bbc lessons
So the lesson of BBC is that if you're misleading about whether the government misled you into war, management must resign. What about the simpler case -- you're just misleading about going to war?
Meanwhile, BBC employees organize to fight the chill of government sponsored scolding. And some non-BBC Brits, shocked at the scolding, organize to ask the simpler case -- in Britain.
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Comments (26)
Not a word noting that the BBC is state-funded, mandatory media? That it's a prime example of the kind of control against which you rightly rail in Code and The Future of Ideas? A distressing omission.
In Code, you're right, I rail against "control" of the press. But there are lots of possible sources of control. If you're going to have a state funded media, then it ought to be protected at least by a strong norm of independence. Scoldings like this are likely to weaken any such norm. That's the point of my railing.
I'm surprised there hasn't been more discussion about how likely it is that both the Kay report in the U.S. and the Hutton court in the UK are just setting up cover for their respective governments (and, essentially, employers). I noted that a large number of British citizens think the Hutton findings were a "whitewash." Given what Alistair Campbell actually did, I think that is an accurate view. The BBC were essentially correct.
Another funny aspect to this nonsense is the spectacle of one whitewash report in the U.S. insisting the intelligence was wrong, while simultaneously in Britain we are being assured the intelligence was right. Sorry folks, should have gotten your stories straight before you went public with your orders. They cannot both be simultaneously true considering that the U.S. and Britain were pooling their intelligence at the time.
In this case, the problem wasn't as much that they mistakenly accused Blair and his administration of lying about the death of the weapon's expert, but that they fully backed the journalist that reported on the story, when the story itself stood on shaky grounds, and didn't investigate on any of the Government's complaints. If only it had been as simple as misleading about going to war... Normally I'd agree with criticism of the resignation of management, but in this case, "blocking", or refusing to start, an investigation about what was and still is a serious matter (the PM recieved a lot of flak in the House for lying to them, and only recently has a court shown that there was no foul play), someone's head had to roll.
Had they investigated the matter when asked, they could have rapidly backpeddaled and appologized, all would have been well and they could have continued their usual criticism of the PM. Bad decisions were made, and they now have to live with the consequences. Once again, the whole affair is blown on a technicality...
Accountability is a horrible thing
Why bother with accurate reporting? Its bad for the government to "sex up" the intelligence to meet a predetermined outcome, but OK for the state-run, taxpayer supported news media to mislead the people?
Why is Fox News kicking the crap out of the competition? Must be a conservative plot. Maybe people are tired of the perceived Lib bias in the mainstream news and CNN. Maybe they want more facts and more views from the left and the right (Fox has more Democrats and Liberals presenting their viewpoints than CNN, and the rest).
(INSERT SARCASM HERE)Then again, PBS and NPR are wonderful examples of taxpayer funded media that represents ALL the people in this country - both the Blue and Red states. Yeah, right.
My point exactly, SeanB. De-fund the BBC, allow the marketplace to work in the context of news and information, and then the debate can be about the intel rather than about the BBC.
But what of misleading about misleading on the subject of being misled? Surely the more complex the scenario, the more heads for the chopping. Simple, obvious cases must have a nil risk for their makers.
misleading about misleading on the subject of being misled
George just broke my brain.
First, this episode needs no parsing. The British press cut corners. They pushed a guy over the edge, and he offed himself. Period. Like the New York Times made-up story fiasco, it was lack of due diligence, simple carelessness. At the BBC, it was motivated by a rabid anti-war bias. Somehow that has a greater stench.
Second, a "whitewash report in the US" saying intelligence was wrong? Intelligence WAS wrong. It is not a whitewash to say so. While WMDs have not been found, Mr. Kay told the Congress that ISG teams investigating bio-warfare activities in Iraq found evidence suggesting that "Iraq after 1996 compartmentalized its program and focused on maintaining smaller, covert capabilities that could be activated quickly to surge production of biological warfare agents." Hence no need for big stockpiles which would need concealment. Plus, the ties between Iraq and Al-Qaeda have turned out to be much greater than some have predicted. See "Case Closed" in The Weekly Standard (11/24/03). That connection should have been emphasized as a justification for war more than the WMDs. But this is known only in hindsight. If Bush thought they had mass stockpiles of WMDs, he is no different from Clinton, Gore, and others, who are on record in that belief.
So, it is not a matter of whitewash. It is a matter of showing that the real threat was more in one area, and less in another. The press is mostly silent about the growing evidence of Iraq's connection with terrorist groups. If there is any whitewash going on, it is their refusal to tell that story.
It is hard to understand from a US perspective, but coming from Canada, I understand the Hutton inquiry findings and the resulting resignations.
The Beeb is publicly funded (ie. the full force of the government backs the extraction of funds from British citizens).
Like in Canada, the Beeb has come to be populated by employees who mostly have a singular political leaning. When the government acts against that leaning, BBC personnel look upon themselves as her Majesty's loyal opposition and lose all objectivity in their reporting. This leads to short cuts that compromise the integrity of the institution. This institution, unlike the government, has no internal "loyal opposition" to question its actions and ethics, with the exception of the board. This lack of a self checking system requires external checks to ensure its mandate is followed or else its mandate should be rescinded.
All of that became clear in the Hutton report.
I don't know why anyone should be disappointed that an institution that is paid for by the public to be objective and non-partisan is scolded for failing on those counts.
Look, it's very simple. The BBC report about what Alistair Campbell said and did was basically correct. The whitewashing is designed to make people think otherwise by waving everything else in people's faces.
The intelligence in the U.S. was basically correct until Cheney formed his own intelligence task force to give him the answers he wanted. The whitewashing here is trying to make the CIA look as if they screwed up, when it was really Cheney's team that did, while the CIA was telling the truth.
While there is a lot of sentimental fondness for the BBC in Britain, most of the press agree with Hutton that the Gilligan report had an unfounded allegation that Downing Street had transformed the work of the JIC - the intelligence chiefs.
And they agree that BBC management made a total cock-up by failing to investigate whether Gilligan had reported his source correctly. Gilligan was a liar, and his lie put Kelly in an awful position. Gilligan then compounded things by releasing Dr Kelly's name as the source for Susan Watts to members of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee.
There was a systemic failure at the BBC. Heads needed to roll. End of story.
Well, not end of story. Maybe there were changes needed at the BBC. But there were also changes needed in the government where they also made a total cock-up of things. The whitewash is only reporting the first part, not the second too.
phædrus
Are you sure? I am unaware of any such bias at the Beeb. In fact I believe that during and before the war its bias was for the war. It did cut corners and it cut corners on other stories. For example, during the war the it reported military briefings as fact rather than as military briefings.
Neither Hutton nor the government has answered these questions. Why was the BBC singled out rather than the Mail on Sunday, for which Gilligan reported the same story, or other papers which were critical of the government's build up to invasion? Why must the government have a row with the BBC, when the BBC is not independent of the government (despite what it might say) and the BBC is the most pro-war mainstream news source that is not owned by Rupert Murdoch? Why was the government considered to be almost entirely innocent of causing Dr Kelly's death?
These questions, which were raised in mainstream new sources (including the BBC), have not been answered, but buried by the Hutton report. Why were politicians and their PR advisers allowed to interfere in intelligence? Why was intelligence selectively published to build public support for the war through fear? Why was that intelligence wrong or misleading or both?
Tim Ivorson, you must not have watched BBC's coverage of the Iraq war if you really believe they were in any way supportive; their lavish coverage of every minor setback to the liberation of the Iraqis was only slightly more even-handed than Al Jazeera's.
Gilligan worked for the BBC, not for the Mail, and it was his employers who had to take the blame for his Big Lie.
And for those who've not been following, that lie was that the bad intelligence on Saddam's weapons inventory was not an honest mistake but a calculated lie manufactured by leadership.
If the left hadn't spent the last 30 years eviserating foreign intelligence services, this might not have happened, but you get what you pay for and the bill for weak and ineffective CIA and MI6 is now past due.
Richard Bennett
I did follow some of the BBC's war coverage and I didn't notice anything that was unfair to the government.
Iraqis have not yet been liberated. Iraq is under the control of unelected leaders at the will of the invading forces. The invading forces have maintained leading Ba'athists in charge of government departments and have opposed the establishment of a democratic body to write the Iraqi constitution.
Of course, the BBC and Al Jazeera leave a lot to be desired. Why do you single out these two news sources? I believe that Al Jazeera was non-partisan, unlike Murdoch news sources, especially Fox News, which did not pretend that it did not take the side of the invading forces against Iraqis.
The BBC's error was to allow Gilligan to give a live unscripted interview and to fail to withdraw his comments. Gilligan did what the government did. He made a mistake. The government and Gilligan were both wrong, but neither lied. Gilligan has been held to account, despite making the less severe mistake. Now it is time for the government to be held to account for its mistake. Gilligan may have been lazy and incompetent, but his story was essentially true. If Iraq had had chemical, nuclear or biological weapons, then the dossier's 45 minute claim would have been misleading (as it only refered to battlefield use, but the mainstream media was not able to report this and Murdoch's The Sun newspaper ran the headline "45 Minutes To Doom"). In fact, the dossier was not merely misleading, but wrong.
The left cannot take responsibility for the actions of the BBC. What about the rightists who opposed the war? Are they responsible for the incompetence of the government's own news source?
As an American living in London, there are two things that constantly perplex me. First, why they don't immediately guillotine the royal family, and second, why they don't abolish/privatize the BBC and the regressive "license fee" tax (& hilariously retro but scary antenna van enforcement apparatus) that supports it. So while I have learned by this time to expect sympathy with the Beeb from the locals, I am surprised to see it cropping up so strongly among Americans. I would think that even the NPR set (of which I count myself a part) would not naturally be disposed to support giant state-owned media monstrosities.
Quite apart from the merits (on which it seems the government is probably right), this situation is surely good if it pushes the UK a step toward reforming this anachronism.
daw
I'm a Brit living in Britain and I agree with you on both counts. (Actual guillotining of royals is not necessary, instead they should be deposed and made to work as postmen for the Royal Mail).
Some of us fail to express our opposition to the BBC because we distrust other news sources even more. Many of us wory that the government will use opposition to existing institutions that provide checks and balances on the government's power (including the BBC, but more importantly the House of Lords) will be used as an excuse to increase government power. I doubt that the checks and balances on government power work as it is, so I am not so afraid.
I would not defend the current BBC against calls for its disolution. To gain my support it would have to get its funding from non-regressive taxation or for-profit activities; recognise the direct authority of the British public; open its archives using licenses that allow redistribution and use the internet for audio and video distribution instead of repeat broadcasts; surrender some frequencies to unlicensed use and reduce the scale of its public service broacasting, especially television, to a level where I could expect to follow everything that interests me and still be a productive member of society.
So, to summarise. The BBC are liars, their reporting is biased, the licence fee should be abolished, and the free market should decide.
You have to see what happens in such circumstances: You end up with News Channels that are rabidly extremist and yet get away with calling themselves "fair and balanced".
This is not a question of left-wing or right-wing, but of truth and lies. The Bush and Blair administrations either:
Lied - in which case they can't be trusted;
Got it wrong - in which case they are stupid;
Didn't ask for more - in which case they are incompetant.
Whatever happened, why are the people who point this out resigning, while they wriggle and squirm to try and hold onto their positions?
Max
The BBC should be held to account. Partly for its inprecision in criticising the government, but mostly for failing to sufficiently report criticism of, or to criticise, the government.
Contrary to a lot of the sentiments expressed here, the BBC is undoubtedly the most respected public sector institution in Britain, and its reporting is held in much higher regard than that of any other media outlet. That's not to say that they didn't make a mistake on this occasion. But the Hutton report is widely seen as one-sided and the government's behaviour in its aftermath has been highly objectionable. Even newspapers that are normally highly critical of the BBC (e.g. the Daily Mail) have declared the report a 'whitewash'. All opinion polls suggest that the BBC has actually come out of this week with stronger support among the general public, while the government's popularity has continued to decline.
Americans might find the idea of a state-run broadcaster strange or even scary, but it could be worse: at least our broadcasters are allowed to criticise government policy without fear of being labelled 'unpatriotic'. Now that would be really scary.
America has state-run broadcasters too. CBS, NBC, and ABC are all owned by giant corporate comglomerates. These corporations pay money to Congress to get the legislation they want, and they contribute to Presidential candidates so the President will do what they want. For all intents and purposes, corporations call the shots in America today. Ergo they run the country in some fairly fundamental manner. And thus America has state-run broadcasters in the sense that the companies the produce the news are the same companies that set the course of American policy, and thus they have an incentive to report the news as they see fit.
The present-day BBC isn't worth defending. Whether you watch them or not, if you live in the UK, the government forces you to pay that broadcaster (and no other) roughly $200/year for each set you own. That's why they are so flush with money. Refuse to pay and you become a criminal.
Any news organization that bankrolls itself by coercion isn't one that's worth respecting or defending. A BBC that already steals other people's money has now been caught in a massive lie. Why anyone is suprised is beyond me.
--Mike Perry
Mike Perry
The surprise is that the BBC supposedly slandered its partner in crime, the governement.
I hardly call a slip of the tongue something broadcast at 605 am as a massive lie. If you belive that the BBC was a massively biased against the Gulf war 2, that what would you make of the other Public Service channe Channel 4 whose flag ship progamme took a conscious decision to provide take an anti-war stance.
The BBC, in its patriarchal, beauracratic manifestations, has an innate pro-state bias. This has of course been counteracted historically by individuals working collaboratively on projects of great energy, probity and pasion for the truth. But the Government has always retained hands-off control. In wartime this is supposed to become more hands-on: blatent propaganda in fact. It's laid down in the BBC Royal Charter that the Corporatin becomes an arm of government - it becomes the propaganda ministry, in effect. All quite legal and above board in time of war. Except that this time, the BBC didn't want to play that game, they wanted to be free to tell the story of the war as they wanted. That's not anti-war bias, but I think that the invasion was so divisive and polarising an event in the whole sphere of opinion, reportage and the idea of 'news' it was difficult for the BBC to be impartial without being percieced as having an anti-war bias.
The BBC remains, however, biased towards corporatism and, to some extent, the state. In my view, it should retian its public service ideals without all the sub-Reithian baggage, and I don't see a privatisation model that could achieve this. Instaed, I think it needs to find a way to move from a corporate structure towards a more federal structure built on local strength and public access, while retaining a national role as a 'publisher' and service provider. The licence fee could then be reduced in price or at least fund other activites or other bodies (a nationalised ISP?), increasing its value. Additional funds could be raised locally in a federal structure. A bit like the old ITV, with local programme making feeding to a wider network.
The BBC is already moving towards strengthening local production in its regional centres. And parts of the BBC have already been privatised; commerce is handled by BBC Worldwide and other bodies which provide income.
One salient question: why is Richard Sambrooke, head of BBC News and Current Affairs, still in his job when Dyke, Davies and Gilligan had to resign? How come he gets away with it?