Newsnight have apologised unreservedly for their broadcast last Friday. There was a lot of hype prior to the broadcast, notably from one of the journalists at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, whose report it was on behalf of Newsnight.
They tweeted that "all being well, we will be broadcasting the name of one of the abusers" or words to that affect. That caused a twitter and media storm, with lots of speculation about who it was who was due to be named. Lord McAlpine was one of the names that was commonly being speculated about prior to the show, and that speculation only increased with the comments about someone being named on newsnight.
In the event, they didn't name anyone, for reasons as yet not explained. Either there was never any intention to name anyone, in which case the tweet was a stunt designed to boost ratings, or they got cold feet and edited out the naming and shaming.
It seems there were some basic editorial mistakes about the programme. The accuser says that the first time he saw a photo of Lord McAlpine was today, and he knew straightaway that this was not an abuser, and he offered a news release apologising for the mistaken identity. That implies that during the process of filming for Newsnight last week, no one confirmed the identity of the alleged attacker by showing him a photo.
Seems like in the SoVile investigation they sat on their investigation, for as yet unexplained reasons, and were scooped by ITV, and this time they released a report full of allegation without confirming the identity of the main person they were accusing (but not actually naming)
So all current Newsnight investigations have been put on hold, to be subject to vigorous review, and Newsnight the show will be reduced to talking heads and the papers, as best i can tell for now.