Peter William Rippon (born 22 August 1965) is a British broadcasting executive. He is the editor of the

BBC Online BBC Online, formerly known as BBCi, is the BBC's online service. It is a large network of websites including such high-profile sites as BBC News and BBC Sport, Sport, the on-demand video and radio services branded BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds, t ...

Archive. He was previously the editor of

BBC Television BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1 January 1927. It p ...

's current affairs programme ''

Newsnight ''Newsnight'' is the BBC's news and current affairs programme, providing in-depth investigation and analysis of the stories behind the day's headlines. It is broadcast weeknights at 10:30 on BBC Two and the BBC News channel; it is also avail ...

'', but he departed due to the controversy over his decision not to broadcast a posthumous investigation into the sexual abuse allegations against

Jimmy Savile Sir James Wilson Vincent Savile (; 31 October 1926 – 29 October 2011) was an English media personality and DJ. He was known for his eccentric image, charitable work, and hosting the BBC shows ''Top of the Pops'' and ''Jim'll Fix It''. A ...

Early life

Rippon was born in

Henley-on-Thames Henley-on-Thames ( ) is a town status in the United Kingdom, town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish on the River Thames, in the South Oxfordshire district, in Oxfordshire, England, northeast of Reading, Berkshire, Reading, west of M ...

.John Plunket
"Peter Rippon: Newsnight editor thrown into centre of Jimmy Savile row"
''The Guardian'', 22 October 2012 He is the son of Robin Rippon and Susan Westcott. He has an older sister and younger brother and sister. Rippon attended the Gillotts School, a comprehensive school, in Henley on Thames in the

South Oxfordshire South Oxfordshire is a Non-metropolitan district, local government district in the Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of Oxfordshire, England. Its council is temporarily based outside the district at Abingdon-on-Thames pending a p ...

district of south-eastern Oxfordshire. Rippon graduated from the

University of East Anglia The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a Public university, public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus university, campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and twenty-six schools of ...

(UEA) with a BA in Philosophy and Politics, and gained an MSc in International Politics from the

University of Southampton The University of Southampton (abbreviated as ''Soton'' in post-nominal letters) is a public university, public research university in Southampton, England. Southampton is a founding member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universit ...

BBC career

Rippon joined the

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in 1989 as a trainee. At Radio 4 he became (concurrently) the editor of ''

The World At One ''The World at One'' (or ''WATO'', pronounced "what-oh") is BBC Radio 4's long-running lunchtime news and current affairs radio programme, broadcast weekdays from 13:00 to 13:45 and produced by BBC News. The programme describes itself as "Bri ...

'', '' PM'', '' iPM'', ''

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'' and '' The World This Weekend''. He has also edited ''Newshour'' for the

BBC World Service The BBC World Service is a British Public broadcasting, public service broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC. It is the world's largest external broadcaster in terms of reception area, language selection and audience reach. It broadcas ...

. Rippon's programmes have won numerous awards including Sony Gold in 2007 for interactivity for ''PM''. Moving into television, on 7 November 2008 he was appointed the editor of ''Newsnight''. The previous editor, Peter Barron, became Head of PR for

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

in the UK. In 2011, it was found by

BARB Barb or the BARBs or ''variation'' may refer to: People * Barb (name), a list of people and fictional characters with the given name or surname * Barb, a term used by fans of Nicki Minaj to refer to themselves * The Barbs, a band Places * Barb, ...

that the ''Newsnight'' audience was on average around 450,000. Ten years previously it was around 1 million. When Rippon was editor, ''Newsnight'' was named news programme of the year by the

Royal Television Society The Royal Television Society (RTS) is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present, and future. It is the oldest television society in the world. It currently has fourteen r ...

(2012). It also won

Emmy The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the year, each with their own set of rules and award catego ...

(2009, 2011) and Peabody (2010) awards under his leadership.

''Newsnight'' item about Jimmy Savile

In late 2011, Rippon spiked an item about the history of the suspected paedophile

on ''Newsnight''. Rippon argued that the decision was in part based on the

Crown Prosecution Service The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is the principal public agency for conducting criminal prosecutions in England and Wales. It is headed by the Director of Public Prosecutions. The main responsibilities of the CPS are to provide legal adv ...

reporting a lack of evidence. Internal emails revealed that his concern was over the fact that the only evidence was from "the women". His editor's blog gives the background of why he, at the time, came to the conclusions that he did. In October 2012, Rippon stepped aside from his role as editor pending an independent review into his decision to drop the investigation into Savile. The Pollard Review into the incident investigated the decision exhaustively. It concluded that Rippon's decision not to air the item was "flawed" but "done in good faith" and without undue pressure from his bosses. Rippon disagreed that his evidence was flawed, setting out his reasons in evidence to the inquiry. In October 2012, the chairman of the BBC Trust, Lord Patten, when interviewed on Radio 4's ''

The Media Show ''The Media Show'' is a weekly United Kingdom, British current affairs (news format), current affairs radio programme and podcast on BBC Radio 4 which examines the current state of the Mass media, media. First broadcast on 1 October 2008, it is p ...

'' about the Savile affair, remarked "Peter Rippon is a very distinguished editor who broke the story about service companies which we've been having to deal with ever since."

References

External links

BBC Editors Blog

Newsnight Editor's Blog
*

At a formal dinner
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rippon, Peter 1965 births Living people Alumni of the University of East Anglia Alumni of the University of Southampton BBC executives BBC Radio 4 British radio executives People from Henley-on-Thames