BBC News Presenter Silences Guest's Unapproved Comments (With Audio!)

The Daily Ablution ^ | January 29, 2004 | Scott Burgess

[pau1f0rd]

There was an odd - and very telling - moment that may have been lost in the excitement yesterday.

Former Defence Minister Lord Gilbert was appearing on The World at One, broadcast on Radio 4 immediately after the release of the Hutton Report. He tries to make a point about BBC News Director Richard Sambrook's treatment of reporters, but is immediately stifled by nervous-sounding BBC News presenter Nick Clarke:

Lord Gilbert - As for Mr. Sambrook, I hope he won't be allowed to resign. I hope he's dismissed for some of the things he's done, which I don't think Lord Hutton's really focused on, namely his relations with one of his fellow employees, Miss Susan Watts, which got the ...

Nick Clarke [interrupting] - I don't know what you're talking about - I sincerely hope that you know what you're talking about.

LG - Well, didn't you know that ...

NC [interrupting] - Shall we just leave that there? I think that would be very sensible.

LG - Well, I ...

NC [interrupting] - No, I'd rather not do that. Let's talk about [Defence Secretary] Geoff Hoon, which is what I asked you to talk about. Here is the (rather entertaining) audio of the above exchange (575K MP3 - Right click and save if your browser's uncooperative)

So ... what is it that Mr. Clarke is so desperate to hush?

It's probably the fact that BBC Science Editor Susan Watts has repeatedly claimed that, in the words of a report in The Guardian:

her bosses [made] "misguided and false" attempts to use her to corroborate Gilligan's reports and get them out of trouble.

She said she felt under "considerable internal pressure" to reveal her source, particularly from the head of news, Richard Sambrook, and chose to hire independent lawyers to represent her at the Hutton inquiry.

"I felt the purpose was to help corroborate the Andrew Gilligan allegations and not for any proper news purpose," she told the inquiry of the BBC's request that she disclose her source.If true, this is precisely the kind of "defect in the operation of the BBC's management system" about which Lord Hutton complained in his report.

The loyal presenter Mr. Clarke seems to realise that continued propogation of Ms. Watts' claims could make his News Director's position even more tenuous than it already is.

(Hint, hint).

[pau1f0rd]

Hmm... and the BBC were worried about losing their 'journalistic independence'. I'd love to be in the BBC board meeting today!

[risk]

A tremendous welcome to FR, pau1f0rd! This is our corner of commentary and advocacy for defending the Anglosphere, and therefore all that is good and free in this world.

[livius]

journalistic independence

Nowadays this seems to mean independence of the facts and the freedom to devote yourself entirely to whatever ideologically motivated fiction your fevered reportorial brain has invented. This has been true with reporters on a number of US papers lately, too.

I attribute this to classical leftist theory regarding information. After the Tawana Brawley affair (false claims by a black woman that she was raped and beaten), a leftist feminist said that it didn't matter that the claims had been false: they "could have been true," and that was the important thing.

Well, yeah, many things "could be true," but most of us expect some correlation between reality and information in order to establish truth. Not the left, though.

[cajungirl]

It is a good thing this is coming out. And again, how come British scandals are so much more delicious than ours? Their scandals always have such a panache that ours don't have? They just "do"scandal better than us.

[Renfield]

I have been listening to the BBC World Service, as well as broadcasts from many other countries, on short wave radio for 30 years. The BBC used to be the best, and was through the Thatcher years. In the early 80's it began to drift a bit leftward. In the last 5 years the quality of all its broadcasts, not just news, has slipped abominably. I can report that the BBC World Service is now more leftist, more blatantly anti-American, and less honest, than Radio Havana.

[cpdiii]

Where in the hell is MADIVAN. I miss his commentary on British Politics. He was great.

[expatpat]

In the last 5 years the quality of all its broadcasts, not just news, has slipped abominably

Greg Dyke, the 'CEO', has been there about 4 years.

[Winniesboy]

I too heard the exchange betwen Clarke and Gilbert, and was similarly intrigued.
That incident aside, there's one characteristic of the last two days which won't be apparent to those without direct access to the British media. That is that no-one has covered the Hutton findings in more excruciating detail, accompanied with painful analysis and self-flagellation, than the BBC itself. In making this observation I'm not for one moment defending the BBC: but at the same time it's difficult to imagine any other broadcaster, still less a newspaper, in the English-speaking world reacting in this way in comparable circumstances. While, like most observers, I've been largely caught up in the unfolding drama, there's a part of me which is grateful to live in a society where such paradoxes are possible.