The Sun hounded Huw Edwards without ever naming him. And we are all (partly) to blame.
The Sun has targeted Huw Edwards with unproven allegations as part of its war on the BBC. It's a common tactic for a tabloid media that intrudes on people's lives for entertainment and then moves on to the next victim.
If only we could all live up to the ferociously high moral standards of The Sun.
A newspaper that routinely published topless photographs of 16-year-old girls, while hounding others on issues of moral probity.
A newspaper that stood by a grievous lie about a footballing disaster for years, an apology dragged out decades later.
The Sun likes to have an enemy. Sometimes it's refugees, other times it's unions or people on benefits.
But one of its favourite enemies is the BBC. And it has little regard for the harm it may do in pursuit of the corporation's destruction.
Its latest target is now in hospital with "serious metal health issues." Though police are satisfied no offence has been committed, there undoubtedly are questions to be asked about Huw Edwards' behaviour, and the BBC's repsonse to the allegations against him.
The corporation also needs to address claims of a workplace culture where junior staff feel powerless to raise concerns about more senior figures.
But The Sun chose to publish unproven allegations, on evidence so flimsy it was unwilling to take the legal risk of naming Huw Edwards.
Instead it relied on the rest of the media diving in, feasting on the story until the man at the centre of the frenzy, in the midst of a mental health crisis, came forward himself.
This is how The Sun -- and so much of the tabloid media -- has always behaved. It barges into people's lives, does its best to ruin them, then walks away, in search of its next victim.
And we -- all of us -- are partly to blame.
We're addicted to gossip. We can't stop ourselves viewing the lives of others as a soap opera staged solely for our entertainment.
Occasionally someone's career is ruined. Sometimes someone dies, and we feel bad, for an hour or two. Then we're back on the sidebar of shame, diving straight into twitter's cesspool, waiting for someone else to be offered up for sacrifice.
The rest of the media -- even the supposedly serious, sensible bits -- feel obliged to chase the views, clicks, shares and likes that are the currency that defines so much journalism.
We get the news we deserve. And it seems all we deserve is this crap.
