On his retirement "The Guardian" commented: "If he has a public profile at all it is because Byford came to symbolise the apparent excesses of top executive pay at the corporation. There he was, grey man with a job for life, half a million pounds in salary and, because he had been at the BBC so long without ever leaving, an uncapped two-thirds final salary pension entitlement and no obvious market rate comparator to justify such riches. It was very easy to put the question, as even many lower ranking BBC staff did – who else would pay Mark Byford £500,000 and for what? – knowing there was no very good answer." However, the remainder of that article, written by media commentator Steve Hewlett, suggested that his presence might be missed greatly at the BBC. "He made things happen and by common consent brought a firm moral sense to everything he did, rising above his own particular interests." It went on to highlight how he was a stabilising influence on Director-General Mark Thompson. That opinion appeared highly prophetic in the light of the two major "Newsnight" scandals – concerning Jimmy Savile and Lord McAlpine respectively – which engulfed the BBC within 18 months of Byford's departure. Both of those incidents led to widespread adverse criticism of high level management of journalism within the BBC and were surrounded by suggestions that the Director-General of the day was not sufficiently informed about issues highly significant for the BBC's reputation.