The monster behind the myth

A few years back, I went to a fascinating day of talks at Oxford's Wolfson College about obituaries. One of the speakers was from the Oxford Dictionary Of National Biography and revealed how they always wait two or three years after a notable figure has died before publishing a biography. The reason, she explained, was to allow the dust to settle, a degree of consensus to form about the person's character and contribution to public life, and any skeletons to emerge from the closet. It's a luxury that newspapers and websites don't have; they run the risk of hastily cobbling together and publishing gushing eulogies for people who, it subsequently transpires, don't deserve them - indeed, quite the opposite.

I was reminded of that day reading this Guardian article by Poppy Sebag-Montefiore, which reveals how two BBC journalists flew in the face of the predominant "national treasure" narrative circulating in the immediate wake of Jimmy Savile's death - one to which Auntie publicly subscribed, despite behind-the-scenes awareness of his "dark side" - and fought to expose the DJ and presenter for the depraved paedophile that he really was. In so doing, Sebag-Montefiore argues, Liz MacKean and Meirion Jones "helped to change the culture about the way past sexual abuse is talked about, and survivors listened to, in the UK".

The article is a powerful testimony to the importance of courageous, dogged investigative journalism - and to the danger of pre-emptively canonising the recently deceased.