BBC and Dr.Kelly

[Cleopatra]

Is it possible for our friends in UK to give us an account on what the hell is going on???!!!!

I have been reading the most controversial things about this issue.

Read the article below, I didn't post it all because I think that it's against the rules.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4716398,00.html


Standing firm

The David Kelly tragedy has thrust the BBC into the limelight as has
seldom happened before. Emily Bell examines the corporations's role in
the story and how it has conducted itself in the face of enormous pressure

Emily Bell
Monday July 21, 2003
The Guardian

Yesterday morning the BBC finished what it had started. Following a
final conference call between the director-general Greg Dyke, his
director of news Richard Sambrook and head of corporate affairs Sally
Osman, the corporation put out a statement confirming that
microbiologist David Kelly was the source for defence correspondent
Andrew Gilligan's by now infamous story broken on the Today Programme on
May 29.

The BBC does not relish its role at the heart of this story. It does not
want to be the organisation which brings down a government, it has had
its journalistic practices endlessly scrutinised and criticised, often
by a national press whose own hygiene standards are far lower than those
of the corporation.

It is an open secret that long before Gilligan dropped his timebomb of a
government dossier made more sexy (like many of the confusing details of
this story the words "sexed up" never appeared in his original
disclosure), the BBC had been under relentless pressure from Downing
Street's communications directorate over its coverage of the Iraq
conflict. Privately, Sambrook and his deputy Mark Damazer had seen a
daily stream of pressure and complaint about the BBC's reporting,
orchestrated by Alastair Campbell, who later described the corporation
as having an "anti-war agenda".

[LillyThePink]

Basically, the BBC produced a news story that said Tony Blair's cheif spin doctor Alistair Campbell had ordered exaggerated the threat from Iraq in order to garner public support for the war. Specifically, in the speech Blair made to the Commons, it was claimed that Sadaam Hussain was capable of mobilising/using weapons of mass destruction in 45 mins.

This is a lie.

The BBC got a source who confirmed that Campbell had ordered the changes to the intelligence dossier.

That source, offered the MOD, was Dr Kelly. Dr Kelly was grilled by a Parliamentary committee, and denied being the source.

He was treated pretty shoddily, but maintained that while he had spoken to Andrew Gilligan, the journalist in question, he could not see how the remarks he made to Gilligan could be construed in the manner of the claims.

Dr Kelly was found dead.

The BBC have confirmed that he was the source in question.

There is an awful lot of finger pointing going on.

What else can I tell you? :)

[Dragon]

Cleo -

Try this link (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3083105.stm) to the BBC for a "timeline" summary.


For more opinion you could look here (http://www.opinion.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2003/07/22/dl2201.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2003/07/22/ixopinion.html) or here (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-753090,00.html).

[mindless]

(Conspiracy theory)What I wonder is did the guy commit suicide, or was it a political assasination made to look like suicide. To shut him up, prevent further evidence from being disclosed, and leave the BBC without any other evidence to back their claims.(/Conspiracy theory)

[Jon_in_london]

Number Crunching:

200 odd US & UK dead + 6000 odd Iraqis dead =no independent public enquiry.

1 possible MoD/BBC mole dead = independent public enquiry.

[LillyThePink]

I really find it quite insulting that the government is attacking the free press and threatening its funding it it does not toe the New Labour line. Most sinister Big Brother-esque behaviour.

I also am incensed at the number of people who still fail to grasp the fact that these DOSSIERS that the government keep producing are based on lies, supposition and the internet thesis of grad.students, and claim that what we did was not illegal.

riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. No, it wasn't illegal, George - ummm... can we have our citizens back from Gitmo now, please?

[a_unique_person]

Or what the hell is the US even doing in "Gitmo"? "We've got a lease in perpetuity" is getting a bit tired now.

[JamesM]

There must be more going on here than what the papers had already decided by Saturday morning.

So, the MPs gave Dr Kelly a bit of a grilling? That is no reason to kill yourself, especially if he really was the mole, and the BBC have confirmed that he was. How can someone become a high-up goverment scientist and have enough savvy to be a journalist's contact and yet also be so sensitive that he commits suicide over some questioning?

I struggle to understand how he could have survived school, let alone the real world for as long as he did, if all this 'dark actors' talk is just about being hung out to dry by the government and the BBC.

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by LillyThePink
I really find it quite insulting that the government is attacking the free press and threatening its funding it it does not toe the New Labour line. Most sinister Big Brother-esque behaviour.

I also am incensed at the number of people who still fail to grasp the fact that these DOSSIERS that the government keep producing are based on lies, supposition and the internet thesis of grad.students, and claim that what we did was not illegal.


Nobody seems to realise the huge threat to press freedom this poses....

[asthmatic camel]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london


Nobody seems to realise the huge threat to press freedom this poses....

I realise it Jon and it's very disturbing.

Regards AC

[Cleopatra]

I didn't mention that I was looking closely this matter from start, I do have BBC via the satellite, so I knew about the mess.

I was interested in reading what people who live in UK think.

The vendetta between BBC and the government has started much earlier and maybe now they try to put the burden of a suicide on BBC's shoulders just to give them a hard time.

On the other hand, Murdoch's papers have every reason to ask for BBC's crucifixion and the plot thickens...

I think that the problem occured when the correspondant A.Gilligan wrote the article in the Mail on Sunday,a medium with different journalistic standards than BBC's and it was the article that left room to the government to start pushing and not the program in Radio 4.

I agree that there is an issue with the suicide, I mean why he broke down like that?

The fact is that there is a strong indication that the British government falsified the documents and the funny thing is that the Americans suggest that they based their claims about WMD on the info provided by the British Intelligence!!

"Shame on you, Argeans!!! "

[Ian Osborne]

The Dr Kelly scandal looked set to com crshing down on Bliar, then the Yanks killing Saddam's kids knocked it off the front page. If that man fell in a pile of sh*t he'd come up smelling of roses...

[Cleopatra]

According to other European Media, Blair's popularity has decreased dramatically...

I wonder, what exactly made British people furious?

[Mendor]

The rot started to set in when people were reminded of his "45 minutes" speech. With the benefit of hindsight and a few thousand troops in Iraq, that's starting to look awfully like a lie to Parliament and to the nation, and we don't like someone lying to Parliament and to the nation, consciously or not. The Kelly scandal is just exacerbating the problem.

People are mumbling about a change of government, or at least of PM, but we have a problem in that there's really no credible opposition.

Mendor

[asthmatic camel]

I well remember Bernard Ingham being incandescent with rage about media claims during Margaret Thatcher's government. Similar spats were not uncommon when John Major was the P.M. If memory serves, the Labour Party used these incidents to its own great political advantage.

Plus ca change.

Regards,

AC.

[Ian Osborne]

Originally posted by Cleopatra
According to other European Media, Blair's popularity has decreased dramatically...

It has, but it would've gone down much further if the news continued to be dominated by the Dr Kelly affair. His party (Labour) is still ahead of the opposition (Conservative), though the lead has been dramatically cut.

I wonder, what exactly made British people furious?

Being lied to

[Ian Osborne]

Originally posted by asthmatic camel
I well remember Bernard Ingham being incandescent with rage about media claims during Margaret Thatcher's government. Similar spats were not uncommon when John Major was the P.M. If memory serves, the Labour Party used these incidents to its own great political advantage.

Yes, the Tories who complain about Alastair Campbell 'spinning' the news and manipulating the media would do well to remember Bernard Ingham, who was famously described as 'Mrs Thatcher's Rottweiler'. I don't remember the Labour Party using 'these incidents to its own great political advantage' though. The press were so pro-Conservative they weren't in a position to do so.

[svero]

Is it not possible that Kelly wasn't the chief source of information but in order to protect the true source the BBC named kelly after he died. Now nobody is looking elsewhere...

[Ian Osborne]

***BREAKING NEWS***

According to a BBC radio report, BBC journalist Susan Watts who works for Newsnight (serious, respected news program), has a tape of Dr David Kelly 'expressing concerns' about Government claims of Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction, which will be heard at the enquiry into Kelly's death.

It will be interesting to hear what's on this tape. The BBC was (obviously) quite right to protect its sources (it was the Government that leaked his name), but it's been insinuated that the Beeb 'sexed up' Kelly's complaints. This could totally vindicate the BBC.

[Ian Osborne]

Originally posted by svero
Is it not possible that Kelly wasn't the chief source of information but in order to protect the true source the BBC named kelly after he died. Now nobody is looking elsewhere...

Very possible, but it was the *Government* who named Kelly, *before* he died. It's entirely plausible that the Beeb has other sources it isn't making a song and dance about, though. Given the Government's treatment of Kelly, one could hardly condemn them for it.

[tedly]

Notice how the BBC, a government funded news outlet attacks the governing party, while the US media seems to give the president a free ride, unless provoked by serious spin money?

[crackmonkey]

Of course, Kelly had denied saying the things the BBC had attributed to him... the Beeb could have had him snuffed to protect their web of deceit.
Gilligan himself hasn't been above some embellishment - or outright lying - when it suited his purposes.

http://www.conquestdesign.com/html/BBC.html

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by Cleopatra
According to other European Media, Blair's popularity has decreased dramatically...

I wonder, what exactly made British people furious?

Not just being lied too...

Taxes are up but public services havent improved-
Some schools are so short of cash that they may have to do a four day teaching week.

The NHS isnt getting any better, all the extra tax money is going into the pockets of managers and accountants and not into more doctors, nurses, technicians and equiptment.

Their transport policy has become some kind of sick joke with train services being slashed and tikcet prices up over inflation but all the trains are still filthy and late or cancelled. Money is being ploughed into road building instead, which is 100% the OPPOSITE of Bliar promised on his election.

All of this war and lies and crap is just the cherry on top. If the Tories had a decent leader, they would win the next election if they were covered in poo.

[richardm]

Just on the subject of journalists protecting sources:

A news article was produced that made some claims that could potentially bring down the government, or at least topple the PM.

The goverment denies the claims, and says "Who told you that?!".

The journalist says "Can't tell you who it was, but I assure you that he's an unimpeachable high-up intelligence source".

Why should we believe the journalist? Isn't it reasonable to insist on knowing who the "High up intelligence source" is before we can evaluate the claims?

Even now we don't know exactly what it was that Kelly actually said to Gilligan, and there is much speculation that Gilligan himself "sexed up" Kelly's comments to fit better with the story he was producing. So it would be interesting to hear the tape.

FWIW I don't think the government actually lied to us. They're too savvy to be caught in an outright lie, I think. I reckon that they cherry-picked, exaggerated and used items with flimsy support, but I don't believe you'll find anything that isn't supported by some piece of intelligence somewhere.

[richardm]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london


Not just being lied too...

Taxes are up but public services havent improved-
Some schools are so short of cash that they may have to do a four day teaching week.

The NHS isnt getting any better, all the extra tax money is going into the pockets of managers and accountants and not into more doctors, nurses, technicians and equiptment.

Their transport policy has become some kind of sick joke with train services being slashed and tikcet prices up over inflation but all the trains are still filthy and late or cancelled. Money is being ploughed into road building instead, which is 100% the OPPOSITE of Bliar promised on his election.

All of this war and lies and crap is just the cherry on top. If the Tories had a decent leader, they would win the next election if they were covered in poo.

The scary thing is that you're probably right, even though the Tories spent all of their last term of office running all of the above services into the ground, and worse besides.

How quickly people forget!

Perhaps it's time for a new party to have a go.

(Mind you, I'll bet you a tenner that they'll be no better in the long run)

[mindless]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london

If the Tories had a decent leader, they would win the next election if they were covered in poo.

I agree IDS isn't the charismatic powerful leader they need to go head to head against labour, but then again who else have the tories got that could really stand up and be taken seriously.

I am giving serious consideration to abstaining from voting next election, there is no party running thats fit to lead our government.

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by mindless


I agree IDS isn't the charismatic powerful leader they need to go head to head against labour, but then again who else have the tories got that could really stand up and be taken seriously.

I am giving serious consideration to abstaining from voting next election, there is no party running thats fit to lead our government.

Portillo? Dont know any other tories....

Dont abstain. Vote for someone at least. If you dont vote, you shouldnt complain about what government other people vote in for you.

[Cleopatra]

Fresh News!!

It seems that BBC has done its job quite professionally. I think that I have understood well, it was in the article of the Mail on Sunday that Gilligan named Alastair Campbell... as I said Mail on Sunday is a medium with different journalistic standards...

It seems that No 10 has a problem.


http://politics.guardian.co.uk/kelly/story/0,13747,1004165,00.html

BBC to produce Kelly tape in bid to exonerate reporter

Matt Wells and Nicholas Watt in Hong Kong, and Michael White
Wednesday July 23, 2003
The Guardian

The BBC has a tape of David Kelly expressing serious concern about how
Downing Street made the case for war, the Guardian can reveal.

Susan Watts, science editor of Newsnight, recorded her conversations
with the weapons expert, who killed himself on Thursday.

In her report she quoted a "source" - now known to be Dr Kelly -
suggesting that No 10 was "desperate" for information and had
exaggerated "out of all proportion" the claim that Iraq could launch
weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes.

The BBC believes the tape is the "smoking gun" that will exonerate
Andrew Gilligan, the Today programme correspondent who originally
reported the suggestion that No 10 included the 45-minute claim in the
September dossier on the case for war "to make it sexier", against the
wishes of the intelligence community.

Gilligan did not mention the Downing Street director of communications,
Alastair Campbell, until a later Mail on Sunday article.

The tape's existence explains the corporation's determination to stick
by its story under the onslaught of criticism from No 10. The BBC will
submit the tape to the judicial inquiry led by Lord Hutton and will tell
him that Watts and Gilligan checked their quotes with Dr Kelly before
broadcasting them.

In Watts's report on June 2, an actor speaks her source's words, saying
of the 45 minutes claim: "It was a statement that was made and it just
got out of all proportion. They were desperate for information, they
were pushing hard for information which could be released. That was one
that popped up and it was seized on and it's unfortunate that it was.

"That's why there is the argument between the intelligence services and
the Cabinet Office/No 10 - because they picked up on it and once they've
picked up on it, you can't pull it back from them."

Dr Kelly told the foreign affairs select committee that he did not
believe he was the main source of Gilligan's story but later told the
former BBC journalist Tom Mangold that he was. The existence of the
tape, and the admission to Mangold, suggests that Dr Kelly, who has been
described by friends as honest and decent, could have been deeply
worried about whether he had told the full story to the committee.

The BBC hinted at the existence of a tape on Sunday, when it confirmed
Dr Kelly as the source of the Gilligan and Watts stories. It said: "We
will make a full and frank submission to Lord Hutton and will provide
full details of all the contacts between Dr Kelly and the two BBC
journalists, including contemporaneous notes and other materials made by
both journalists, independently."

A BBC source said yesterday the key phrase was "other materials".
Yesterday the BBC sought to contain the concern in the organisation
about its handling of the affair. After reports that an unnamed BBC
governor wanted an "emergency meeting" to discuss the fallout from the
corporation's revelation that Dr Kelly was its source for the "sexed up"
dossier story, the chairman, Gavyn Davies, insisted the board did not
feel it necessary to qualify its unanimous support for the decision to
broadcast the original Today programme story.

Sources at the corporation say that, given the pressures on the BBC,
some levels of unease are inevitable. But the BBC believes the pressure
is now turning back on the government.

[Jon_in_london]

Well if they have the tape and it says what it does, its going to mean a lot of egg on certain faces.

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by richardm


The scary thing is that you're probably right, even though the Tories spent all of their last term of office running all of the above services into the ground, and worse besides.


The tories greatest problem- they cant complain that labour isnt doing enough to improve public services because it was them that f$cked them up in the first place..........

[asthmatic camel]

Originally posted by Ian Osborne


Yes, the Tories who complain about Alastair Campbell 'spinning' the news and manipulating the media would do well to remember Bernard Ingham, who was famously described as 'Mrs Thatcher's Rottweiler'. I don't remember the Labour Party using 'these incidents to its own great political advantage' though. The press were so pro-Conservative they weren't in a position to do so.

Ahhhh, so THAT'S why "New" Labour gained power. :confused:

Regards,

AC.

[LillyThePink]

I think you'[ll find that at the time when New Labour got in, most of the press had aligned themsleves to the New Labour side of things - very scary actually, considering just how staunchly Conservative some of the red-tops were at the time.

[Ove]

Not just being lied too...

Taxes are up but public services havent improved-
Some schools are so short of cash that they may have to do a four day teaching week.

The NHS isnt getting any better, all the extra tax money is going into the pockets of managers and accountants and not into more doctors, nurses, technicians and equiptment.

Their transport policy has become some kind of sick joke with train services being slashed and tikcet prices up over inflation but all the trains are still filthy and late or cancelled. Money is being ploughed into road building instead, which is 100% the OPPOSITE of Bliar promised on his election.


Jon: You don't think the sight of LABOUR PM Blair running around and licking the hand of ULTRA ULTRA TORY President Bush might have something to do with it too??

I really think that Tony has removed himself to far away from Labour to get back in one piece. Sad though, i DID like him a lot in the beginnig.:(

[Mr Manifesto]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london


The tories greatest problem- they cant complain that labour isnt doing enough to improve public services because it was them that f$cked them up in the first place..........

How's the railway system, anyway?

And why don't the Tories get Hague to run the party again? Or Lord Archhole now that he's out of prison?






(everything I know about British politics I read in Private Eye)

[asthmatic camel]

Originally posted by LillyThePink
I think you'[ll find that at the time when New Labour got in, most of the press had aligned themsleves to the New Labour side of things - very scary actually, considering just how staunchly Conservative some of the red-tops were at the time.

One thing I do remember is the Labour party's allegations of "sleaze".

Plus ca change.

Regards,

AC.

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by Mr Manifesto


How's the railway system, anyway?

And why don't the Tories get Hague to run the party again? Or Lord Archhole now that he's out of prison?

(everything I know about British politics I read in Private Eye)

Creaking, crappy and expensive.

Archhole! hohoh. no chance.

(you know everything then!)

[asthmatic camel]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london


Creaking, crappy and expensive.

Archhole! hohoh. no chance.

(you know everything then!)

I beg to differ. New Labour's integrated transport policy has delivered a fine, punctual railway system. (Flies to London aboard a pig with wings) Oh, I can't book a flying pig because all our farmers are going bust, perhaps I can book a flying fish. Nope, Britain's fish stocks are exhausted, the E.E.C. has allowed the Spaniards to steal them all. Perhaps I could borrow one of Mr. Prescott's American Jaguars?

Regards,

AC.

Edited for pronunciation of Jagwarr

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by asthmatic camel


I beg to differ. New Labour's integrated transport policy has delivered a fine, punctual railway system.

I actually thought you might be serious ther for a moment

/pops eyes back into sockets.

[Reginald]

It's always nice to see a politico squirm.

But as this thing has been going on, and having waded through pages and pages of test, trying to fathom what went on (I admit to reserving final judgemnt until the end of the inquiry) It's my general feeling that to a large degree the hacks and journos of the BBC and some of the large papers conributed greatly to this man's [Kelly] problems. The thing that particularly has struck me to date is how the BBC has been very keen to underplay it's own role and yet has seized squarely and with some glee on the way the process of the investigation has now moved to the MOD and Kelly's family. Today they call in Professor Keith Hawton, a suicide expert. What can he really know about the individual case that he is being asked to comment on. I see no real benefit in this expert witness.

I suppose this is a price we pay for hearing everything filtered through the media, even if that very same media may be responsible in part for the problem they are reporting.

[a_unique_person]

Interesting to note that he was not the only intelligence officer to query the reasons for the war.

[aerocontrols]

So if Andrew Gilligan loses his job, he's going to go after his BBC bosses (http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/media/story.jsp?story=477919)?


BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan has warned his managers that he will reveal their role in the "outing" of David Kelly if he is forced to resign as a result of the Hutton report.

The journalist fears he is to be scapegoated by the corporation if, as expected, Lord Hutton is highly critical of the BBC when his report into the circumstances surrounding the death of the weapons scientist is published next week.

Mr Gilligan faces particular censure for leaking to MPs the information that Dr Kelly had spoken to Susan Watts, another BBC reporter who reported officials' doubts over a Downing Street dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

The leak helped identify the weapons scientist as the source of his own report. In it, he said that the intelligence services were unhappy about the dossier which they feared exaggerated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

Dr Kelly committed suicide two days after he was challenged by the Foreign Affairs Committee over his contacts with Mr Gilligan and other BBC journalists.

Greg Dyke, the director general of the BBC, denounced Mr Gilligan's email to MPs on the committee as "unacceptable" when he was called to give evidence to the inquiry.

The journalist, however, has told friends that managers at the corporation had asked him to contact David Chidgey, the Liberal Democrat MP for Eastleigh, and Richard Ottaway, the Conservative MP for Croydon South.

"It's something that was never really explored by Hutton, the extent to which managers knew, and indeed were encouraging, what was going on," said one last night.


So is this yet another case of Andrew Gilligan claiming someone said X when in fact they did not, or does he have proof this time?

MattJ

[richardm]

I'd have thought that if he really did have information on the matter that he didn't reveal to the inquiry when asked, he'd be in some trouble.