Steve Coogan as Jimmy Savile in Reckoning By Matt Squire
So what is the BBC hoping to gain by broadcasting the series? , exploring in detail the debauched life of Jimmy Savile? What exactly are they selling us here? There is one simple question I would like the BBC to answer; why did you order these programs? What are they for? Do you think we license fee payers haven't heard enough about Savile yet?
After all, it's only been 18 months since Netflix released three hours of a pretty good documentary about Savile. The series showed how Savile, from humble beginnings, worked his way into national life and became a darling of the establishment.
I was reviewing the Netflix series at the time and the production team did a great job. Which is why it's hard to understand why we now need to devote another four hours to Savile. The programs inevitably cover the same topic with some differences; First up, the BBC brings us docudrama Reckoning, starring Steve Coogan as Savile. The BBC's offering also includes moving interviews with some of Savile's victims; however, frankly speaking, they do not add anything special to our understanding. We already knew about his wickedness, his cruelty, his perverted lusts and the blatant hypocrisy of his “charitable” activities. So we return to the question: why was this series made?
There is a simple, albeit cynical answer; dark stories about sex and celebrities have always attracted audiences. And there is no more disgusting story in the annals of British showbiz than that of Jimmy Savile. So perhaps Charlotte Moore, the BBC's 'chief content officer', when presented with this treatment of the Savile docudrama, thought: 'This is a win; They won’t be able to resist it!” But perhaps that's unfair to Moore: even a BBC editor wouldn't be so cynical? Should there be a higher goal?
Clearly the message the BBC would like to convey by commissioning these programs is: “Look, we know we did the wrong thing. over Savile, but now we admit everything — this is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But there is a problem. If you are going to publicly admit to wrongdoing, you will have to come clean in every way. You'd have to go full of sackcloth and ashes, and the BBC didn't do that.
The series may contain some harsh criticism of the BBC, but its main focus is on Bill Cotton, head of the BBC's Light Entertainment department and one of the BBC executives responsible for propelling Savile to stardom.
Mr. Cotton died in 2009, so the program can safely place the blame on him. And Savile certainly had a good relationship with Cotton — he attended the chief executive's memorial service in 2009 — but it is too easy to attribute Savile's rise to BBC prominence to one man. Other executives and other senior producers were also involved. But that's not The Reckoning's main problem; rather, they stop just at the moment when the BBC's all-too-serious cover-up began in earnest. The series more or less ends with Savile's death in 2011, but what happened in 2012 showed the BBC at its worst.
Jimmy Savile launches Jim'll Fix It at Television Center in 1074. Photo: Getty
Savile died in October 2011 and almost immediately Newsnight's investigative team bravely set to work exposing the dead star's misdeeds (if you're wondering why this didn't happen while he was still alive, the answer, of course, is that Savile threatened legal action against anyone who made accusations against him). Newsnight producer Meirion Jones, along with reporter Liz McKean, with the full support of her editor, set out to find out the truth.
They found plenty of compelling evidence and their report was due in early December. And then he was mysteriously pulled out; the editor decided he didn't need it anymore. Coincidentally, and having absolutely nothing to do with the Newsnight story (or so the BBC claimed), the BBC were also planning a Christmas special focusing on Savile's career. This program was successfully implemented.
A subsequent BBC investigation into why Savile's story was dropped described the decision as «flawed». This is too polite. Thrown by the BBC, Meirion Jones made the courageous decision to hand over all his material to ITV, which then, in the autumn of 2012, broadcast its devastating expose of Savile. The whole episode plunged the BBC into crisis; the newly appointed CEO lost his job due to his terrible behavior due to the consequences and the Corporation's name was dragged through the mud.
Newsnight journalists Meirion Jones and Liz McKean, whose reporting on Savile was suppressed by the BBC. Photo: Getty
Liz McKean, a Newsnight reporter, told me that when the crisis was at its height, she felt she was being treated as the «enemy». according to the BBC hierarchy. Liz, who tragically died in 2017, was provided with the services of BBC lawyers, although, according to her, all she did was work as a reporter; her only «sin» was that she exposed Savile's terrible behavior and she didn't understand why she needed lawyers.
At the press launch for Reckoning, Charlotte Moore and the crew strongly defended their decision not to tell that part of the story. A cover-up, they said, would be “a whole separate drama.” To an uninitiated viewer with no knowledge of the backstory, these programs may seem «brave» because they show Savile, warts and all.
But for me — then and still today — the cover-up and deliberate silencing of the BBC's own journalism was inexcusable. The real test of any organization is what happens when things get really bad (which they inevitably sometimes do), because that's when moral courage is required. And in the case of Savile, the Corporation's management did not show moral courage.
If you think I'm exaggerating, remember also that in all the recent BBC scandals — such as the Martin Bashir-Princess Diana interview scandal — the corporation's first instinct was to try to protect its reputation by covering up wrongdoing. Savile deceived the BBC, but so did half the British establishment; cunning and cunning perverts will always be able to get around honest people because most of us trust people most of the time.
Steve Coogan in the movie «Reckoning» Author: Matt Squire
“Sin” is not gullibility or initial error, but concealment—the refusal to directly admit one’s real mistakes. The Reckoning tells part of Jimmy Savile's horrific story; what a missed opportunity not to go a step further and look deeper into the institutional failings of the BBC that its history has illuminated.
Returning to my original question, I have a strong suspicion that the real reason for these programs is were created because they would get good ratings; the public will enjoy the depravity. There are other monsters — the Yorkshire Ripper, the Moors Murderers, Fred and Rosemary West — whose stories are catnip for True Crime enthusiasts and pandered to by TV editors. Now Savile has been added to this terrible list.
But if the BBC had not decided to tell this story in all its embarrassing completeness, it would have been much better for the BBC to let him and his grotesque sexual deviances be left alone. We don't need Savile to serve as real fodder for crime — least of all from the organization that nurtured him, raised him to fame and unleashed it on the whole country.
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