Posted on 08/11/2002 5:13:49 PM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
Veteran journalist alleges that it tried to influence negative reports before they were broadcast
LONDON - Downing Street allegedly hacked into the BBC's computer system in order to influence negative news reports before they were broadcast, British newspapers reported yesterday.
Quoting from a new book by BBC world affairs editor John Simpson, the reports said that government officials had telephoned BBC reporters on several occasions to persuade them to temper bulletins that had not yet been transmitted.
Alarmed that Downing Street staff seemed to know about the contents of their reports in advance, BBC journalists reported the incidents to their editors who investigated the apparent breaches of computer security, The Sunday Telegraph reported.
An investigation by the BBC into the allegations failed to turn up any evidence of government officials hacking into the broadcaster's computer system, but Mr Simpson insists that BBC staff were 'morally certain' it had happened.
Downing Street dismissed Mr Simpson's claims as 'complete rubbish and utter drivel'.
A BBC spokesman told The Independent: 'We don't discuss issues of security.
'However, we are continually reviewing the security of our systems and we always aim to maintain complete impartiality in our political journalism.'
An unnamed BBC broadcaster told the Telegraph that the BBC knew who the hacker was, but lacked the proof to make a complaint.
Two other senior BBC journalists were quoted saying that the investigations into the hacking allegations were conducted after Labour's 1997 election victory.
Tensions between the BBC and the British government were running high then over the Labour Party's attempts to 'manage' news coverage.
Several former BBC employees were investigated to see if they could still use known passwords to obtain access to the newsroom computer system. Such computer hacking was made illegal by the Computer Misuse Act of 1990.
In his book News From No Man's Land, Mr Simpson described one incident where an unidentified BBC correspondent noticed that when he wrote a script on the newsroom computer for the next news bulletin, 'he would be rung up by Downing Street before it was broadcast and lobbied on a point or two'.
The veteran broadcast journalist added: 'This didn't happen just once or twice. Downing Street has also rung up The World at One programme to complain about the items it was planning to run.'
Mr Simpson alleged that the tactics were part of widespread attempts by the government to pressure the media into more favourable coverage of its policies.
While he does not identify the journalists involved, he maintains that 'several colleagues are morally certain that it has happened'.
Tory frontbencher David Davis told The Independent he would contact the chairman of the BBC Board of Governors and demand the BBC publish its internal inquiry of the alleged breeches.
He was quoted saying: 'If John Simpson's allegations are correct, then No 10 and Labour Party staff seem to have been complicit in a criminal act.
'At the very least, it would seem that there has been systematic action by No 10 and the Labour Party to break the BBC's charter which requires impartiality.'
"But I feeeeeeeeeeel they did it. That should be plenty."
LOL
A new notion that is coming to a public school near me?
"Based on my knowledge of people like you, you must be guilty!"
/jaded cynicism
VRN
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