Posted on 07/20/2003 2:11:43 PM PDT by demlosers
The BBC will this week embark on the largest damage limitation exercise, arguably, of its 76-year history.
A team of top executives and in-house lawyers will begin assembling documents, transcripts and tapes relating to the intelligence dossiers on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and the corporation's reliance on David Kelly, the government scientist found dead last week, as its main source for those stories.
Ostensibly, the team is preparing evidence for the judicial inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Mr Kelly's death. In reality, their work could determine the future regulation, editorial controls and structure of the publicly-funded broadcaster.
"Everybody is completely reeling from this," according to one insider. "We are putting together a team to look at each stage of what happened."
The stakes could not be higher.
At the BBC's central London headquarters, executives led by Greg Dyke, director general, are determined to prevent the affair from escalating into a campaign to reform the BBC.
Britain's publicly-funded broadcaster - which receives £2.66bn a year in licence fee income - fears that a broader shake-up could jeopardise its worldwide reputation and international expansion plans.
The inquiry coincides with intense media scrutiny both at home and abroad. Sky News, the satellite channel controlled by BSkyB - in which Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation holds a controlling stake - last week announced the resignation of a senior correspondent found to have faked a story during the Iraq war.
In the US, some TV networks have been criticised for flag-waving and unquestioning coverage of the conflict.
In Britain on Sunday, Gerald Kaufman, chairman of the House of Commons culture committee, on Sunday called for Ofcom, the new media regulator, to take over regulation of BBC editorial content from the corporation's board of governors.
"The corporation has a great deal to answer for. They started all this," he said. "The first thing they should do is apologise and conduct a rigorous internal inquiry."
Ofcom is already due to begin a review of public service broadcasting next year; it will ask searching questions of the BBC. But the government has no plans to extend Ofcom's remit, to cover BBC accuracy and impartiality.
The challenge for Mr Dyke is to make sure the government does not change its mind. Failure to do so would overshadow BBC preparations for defending its public service charter, due to expire at the end of 2006.
Up to now, the BBC has won acclaim for defending its independence. But Mr Kelly's death dramatically altered the importance of the slanging match with Downing Street.
The row began on May 29, when Andrew Gilligan, defence correspondent for the Today radio programme, quoted "a British official who was involved in the preparation of the [intelligence] dossier" who claimed it was "transformed in the week before it was published, to make it sexier".
Alastair Campbell, Downing Street's communications director, was furious. He accused the BBC of branding Tony Blair a liar and suggesting the prime minister led the country to war on a false premise.
In briefings, media interviews and parliamentary committees meetings, government ministers queued up to attack the BBC. The corporation, in turn, claimed Downing Street was deflecting attention its justification for going to war.
Mr Kelly, whom the ministry of defence named as the likely source for the BBC stories, was caught between the two.
Until on Sunday, the corporation refused to confirm whether the UN weapons inspector was the source for the Gilligan report.
The BBC decision, however, served only to increase the pressure on Mr Kelly. Sunday's admission that he was the principal source for both Mr Gilligan and another BBC report leaves the corporation exposed on several other fronts.
Mr Kelly told members of Parliament that from his contacts with Mr Gilligan "I do not see how he could make the authoritative statement that he was making from the comments that I made".
Mr Gilligan is now on "gardening leave". One official said: "He will not be broadcasting for the moment".
After an emergency meeting of the governors on July 6, Mr Davies said corporation guidelines allowed reporters, in exceptional circumstances, to use single anonymous sources if they were "senior intelligence sources".
Richard Sambrook, director of news, meanwhile, had told the Today programme: "We've always said that we had one senior and credible source in the intelligence services".
Mr Kelly was not a member of the intelligence services.
The head of news - who did not know Mr Kelly's identity at the time - now admits he was wrong to make that statement.
The governors have ordered a review of impartiality rules. And the teams working on Charter renewal are expected to include a detailed case for the independence of BBC news.
All that could be undermined by a damning verdict from the judicial inquiry. But the new BBC team, which will be led by a non-news executive, intends to prevent that outcome.
"We would be surprised if this was allowed to contaminate the broader future of the BBC," according to one BBC director. "But we are leaving nothing to chance."
When last there, it was about 65 UK Pounds per year. This was for a colour Licence, its less for B&W.
Also a easy thing to do for the government.
End of Story
However the problems this would cause would be two fold.
1. It would mean he has to go to a court of law and they have to produce evidence and he has a defence lawyer who can call any polititian to the court to give evidence, without the aid of Rasputin Spin doctors.
Therefore they would have to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
The Truth telling would also include the BBC reporter, so this would be the best solution, if you want to get at the truth and put the so called bad boys of the BBC in their place.
2. If he is found gulity, and he can only be found guilty if he was telling the truth when he spoke to the BBC. If he lied, giving false information would not be breaking the offical secrets act.
You have to be giving information that has come into your possesion, that could put the lives of UK citizens in the employ of her majesties government or damage the government of the UK. Therefore they wanted to destroy the man publically with out the trial, that's why Jack Straw informed the government comittee to take it easy on the man, as he probably new he was very close to the edge.
Mr Kelly killed himself, but Tony Blair, Alistar Campbell and Jack Straw all had their hand on the knife and as so many of the press around the world are saying, they have blood on their hands.
I apologize for what will be a personal attack of sorts - though hopefully you'll take it as a slight against your reasoning and not you as a person - (not to worry, since this thread is old, I'm sure no one will notice except for you.) I really don't like people with your tag line making statements like this.
You have been claiming that Blair is at fault here (or we can even expand that to the larger British government) for this man's death because they released his name. Now, for the sake of argument, let's concede that they did release the name. Let's go further and say they aggresively got his name printed on every billboard in London.
My question was "so what?" You're response is well, they did this as an alternative to prosecuting him. Is that really the problem with releasing his name? Wouldn't his name have been released if he was being prosecuted? If I had a choice of either (a) having my name released as the source of some information or (b) having my name released as the source of some information and then being prosecuted for violations of something like the "official secrets act," I think I'd happily take option a). I mean, if I really wanted to be prosecuted so my "truth" would come out, I could just keep it up . . . and be more intellectually honest at the same time - putting a face to my statements. The government does, in all such cases, have the OPTION of prosecution. This isn't some new concept - we've had it since, uh, Hammurabi.
The natural order of things is that if people like Kelly want to go spill their guts to the press, they should expect repercussions, like public scorn, stress, etc. No government could allow a free press if people like Kelly were allowed to operate in the shadows perfectly untouchable and anonymously.
Imagine, 1941, Messrs. Wilson, Dunagee, and Hawkins working in the OSS, the Dept. of State, and the Dept. of Defense, respectively. Wilson and Dunagee are actually German agents. Hawkins hates the current administration because he only got a 2% raise in 1940 and doesn't expect a bigger one this year. As entry into WWII is being debated, these 3 undertake to undermine the war effort. They secretly go to the press and feed information about Hitler not being bad at all, about the lies, that all of the atrocities are being either exaggerated or commited by British soldiers wearing German uniforms, that the Wermacht is harmless and efficient (and all of the intelligence says so). Now, FDR finds out about these yahoos leaking info to the NYT, which delightfully argued their case (until Stalin was invaded of course). Should these three gentlemen continue to enjoy their cushy bureaucratic jobs without ever being exposed? Of course not. That's the trade off. You get to be a bureaucrat - but you are a PUBLIC official. If you do bad things, the PUBLIC has the right to know about it.
(That doesn't mean that a government has an obligation to prosecute you for those bad things - they are given discretion.)
I fail to see your point in the slightest. It's like I asked what color the man's shirt was and you answered "the girl's skirt is green." I still want to understand your issue here - but only if it's somewhat intellectually honest. If you're just some DU loser here, don't bother wasting either of our time any more.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.