BBC Workers Back Ex-Director in Iraq Flap

Thousands of British Broadcasting Corp. employees took out a full-page newspaper ad Saturday voicing support for the chief executive who resigned after a judge harshly criticized a BBC report alleging the government exaggerated evidence on Iraqi weapons.

The Daily Telegraph ad backing former BBC director general Greg Dyke came a day after the resignation of Andrew Gilligan, the correspondent who broadcast the radio piece that set off a bitter feud between the network and the government. Gilligan's was the third resignation prompted by the judicial report.

His May 29 piece quoted an anonymous official as saying the government had "sexed up" intelligence in a September 2002 dossier summing up evidence on Iraqi weapons for the public.

Government scientist David Kelly killed himself days after being identified as the source of the report, and Lord Hutton, a senior appeals judge, was appointed to investigate the death.

On Wednesday, Hutton exonerated the government but excoriated the BBC, calling Gilligan's report "unfounded," the broadcaster's editorial procedures "defective" and the board of governors' oversight inadequate.

In a statement, Gilligan apologized for mistakes in his story but slammed Hutton's verdict, which many critics have called one-sided.

"My departure is at my own initiative," the reporter said. "But the BBC collectively has been the victim of a grave injustice.

"I love the BBC and I am resigning because I want to protect it. I accept my part in the crisis which has befallen the organization. But a greater part has been played by the unbalanced judgments of Lord Hutton."

Dyke and BBC chairman Gavyn Davies, the broadcaster's two top officials, quit and the BBC apologized to the government after the report was issued.

Staff have expressed strong support for Dyke, and hundreds rallied outside BBC offices around the country when he announced his resignation.

More than four thousand BBC workers' names were listed in tiny print in a full-page Daily Telegraph ad backing Dyke Saturday, and the ad said more names would have been listed if there was more space.

"Greg Dyke stood for brave, independent and rigorous BBC journalism that was fearless in its search for truth," the ad said. "We are dismayed by Greg's departure but we are determined to maintain his achievements and his vision for an independent organization that serves the public above all else."

BBC employees, anchors, reporters and contributors paid for the ad personally, it said.

Some journalists have warned Hutton's conclusions could impede tough investigative reporting.

Dyke said he and other BBC officials had been "absolutely shocked" by Hutton's report, which he argued had "given the benefit of doubt to every government witness and not to any at the BBC."

"Lord Hutton does seem to suggest that is not enough for a broadcaster or a newspaper ... to simply report what a whistleblower or someone like Dr. Kelly says because they are an authoritative source. You have to demonstrate that it's true," he told BBC radio. "That would change the law in this country."

Hutton said the allegations quoted in the report were "very grave" and faulted BBC editors for failing to review what Gilligan was going to say before he went on the air with the first, and strongest, version of his story.

The reporter broadcast that version just after 6 a.m. without a script. Crucially, he said that officials insisted on including in the dossier a claim - that Iraq could deploy some chemical and biological weapons on 45 minutes' notice - that the government "probably knew ... was wrong."

"I attributed this to David Kelly; it was in fact an inference of mine," Gilligan said in his resignation statement.

"The government did sex up the dossier, transforming possibilities and probabilities into certainties, removing vital caveats; the 45-minute claim was the 'classic example' of this; and many in the intelligence services, including the leading expert in WMD, were unhappy about it," he said.

Blair's 10 Downing St. had no comment on the resignation or Gilligan's new comments.

"Greg Dyke stood for brave, independent and rigorous BBC journalism that was fearless in its search for truth," the ad said. "We are dismayed by Greg's departure but we are determined to maintain his achievements and his vision for an independent organization that serves the public above all else."

What is routine journalistic perspective, freely published by every Tom, Dick, and Harry, scarcely merits the labels "brave" or "independent".

And what, I persist in asking, is "rigorous" about reports which imply or state outright things which in historical retrospect are nonsense?

It is not the government but the reporters who are at war with the truth.
A battle which they consistently fight, and win.

"Greg Dyke stood for brave, independent and rigorous BBC journalism that was fearless in its search for truth," the ad said. "We are dismayed by Greg's departure but we are determined to maintain his achievements and his vision for an independent organization that serves the public above all else."

This reveals the fundamental problem in journalism today. They feel they are crusaders for public justice, not impartial scribes of events as they ocurred with no agenda attached. True journalism serves no master, not the adminsitration or the public as a whole, it merely observes all and records it. But with the "public service" view in place if the reporter feel a war or other policy initiative is morally wrong, he feels entitled, no...obligated, to seek out only that information which will work to undermine that war. Politicians, of course, do the same thing, but then their charter isnt to be impartial and report all the facts god and bad. Their charter is to persuade and so too does the media believes its charter to be.

with the "public service" view in place, if the reporter feel a war or other policy initiative is morally wrong, he feels entitled, no...obligated, to seek out only that information which will work to undermine that war.

The fallacy lies in the belief that reportable news just comes over the transom, without any agenda until the reporters and editors apply it.
To the contrary, journalists go looking for stories which will hold the public's attention--and there are well-known rules for that. "If it bleeds, it leads", for one. "Man Bites Dog" and not the reverse, for another.
Think of the implications of that last one for a moment. In a country with a free press, the government does in fact respect human rights quite broadly--else it would first have to muzzle the press. But "Government Respects Human Rights--Again" is no kind of headline for a self-respecting editor. So the editor and the reporter are actively looking for the exception to that rule--with the result that a decent government is always subject to attack in the press--and always from the left.
To complain about that is to complain that water ran downhill--as usual.
In the immortal words of Ronald Reagan: "There you go again!" is all we can say.
Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate

All due respect, but your thesis that the press will, in essence, always seek to buck authority because therin lies the juice may be true, but it depends on how you define authority. For example, if the president is under investigation by an independant counsel, the authority to challenge vigorously is the President (it he is Reagan and the scandal is Iran Contra) or the independant counsel (if he is investigating Clinton and the Scandal is...pick one). Both are chasing a juicy story, but the perspective put on it are the result of personal inclinations, and that is where the ailing of modern journalism is. Reporters dont report, they spin (IMHO).

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