BBC chief Greg Dyke resigned yesterday, the second top BBC official to step down after a judicial inquiry harshly criticized the broadcaster's journalistic standards.
Gavyn Davies, the chairman of the BBC's board of governors, resigned Wednesday -- the first time a top executive at the broadcaster has stepped down in a dispute over reporting.
Earlier Wednesday, Judge Lord Hutton criticized the BBC network for an "unfounded" report it broadcast last year accusing the government of "sexing up" a prewar dossier about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction with information it knew was wrong.
Dyke's resignation yesterday came as the governors of the BBC said they were "apologizing unreservedly" for errors in a report alleging that the government doctored intelligence on Iraq.
"On behalf of the BBC I have no hesitation in apologizing unreservedly for our errors and to the individuals whose reputations were affected by them," the acting chairman of the BBC, Lord Richard Ryder, said in a statement.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday accepted the apology.
Although Dyke was director general and editor-in-chief of the BBC, he was not a journalist and did not direct its news operations.
"Throughout this whole affair my sole aim as director general of the BBC has been to defend our editorial independence and act in the public interest," Dyke said outside the BBC's headquarters in London.
When Davies resigned, he questioned some of Hutton's findings concerning the death of David Kelly, the weapons scientist who committed suicide after being caught up in a row between the BBC and the government about its case for war in Iraq. Hutton vindicated Prime Minister Tony Blair, while strongly criticizing the broadcaster.
Dyke on Wednesday also defended the "greater part" of the story that sparked a bitter row with Blair's office.
Many British newspapers expressed surprise yesterday over what they called a one-sided Hutton judgment.
"Whitewash?" suggested The Independent in its main headline -- printed in red against a white front page.
In the conservative Daily Mail, columnist Max Hastings said Hutton "fails to set his story in the context of the BBC's huge virtues and Labour's sore vices."
Most agreed Blair had been utterly vindicated by Hutton of charges he lied about the threat posed by Iraq, with one tabloid calling him "Saint Tony" in a front-page headline.
But some editorials said key questions remained about Blair's controversial decision to go to war, given the failure so far to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
"The government may have been cleared over Dr. Kelly's death -- but that does not mean it was honest about Iraq. It is entitled to Hutton's narrow vindication, but it still has a lot to prove," said an editorial in The Guardian.
Blair earlier responded by saying that there would be a thorough review of the embattled broadcaster's charter.
In another development, Hutton yesterday ordered "an urgent investigation" into the leaking of his 740-page report to The Sun tabloid the day before it was officially released.
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