There has been a lot written about why I took the decision not to run a story into allegations of sex abuse by the former BBC presenter Jimmy Savile. It has been suggested I was ordered to do it by my bosses as part of a BBC cover-up. It has also been suggested that we deliberately withheld information from the police. Both these allegations are totally untrue and despite consistent strong denials keep getting repeated. I felt it would be useful to share more about what really happened.

The BBC has the highest editorial standards and with any story an editor has to weigh many things before putting something to air. BBC editors have a lot of power and responsibility and I have never, in the many years I have done this job, ever been told by one of my superiors not to do a story against my will. I would not still be working here if they had.

Why did I pursue this story about Jimmy Savile and why did I drop it?

I decided we should pursue the story because of the nature of the allegations and because the key witness told us the police had investigated the claims but the case had been dropped on the grounds he was too old. This made the public interest case from a Newsnight point of view potentially strong. If we could establish some sort of institutional failure we would have a much stronger story.

Some of the factors on the other side were: Newsnight is not normally interested in celebrity expose. Savile was unable to defend himself. What was the public interest served by reporting it given he is dead? The nature of the allegations and the level of proof required. The fact the incidents were 40 years ago.

We had no evidence that anyone from the Duncroft home could or should have known about the allegations. We had no evidence against the BBC. In her original statement our key witness said she was "perfectly certain the BBC had no idea whatsoever of the goings on". However, I felt if we could prove the police or the CPS had let the women down in some way we should go ahead.

We did establish the police had investigated the allegations in 2007. However, as the police would be obliged to investigate I wanted to check how they would respond to the allegation that it was not pursued because Jimmy Savile was too old. The CPS told us:
"The CPS reviewing lawyer advised the police that no further action should be taken due to lack of evidence." The additional guidance noted stated. "As this is the case, it would not be correct to say that his age and frailty was the reason for no further action being taken."

This statement specifically denied the allegation that the investigation was dropped because of his age. I felt it was significant the guidance was included and we had not established any institutional failure and I judged it weakened the story from a Newsnight perspective. I took the decision not to publish. There were some of my team who disagreed strongly with my judgement, and others who agreed equally strongly.

However, those who disagreed accepted my decision. There were no rows of any kind as has been reported.

Did we withhold evidence from the police? No. We are confident that all the women we spoke to had contacted the police independently already. We also had no new evidence against any other person that would have helped the police.

Did my bosses order me to do anything? No. I did discuss it with my bosses in News in the same way I do any contentious story we are working on. I was told in the strongest terms that I must be guided by editorial considerations only and that I must not let any wider considerations about the BBC affect my judgement.

The fact that the BBC has the capacity to do this may feel odd to other organisations but it is fundamental to the trust we share with our audience.

Peter Rippon is the editor of Newsnight

The end of an era - that's what colleagues and the twittersphere are saying about the decision by my long-time colleague, Robin Lustig, to step down from presenting The World Tonight on Radio 4 and Newshour on World Service.

 

I first met Robin when I joined The World Tonight as a youngish producer back in 1994 and we quickly developed a close editorial understanding, we share the same interest in international affairs and the same desire to get to the bottom of why the world is the way it is, and we have worked closely together both at Radio 4 and the World Service since then. He is an outstanding journalist and an example to all of us, both professionally and personally.

His encyclopaedic knowledge and quick-wit allows him to switch from covering international to British stories at the bat of an eye. One example sticks in my mind. On 4 June 2009, we had planned a special edition of the programme to mark two important anniversaries in recent world history. It was 20 years since Solidarity's victory in first free election in Poland since the war and also 20 years on from the crushing of Chinese pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square; the day two parts of the communist world took very divergent paths. It's the kind of big idea Robin loves getting his teeth into.

So off he went to Gdansk with a producer and we had inserts into the programme planned from Beijing. Then a couple of minutes before we went to air, the Labour cabinet minister, James Purnell, resigned from Gordon Brown's government calling on Mr Brown to stand down. We had to drop much of the planned material on Poland and China and lead with the Purnell story. The team in London set up a sequence of live interviews for Robin to do from Poland and he had to do them without much chance to brief himself. Of course he carried it off with his usual calm authority, then, apparently effortlessly, switched back to the now slimmed down special on how and why communist systems diverged on that day 20 years before.

This shows just how difficult an act to follow he will be. He will be missed by audiences here in the UK and around the world, and I will miss him a lot because he is also a really warm and supportive friend and colleague. One way to convey his humanity is that last year, when I had to spend several months in hospital being treated for cancer, he came to see me regularly and not only helped keep me sane but also saved me from the vagaries of hospital food with his own meals on wheels service.

But he is not retiring, he says he wants to go back to reporting and, if we are lucky, he will continue to be heard on our air waves with interesting stories from interesting climes.

Alistair Burnett is the editor of The World Tonight.

For anyone interested in the intricate arts of search engine optimisation and how it works in relation to news, our in-house expert, Martin Asser, has posted some top tips on the BBC Internet Blog.

Steve Herrmann is editor of the BBC News website.