Email to Helen Boaden - 'alleged' bomb plot coverage

[Peter Fainton]

Dear Ms Boaden,

I watched the six o'clock and ten o'clock BBC News bulletins and Newsnight's coverage of the alleged terrorist plot uncovered by the police and security services. From a point of view of balance and impartiality it raises a number of questions about the objectivity of BBC News reporting, which perhaps you'd be kind enough to clarify for me.

The two News reports contained essentially the same information, although some balance was introduced into the ten o'clock piece with Frank Gardener commenting briefly on recent intelligence failures that may lead the public to be sceptical about these reports. The reports stated:

“ 'If' detectives are right terrorists were intending to blow a succession of transatlantic aircraft out of the sky to terrify passengers by launching waves of attacks. Police believe they've foiled the plan in the nick-of-time but ministers have had to order a massive increase in security at airports.”

John Reid said: “The police acting with the security services MI5 have carried out a major counter-terrorism operation over night to disrupt an 'alleged plot' to bring down a number of aircraft through mid-flight explosions. Had this plot been carried out the loss of life to innocent civilians would have been on an unprecedented scale.”

Later on you report: “ Security officials say intelligence 'suggests' terrorists 'could' have been planning three separate waves of attacks targeting a total of up to ten transatlantic flights (nine on ITV and five on Channel 4). The 'alleged plot' is thought to involve using liquid explosives in fizzy drinks bottles carried on in hand luggage. Something happened in the last couple of days that forced police to bring forward their raids. Something that made them believe an attack could have been immanent, possibly in the next few days.”

John Reid said: “I would like to explain why the joint terrorism analysis centre, whose role it is to set the threat level, took the decision to raise the UK threat state to its highest level, that of critical. Whilst the police are confident that the main players have been accounted for neither they or the government are in any way complacent.”

Your reporter continued: “'If' the intelligence is correct the scale of the plot is simply staggering, not just one bomb but a series of repeated multiple attacks, without doubt the most devastating terrorist assault ever launched in the UK.”

Another reporter continues: “An operation that's lasted eight months came to fruition last night... now police have to turn their intelligence into evidence. They have twenty-eight days to charge their suspects.”

Although I note your reporting did improve as more information was made available to the BBC there still remain some glaring contradictions in the story that the BBC has reported. There are also other important News events that were virtually completely obscured from the News coverage on you main bulletins. For example, the conflict between Israel/Lebanon and reports in the press of MPs demands for a recall of parliament from its eleven weeks' holiday to ask Tony Blair why he has sanctioned weapons shipments to Israel, when Kofi Annan has stated that Israeli military strikes upon civilians have been disproportionate (a war crime). And Tony Blair's failure to call for an immediate cease-fire whilst a diplomatic solution to the crisis is developed.

Representative democracy, that Tony Blair advocates for countries he's currently illegally attacking with Britain's military forces, cannot be said to function when our government cannot be held to account because MPs cannot gain access to the parliament building for eleven weeks. If the terrorist threat is so severe, severe enough to consume virtually your entire news coverage, why has Tony Blair failed to recall parliament and provide assurances to our elected democratic representatives that his government has taken all the necessary steps to deal with it, instead of sunning himself on the beach in Barbados.

Given that you've reported that he knew of this threat before he departed for his holiday he's hardly demonstrating Churchillian leadership qualities in light of an 'alleged' genuine threat to the safety of the people. I understood that the security of the nation was a primary duty of government. It seems odd that none of these issues strikes your news reporters as pertinent or relevant to the safety of our people or the functional accountability of power within our representative democracy.

As your own report states that the police investigation has so far taken eight months does the contradiction in John Reid's comments, in your same news bulletins, not strike you as obvious. If the police, security services and government have been aware of the danger of liquid explosives on flights for eight months then why has it taken them this long to act? Do you not consider it possible for the authorities to have banned liquids and gels in hand-baggage on flights from the moment the danger was realised? Does this not strike your reporters as “in any way complacent” to quote John Reid? Are you happy to imply in your news bulletins that Tony Blair's government has such a total contempt and utter disregard for the safety of the people as it does for its democratic accountability to them?

Not only did they fail to act to protect the safety of the people by banning liquids and gels when the threat was first identified, but they couldn't even be bothered to raise the phoney security level until AFTER the police had arrested the alleged suspects. Does this not strike your reporters as utterly incompetent as well as complacent? Your reporters appeared to justify this lack of activity on the grounds of cost.

What is worse is that some of your coverage has even indicated that explosive tests were carried out by the FBI following the arrest of Ramzi Yousef 10 years ago. And you go on to link him, and his known methods copied by al-qaeda, that were first identified in a Ramzi Yousef plot some 12 years ago. The security services and police are not elected into office. If they've known about these threats for so long, why has it taken them until now to convince government to act to protect the people?[1].[2]. Don't you think your reporters should ask questions like these, in the interests of BBC balance and impartiality?

What is even worse is that you report the department of transport as expressing the hope that the ban on liquids and gels on flights will only be 'temporary'. Is the department of transport telling you that this 'temporary' ban will be lifted for liquid and gel bomb making equipment shortly or that the ban on all bomb making equipment in hand luggage is only temporary? Don't you think your reporters have a duty to seek clarification on statements like this?

By failing to challenge any of this story in any credible way you are actively promoting scepticism when the threats could actually be genuine. I don't think it worth commenting on your reporters surreal and inflammatory language, peppered with caveats about an event that did not happen. You can read it for yourselves above. It's without doubt some of the worst reporting paraded as factual news I've ever seen produced by the BBC.

I'd suggest that the something that happened in the last couple of days was that back-bench MPs demanded a recall of parliament to hold Tony Blair to account for his aiding and abetting of war-crimes in the Israeli/Lebanon conflict and the media have been told to 'bury' the story. Oh, and I would not call taking action after 12 years of prior knowledge acting “in the nick-of-time” either. It's blatantly untrue to report such an absurd claim.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Fainton

[1] http://www.indianexpress.com/story/10326.html
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramzi_Yousef

Article which raises similar concerns:

http://tinyurl.com/rcjfq

[Peter Fainton]

----- Original Message ----
From: zzHelen Boaden Complaints <HelenBoaden>
To: PETER FAINTON
Sent: Friday, 25 August, 2006 7:18:32 PM
Subject: RE: BBC 'alleged' bomb plot coverage

Dear Mr Fainton

Thank you for your thoughtful and interesting email. As I am sure you can appreciate I receive a considerable amount of correspondence and it is simply not possible for me to enter into editorial discussion with every individual who contacts me. If you wish to make a complaint about coverage, the best way is via the webforms on the BBC's complaints website at www.bbc.co.uk/complaints - in the interests of efficiency, we prefer complaints to be processed and logged centrally and staff, such as myself, are contacted for the responses as appropriate.

Yours sincerely
Helen Boaden
Director, BBC News

My Response:

Dear Ms Boaden,

thank you for your courteous and thoughtful response. I'm delighted that you found my observations on your News bulletins of 11 August, 2006, "interesting". Of course, I'm gratified that you offered no defence of this abysmal reporting paraded as factual news, but an explanation is in order I believe. Clearly your role as director of BBC News does not extend to enforcing BBC regulations for balance and impartiality, stipulated under your current operating charter. If it did, then your News bulletins would have been obliged to advise the licence payers, who provide your operating revenue, of the far higher dangers of being injured by the proverbial Clapham omnibus than the alleged "terrorist scare" which filled the BBC News bulletins.

It is clear that BBC News has a priority role of serving the establishment elites who govern our country, rather than those of us who merely fund its output. Perhaps this explains why the BBC provided alternative News coverage to Tony Blair's collusion in war crimes and the failure of UK democracy to call his continued abuses of power to account. Facts like these are clearly more important to the British people than the allegations and rumours trotted out by establishment elites to the BBC so that Tony Blair can sun himself in Barbados.

As director of BBC News, one wonders what exactly you "direct"? If you are not responsible for the content of BBC News, why do you have a job title that indicates that you are in charge? What are you in charge of? Do your duties extend beyond parroting government orthodoxies from Downing Street spin-doctors to provide cover for Tony Blair's war crimes?
Perhaps, when you're not too busy "directing" you'd be kind enough to enlighten me.

Having established that the BBC complaints system is just a time consuming establishment "fob-off" mechanism, I've no desire to process another formal complaint. Futile gestures of this kind are a complete waste of time. As you will be aware I have made complaints in the past when you introduced repeated News Bulletins with "Dr Kelly/Walter Mitty", as advised by Tom Kelly, the Downing Street spin-doctor, before the man was even buried. I also complained when you slandered the late Dr Kelly on Have I got News for You and your complaints panel judged that because the libel about him had been printed in the Sun newspaper, it was okay for the BBC to ridicule this man by repeating these slanderous remarks.

Of course, you'll be aware that every instance of a libel is a new offence and that the same applies when slandering someone. Your complaints team took comfort in the fact that you cannot slander or libel the dead because they no longer have a reputation to protect. However, as I made clear in my complaint, I've no wish to fund the BBC to ridicule a dead scientist on behalf of the establishment, just because he exposed Tony Blair's lies on the absurd 45 minute claim.

I also complained when Peter Mandelson took over the BBC Newsnight studio to spout propaganda aimed at frightening back-bench Labour MPs back into line, without any balance provided by any other political representative. Jeremy Paxman completely failed to challenge anything Mandelson had to say. This was a political henchman, acting on Tony Blair's instructions, using the BBC Newsnight studio as a propaganda megaphone; funded by licence payers - an utter disgrace.

Having established that the BBC complaints system is a complete sham when it's challenged by legitimate complaints of matters of substance I chose to write to you personally about this matter as your title suggests you are in charge of BBC News output. If you are not responsible then please be kind enough to advise me who within the BBC organisation is responsible for BBC News content and I will gladly write to them.

If you are responsible, as I've taken the time to transcribe for you the howling contradictions, hyperbole, and establishment rumours and allegations that the BBC News filled its broadcasts with by exaggerating an alleged threat far beyond the factual level of danger it represented - a gross distortion of statistical probabilities and fact even if the alleged plot were true - then perhaps you'd be kind enough to offer an explanation of why the BBC chose to try to frighten the public in this way at this time and call it News. I'd be most grateful if you could respond to the specific points I've raised in my original email. After all, that was the purpose of writing to you and detailing them for your attention.

After some consideration I'm also going to post my response to your above "polite fob-off" email, on medialens so that the world can see that the director of BBC News directs her reporters to parrot government orthodoxies to cover for Tony Blair's war crimes, directs her reporters not to question official "allegations" and directs her reporters not to question the failures of UK democracy to hold the war criminal Tony Blair to account for his crimes against humanity and abuse of crown powers. Hopefully, other people who fund the BBC through licence fees will recognise the establishment propaganda role of BBC News, the failure of the BBC complaints system, and your personal failure to address critical issues of substance in your capacity as director of BBC News.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Fainton