The head of the British Broadcasting Corporation has resigned after a television news broadcast led to a top politician being wrongly accused of child sex abuse.

George Entwistle was BBC director-general for less than two months. He said Saturday that he was also editor-in-chief of BBC news and ultimately responsible for all its content. Entwistle said stepping down was the honorable thing to do.

BBC's Newsnight reported November 2 that a senior Conservative party member sexually abused boys in a children's home in Wales in the 1970s and 1980s.

The report did not name the politician. But Internet websites named the suspect as former Conservative Party treasurer Alistair McAlpine.

His accuser retracted the charges against McAlpine this past week, saying he mistook a picture of McAlpine for someone else.

Entwistle had also been criticized for Newsnight's decision to drop an investigation into allegations that the late beloved British television personality Jimmy Savile sexually abused hundreds of boys and girls for decades.