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Tag: David Kelly

  • BBC designs new editorial guidelines

    BBC designs new editorial guidelines

    MUMBAI: The BBC has launched the latest edition of its editorial guidelines, the corporation’s code of ethics for all BBC staff. The Corporation will introduce a time delay on its live coverage of sensitive news events such as 9 /11 and the school massacre in Beslan, Russia.

    The BBC’s editorial system, which was criticised as “defective” by the official Hutton inquiry into the death of scientist David Kelly, who committed suicide after being quoted as the source of a BBC radio report that said the government had hyped Iraq’s weapons threat.

    The guidelines formalised are for a multimedia world and the changes apply to everyone involved in creating BBC editorial content across radio, television, new media and magazines.

    The new code book replaces the Producers’ Guidelines and has been revised to reflect Ofcom’s new broadcasting code and the changing media environment, and to apply editorial lessons learned since the last update in 2000, says the company release.

    The guidelines, which come into effect on 25 July, are shorter and aim to be clearer and easier to use in both print and a searchable web form.

    The BBC’s television and radio content must now comply with the Ofcom Broadcasting Code in six key areas: protecting the under eighteens; harm and offense; crime; religion; fairness and privacy.

    BBC controller of editorial policy Stephen Whittle says, “The guidelines are part of our contract with our audiences. These are our editorial ethics and values and the standards we set for ourselves. We intend to live and be judged by them.”
     

  • BBC acting DG Mark Byford leading editorial review

    BBC acting DG Mark Byford leading editorial review

    MUMBAI: Last month, there was organisational upheaval at the BBC following the publication of Lord Hutton’s report on the death of weapons expert David Kelly. The report was seen by many as a desperate attempt to save Britain’s PM Tony Blair. Hutton’s report had exonerated the British government almost wholesale of “sexing up” its Iraq weapons dossier with unreliable intelligence.

    The then DG Greg Dyke resigned as did BBC chairman Gavyn Davies. Now the acting DG Mark Byford is leading a review of the editorial lessons to be learned for the broadcaster.

    Byford has formed a small review group to assist him in this task over the next three months. The team will be chaired by Ronald Neil, the former director of BBC News and Current Affairs who worked for the BBC for over 30 years.

    The aim of the review is to examine the editorial issues for the BBC raised by the Hutton report. The committee will identify the lessons to learn and make appropriate recommendations including necessary revisions to the Producers’ Guidelines and to the handling of complaints. The review team will support Mark Byford in the work and the Acting DG hopes to take forward the recommendations to the BBC’s Board of Governors in June.

  • Andrew Gilligan’s resignation statement in full

    Andrew Gilligan’s resignation statement in full

    MUMBAI: The following is the full text of Andrew Gilligans resignation statement:
    “I am today resigning from the BBC. I and everyone else involved here have for five months admitted the mistakes we made. We deserved criticism. Some of my story was wrong, as I admitted at the inquiry, and I again apologise for it. My departure is at my own initiative. But the BBC collectively has been the victim of a grave injustice.”
    “If Lord Hutton had fairly considered the evidence he heard, he would have concluded that most of my story was right. 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. Thanks to what David Kelly told me and other BBC journalists, in very similar terms, we know now what we did not know before. I pay tribute to David Kelly.
    “This report casts a chill over all journalism, not just the BBCs. It seeks to hold reporters, with all the difficulties they face, to a standard that it does not appear to demand of, for instance, Government dossiers. I am comforted by the fact that public opinion appears to disagree with Lord Hutton and I hope this will strengthen the resolve of the BBC.
    “The report has imposed on the BBC a punishment far out of proportion to its or my mistakes, which were honest ones. It is hard to believe now that this all stems from two flawed sentences in one unscripted early-morning interview, never repeated, when I said that the Government ‘probably knew’ that the 45-minute figure was wrong.
    “I attributed this to David Kelly; it was in fact an inference of mine. It has been claimed that this was the charge which went round the world, but a cuttings check shows that it did not even get as far as a single Fleet Street newspaper. Nor did the Government mention it in its first three letters of complaint.
    “In my view, this helps explain why neither I nor the BBC focused on this phrase as we should have. I explicitly made clear, in my broadcasts, that the 45-minute point was based on real intelligence. I repeatedly said also that I did not accuse the Government of fabrication, but of exaggeration. I stand by that charge, and it will not go away.
    “In Greg Dyke the BBC has lost its finest director general for a generation. He should not have resigned, and I am extremely sorry to see him go.
    “I would like to thank the BBC for its support throughout the extraordinary and terrible ordeal that has been the last seven months. It has defended the right to investigate and report accurately on matters about which the public has a right to know. Save for the admissions I and the BBC have made, my reporting on the dossiers compilation fulfilled this purpose.
    “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 organisation. But a greater part has been played by the unbalanced judgments of Lord Hutton.”