Christopher Patten, chairman of the BBC Trust, claims he will be able to find a new director-general for the beleaguered broadcaster within weeks.

London. Christopher Patten, the chairman of the BBC, Britain’s state-funded broadcaster, claims he will need “weeks rather than months” to find a replacement for the corporation’s director-general, who resigned after one of its TV programs falsely accused a retired top British politician of child abuse.

But the BBC will need more than just a few swift personnel appointments before it recovers its poise, for the organization is facing the worst crisis in its 90-year’s existence. Its biggest problem is journalistic quality, precisely the attribute for which the BBC used to be universally admired.

At first glance, the events which led to the hasty departure of director-general George Entwistle last Saturday, look like a classic British storm in a teacup: a scandal involving sex and politics treated seriously by a domestic audience but baffling to all foreigners.