BBC Said No To Truce On Dossier Row (Guardian)

[VolcanoJen]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,3605,1002344,00.html

BBC bosses blocked a compromise which might have prevented the suicide of David Kelly, the weapons expert confirmed by the corporation yesterday as its source for the story of the "sexed-up" dossier.

The Guardian can reveal that the BBC chairman, Gavyn Davies, and the director general, Greg Dyke, were made an offer in the days before Dr Kelly was identified, but turned it down because they were determined to give no ground in their battle with Alastair Campbell, director of communications at No 10.

Last night Andrew Gilligan, the journalist at the centre of the controversy, claimed that he had not misquoted Dr Kelly, a clear implication that the 59-year-old weapons specialist had not given the full story about their conversations to the foreign affairs select committee.

[indictrichardperle]

1. BBC is as pure as the driven snow

..in all of this. A whistle-blower sought them out. They just followed his wishes by carrying his message of truth, and protected him as their source.

Poodle on the other hand.....

[AP]

13. That's about the opposite of what this article suggests

[jpgray]

2. Taking out the BBC and saving Blair? Not cool

.

[punpirate]

5. The empirical evidence shows...

... that Blair's bunch were wrong in their intelligence, or in their estimation of the intelligence. That ought to be the starting place in any post-mortem. Kelly got caught up in something the consequences of which he did not anticipate. Three questions remain: Did Gilligan color Kelly's remarks in his interview, shaded them by characterizing them in a way that Kelly did not specifically say, though the import of what he said to the BBC was effectively the same thing, but in different words?

Or did Kelly seek to minimize his own role as a source in testimony to the Parliament committee because he did not want retribution from the government?

Last, did Kelly kill himself because he expected anonymity in his testimony, but was forced to alter his testimony about the BBC interview because the government had effectively exposed him as the source, by the tactic of describing him to reporters accurately enough so that the press could guess his identity? After all, the latter was the process described by the government's own spokesperson. They leaked enough detail to identify Kelly, and when asked if he was the source, then said, in effect, "well, we can't lie to the press if they accurately named Kelly."

Since they did this, and have admitted doing so, and because of Blair's stand on the issue, the British government's actions certainly fall, in practical terms, in the realm of character assassination to protect Blair.

Blair has a lot of explaining to do, I believe. He may want to extend his Asian tour for a while.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

3. You rat (Sun)...

BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan last night tried to save his job by branding suicide victim Dr David Kelly a LIAR.

...

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2003331381,00.html

[indictrichardperle]

4. is that a Murdoch paper?

trying to take the blame from the Poodle govt, and place it on the BBC is lame...i hope the British public isnt that stupid.

[AP]

14. Reporters at the BBC are criticizing BBC executives for supporting Gilliga

So, when you say 'BBC', are you supporting the executives, or are you supporting BBC labour who are at odds with the executive?

Because, if you support BBC labour, you'd be suppoting Blair.

[JoFerret]

12. Geez what a crap so called paper that rag is!

.

[AP]

15. You're calling the Guardian crap? Wow.

[NYC]

6. Suicide? Has the judicial inquiry concluded?

BBC bosses blocked a compromise which might have prevented the suicide of David Kelly...

[punpirate]

7. The autopsy states...

... according to the British press, that Kelly bled to death.

Next, how was a BBC compromise to prevent the suicide of Dr. Kelly? Since no one had any indication that he intended such (based on emails he sent only three hours before he walked away from home), how was this failure at compromise at fault?

And, I think anyone reconstructing a timeline of this will find that Blair's office (or the MoD) exposed Kelly as the "sole" witness well before the BBC said anything about the identity of sources. Such has already been reported (I'm still looking for the link to an article I read in the last few days on this).

On edit, here's the Telegraph article and what was said by an MoD press officer:

"Last night, Pam Teare, the MoD's director of news,
admitted that far from protecting Dr Kelly's identity, she
had confirmed his name to reporters who rang her on July
9.

"'As we have said all along we didn't release the name but
we made it clear to media callers and to Dr Kelly that if
someone put the right name to us we would be obliged to
confirm it - end of story.'

"Ms Teare conceded that, the day before, press officers
had provided journalists with information that would help
them identify Dr Kelly."

The rest, here:

http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/07/20/nkelly20.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/07/20/ixnewstop.html/news/2003/07/20/nkelly20.xml

[tlb]

8. Mr Gilligan is now on "gardening leave".

" After an emergency meeting of the governors on July 6, Mr Davies said corporation guidelines allowed reporters, in exceptional circumstances, to use single anonymous sources if they were "senior intelligence sources".

Richard Sambrook, director of news, meanwhile, had told the Today programme: "We've always said that we had one senior and credible source in the intelligence services".

Mr Kelly was not a member of the intelligence services.

The head of news - who did not know Mr Kelly's identity at the time - now admits he was wrong to make that statement."

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1057562569808


The BBC's arrogant overreaching has saved Tony Blair. Jayson's Blair's lies in the New York Times merely brought down an editor. Gilligan's lies just may bring down the whole BBC as we know it.

[w4rma]

9. The arrogance is Blair's

And Blair is trying to use the honesty of the Beeb against them. Rupert Murdoch and other right-wing news monguls are also trying to bring down the Beeb, for obvious reasons.

Let's get this straight. The Beeb was not being arroganct. The Beeb was being independant of the Blair administration and refused to back down from his threats. He is now stepping up his threats as a gambit in hopes that he can deflect the blame from himself to anywhere else, including the Beeb.

Dispicable.

[AP]

16. Uh, the Beeb's journalists disagree with the Beeb executives

on this issue. Did you read the other Guardian article posted in the other thread in GD? Gilligan's colleagues think he's a bad journalist, and some journalists told the Guardian they think the executives backing him should resign now that it's been determined that Kelly was his source (because Kelly was definitely not as high up as Gilligan claimed).

You people who think siding with the BBC agains Blair is the clever way to play this are siding with BBC executive fighting for the future of their publicly funded entertainment monopoly and are on the opposite side as hard working journalists at the BBC and the Guardian and against a good liberal government trying to do the best thing for the people of Britain and Europe.

[Nambe]

10. I have lost a lot of respect for Britan's parliment this week.

They have lost so much in the international community, as have we.

[Capt_Nemo]

11. Nonsense

It is utterly dishonest demaggogery this talk of "had the BBC named
Kelly earlier he would still be alive": Bullshit!

Since we're on a tidal wave of revisionism, I'll tell you what would
have happened (it is as valid as any other "what if"):

Had the BBC named Kelly he would have been kicked out of the MoD
for having made the leak for starters. Not only would his carreer lie
in ruins but he would most likely be prosecuted for violating
the Official Secrets Act. And who knows what an overzealous spook
could do? ("suicide" him perhaps?)

[realityboy]

17. "The BBC was responsible for Kelly's death"

Kinda the same logic as "the war was all the fault of the French."

[AP]

18. Kinda same logic as WSJ editorial board resp. for Foster's death

Was that far-fetched?

[Gman]

19. I still just can't imagine that Tony Blair

that wonderful protege of Bill Clinton, has allowed the idiot to lead him down this road to to complete and total political anihilation.