was no longer in control of the corporation.
Unlike some of his competitors for the top job at the BBC Entwistle barely campaigned in public. He declined to share his vision for the broadcaster with anybody other than very close allies, including Patten. It was impossible to know what his BBC would be like, so unwilling he was to test out his ideas.
But Entwistle was not really cut out for the job. He worried ceaselessly once the Savile crisis broke. His public appearances were rarely surefooted; struggling before a select committee as well as during Today. He disliked being interviewed by rival broadcasters and never lasted long enough to submit himself to a newspaper interview at all. The talk was that he wasn't sleeping – decision-making halted after the Savile crisis broke – and journalists in the newsroom rapidly concluded there was a chance he might resign. Entwistle regularly ducked out of the BBC's daily morning top management call, theoretically so he could recuse himself from Savile-related questions, but again creating the impression he was no longer in day-to-day charge.
It was Entwistle who told MPs at a difficult hearing before parliament last month that he tried as hard as possible not to inquire about Newsnight's ill-fated Savile investigation a year ago. He said, incredibly, that he expressed "a determination not to show an undue interest" – a formulation of a man determined to put his hands over his ears lest he hear something discomforting. Then he told John Humprhys on Today that he was not aware of reports in the Guardian that the thinly veiled allegation against Lord McAlpine appeared to be incorrect. It reinforced the notion that he appeared to be the last person who heard about anything controversial that happened in his own organisation.
We do not yet know, either, what will be the conclusion of the Pollard inquiry into the Newsnight investigation into Savile, or the failure to correct the error-strewn account of events given by its editor, Peter Rippon. But what is clear is that Entwistle personally refused to listen to Newsnight's reporters who wanted to tell him that what Rippon had written was wrong. But because Entwistle would not take an "off-the-record meeting" with the Newsnight team – he chose to rely on what turned out to be partial accounts of subordinates. It was if he wanted to run the BBC solely through a chain of command, not learning of anything controversial lest it damage him. To lead, though, sometimes requires learning of the facts oneself. Other incurious media company bosses – James Murdoch – ought to take note.
The worry is that Entwistle's departure leaves the corporation with so few senior managers at the top. In his eight short weeks, Entwistle managed to force out Caroline Thomson, the chief operating officer, and John Smith, the experienced boss of the BBC's commercial arm. Smith – who hasn't departed – might yet be persuaded to stay on. There is no director of television, and the head of news, Helen Boaden, is so mired in the Savile crisis as to be no use at all – even if she survives. Patten and the acting DG, Tim Davie, will have to bring in some ballast at the top pretty quickly.
Against this backdrop, Patten, is for the moment secure – in the sense that if he quit there might be a really serious vacuum at the top. But he faces questions about his choice of Entwistle and his support (or rather lack of) for his director general the moment the crisis hit. It was Patten who had to force the hapless Rippon to rewrite his inaccurate blog about the original Newsnight Savile investigation, perhaps because Entwistle felt unable to rebuke the man.
But despite all the errors, few expected this untested, surprisingly brittle man to quit now. However, with Newsnight having made such bad mistakes, he clearly concluded there was no way back. His departure, though, makes other resignations more likely.
The BBC, riding so high after the Olympics, has crashed to the bottom, bringing its director general down with it. Even the most virulent of its critics would not have expected this.