What price will the BBC pay for not toeing the line?
by Paul Donovan
Morning Star
5/8/2003
The BBC has been thrust into the limelight over recent weeks as the purveyor of truth in the face of a government seemingly devoted to the impossible mantra of fooling all of the people all of the time. The focus on the BBC resulted largely from the media manipulation of the former journalist turned propagandist Alastair Campbell. The government was in a hole over weapons of mass destruction and appeared to be committed on a path of continuing to dig. The weapons of mass destruction were nowhere to be found and the claims of an illegal war being entered into on false premises grew ever louder. Campbell then adopted the oldest trick in the propagandist's book, namely to shoot the messenger. The focus changed from where were the WMDs to allegations made by the Today programme and Newsnight regarding the veracity of the dossiers presented to the public as a reason to go to war. As the row rumbled on and moved to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee (FASC) Campbell moved centre stage to demand an apology from the BBC. Personalising the issue Campbell attacked Andrew Gilligan, the Today programme defence correspondent, as the source of the false accusations. It was Gilligan and the BBC who had besmirched Campbell and by extension the government over the alleged sexing up of the dossier. As this row raged the question of where the weapons of mass destruction were and whether they ever existed got quietly sidelined.
Campbell somehow managed to get exonerated by the FASC which in a bizarre judgement claimed the 45 minute warning over the launch of WMDs had been given too much prominence yet Campbell - the man in charge of presentation - had nothing to do with it.
Dr David Kelly then came forward as someone that Gilligan had spoken to but the journalist rightly refused to admit if he was the source or not. Then as pressure mounted on the government, Dr Kelly's body was discovered. The pressure then lifted from the government and as the BBC came forward to admit that Dr Kelly was the source for Gilligan and the Newsnight stories the pressure redirected on the BBC.
The lack of journalistic rigour of the majority of the press in this country was then clear for all to see. Most, from the Guardian to the Sun, turned their vitriol on the BBC. Nowhere was the suggestion ever voiced that foul play may have been involved in the death of Dr Kelly. Significantly, Lord Hutton's investigation into the whole sorry affair was announced before Dr Kelly's body had even been formally identified.
The question as to why the BBC named Dr Kelly as its source once he was dead remains a mystery. To this day no one knows who the Deepthroat source was who gave Woodward and Bernstein so much information on the Watergate break-in.
One can only surmise that in the BBC case there must have been heavy threats wielded by government over the senior management of the corporation.
There were unsubstantiated claims in the media that the government would be out to get the BBC. Tessa Jowell, the Culture, Media and Sport secretary, rather confirmed this view when she told the BBC World at One programme that the outcome of Lord Hutton's inquiry would influence the next review of the BBC charter. She later retreated from this position but the original inference was clear. One journalistic story from the news division was enough it seemed - in an elected politician's view - to justify calling into question the whole raison d'etre of the BBC from Top of the Pops to Newsnight.
The precedents for vengeance though are already there. The loss of Thames TV's broadcasting franchise was widely seen as the Thatcher government's revenge for the Death on the Rock programme about the SAS gunning down IRA operatives in Gibralter. Will loss of the licence fee be the price that the BBC pays for questioning the government over its reasons for taking the country to war?
Greg Dyke, the BBC governors and staff deserve all due credit for standing by their journalists and the story over the dossiers and weapons of mass destruction. The one fault was to blink in its standoff with the government when Dr Kelly was named as the source.
The role played by certain journalists and media organisations in attacking the BBC has been scandalous. The News International papers are clearly getting direct orders from Rupert Murdoch himself on the anti BBC line that they must adopt.
Hence the virulent anti BBC stances taken by the Sun and Times. It would have been interesting to be a fly on the wall at Associated Newspapers, which own the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and Evening Standard. They must not have known what way to turn given that they loathe the BBC and government in equal proportions. Many have followed unsourced briefings that focus on denigrating Andrew Gilligan. A media that is normally so personality driven needed little Downing Street prompting in this direction.
While the BBC deserve credit let's not lose the plot completely. The BBC is not a great liberal organisation wielding the sword of truth on behalf of the weak and helpless. In some right wing quarters it has been argued that the BBC was anti war all along and the latest spat is just a continuation of that position. This is palpably untrue.
During the war in Iraq the BBC was more gung ho than almost any other media outlet. It had reporters embedded and anchor staff in the news studios getting visibly excited by the latest news on "our boys" in Iraq. Let's not forget that memo sent out by BBC head of news Richard Sambrooke on 6 February warning editorial staff not to give the anti war protesters too much air time.
The result of this policy was that on the morning of the largest anti war march this country has ever seen, none of the organisers were given air time on the BBC flagship Today programme. The BBC was one the very few employers in this country that stopped its staff taking part in the historic 15 February march. This is the same Richard Sambrook, of course, who has so valiantly backed up his journalists in the face of the government onslaught over the dossiers.
If anyone needs a reality check on the BBC then a viewing of the recent day-long coverage of asylum and immigration should set them straight. The programming was skewed to represent the asylum seeker as a problem. The usual tabloid lies were reeled out with little qualification, about asylum seekers coming for benefits, houses and to use the health service. Nowhere was there mention of Britain as the second largest arms manufacturer in the world and the fact that most asylum seekers have come from Afghanistan and Iraq. The balance that the BBC so likes to pride itself on was distinctly lacking in this programming.
The asylum and immigration coverage was the BBC back to what it does best which is holding the ring and maintaining the status quo. The BBC has done well in fighting its corner over the manufactured dossier used to take this country into an illegal war. The reasons for that stand has no doubt much to do with personality clashes between senior BBC staff and those in government. The reason for the big fall out in the first place was the tactics of Campbell and co in seeking to shoot the messenger rather than come up with answers on WMDs. The central question though remains unanswered, namely where are the WMDs and why did the country go to war on such a completely false premise?