1 September 2010
Tony Blair blames former Radio 4 Today journalist Andrew Gilligan for dealing a permanent blow to his integrity with his infamous report about the “sexing-up” of the dossier making the case for war with Iraq.
In his memoirs published today, former Prime Minister Blair talks in detail about the BBC’s reporting of the “45-minute” claim on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the creation of the September 2002 dossier.
He admits that the intelligence on WMD was wrong, and that this was a “real story”. But he denies Gilligan’s implication of deceit which turned a “difficult situation” into one which “remains an ugly one” and "set the pattern for interaction between ourselves and the media in the years that followed".
to read more: http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=45933&c=1
Thursday 02 September 2010
Blog Link - Press Gaz - Tony Blair on Andrew Gilligan, Dr Kelly and WMDs
Wednesday 01 September 2010
News - Andy Coulson discussed phone hacking at News of the World, report claims
New York Times publishes allegations that PM's media adviser 'actively encouraged' unlawful practice while editor·
The prime minister's media adviser, Andy Coulson, freely discussed the use of unlawful news-gathering techniques while editor of the News of the World and "actively encouraged" a named reporter to engage in the illegal interception of voicemail messages, according to allegations published by the New York Times.
Coulson, who resigned as editor of the News of the World in January 2007 after its royal correspondent was jailed for intercepting voicemail messages, has always insisted that he had no knowledge of illegal activity when he edited the paper or at any time as a journalist. He told a Commons select committee last year: "I have never had any involvement in it at all."
The New York Times website published a trail to a story due to appear in its Sunday magazine. It made detailed allegations likely to bring intense new pressure on Coulson and the Metropolitan police force, which stands accused of favouring Rupert Murdoch's newspaper group by cutting short its investigation, withholding crucial evidence from prosecutors and failing to inform victims of the newspaper's crimes against them. Coulson declined to comment on the allegations. The News of the World and Scotland Yard have denied all the charges.
Coulson resigned after the imprisonment of his royal reporter, Clive Goodman, and a private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, for "hacking" into the voicemail messages of eight public figures. When the Guardian revealed last year that the scandal involved other journalists at the paper and numerous other victims, Coulson said he had nothing to add to earlier denials of involvement, and the Conservative leader stood by him.
David Cameron said: "I believe in giving people a second chance."
The New York Times, which has had an investigative team at work on the story since March, is citing two former News of the World journalists who specifically claim that Coulson was directly aware of his reporters' use of illegal techniques.
An unnamed former editor is quoted as claiming that Coulson talked freely about illegal news-gathering techniques, including phone-hacking, and that he personally had been at "dozens, if not hundreds" of meetings with Coulson where the subject came up. "The editor added that when Coulson would ask where a story came from, editors would reply 'We've pulled the phone records' or 'I've listened to the phone messages'."
In addition, Sean Hoare, a former reporter who used to be a close friend of Coulson, is quoted as saying that when he worked with Coulson at the Sun, he personally played recordings of hacked voicemail messages for him and that later, when he worked for Coulson at the News of the World, he "continued to inform Coulson of his pursuits. Coulson 'actively encouraged me to do it', Hoare said".
to read more see: www.guardian.co.uk
Sunday 29 August 2010
Discussion - Andrew Gilligan: I did not betray David Kelly or reveal him as my source
Andrew Gilligan disputes Nick Cohen's comment on the politics behind the death of the government scientist caught up in the Iraq inquiry
The Observer, Sunday 29 August 2010
Contrary to Nick Cohen's belief (Comment), neither I nor the BBC "betrayed" David Kelly. Neither I nor the BBC ever revealed him as my source, either in public or in emails to an MP, until after his death. It was his employer, the Ministry of Defence, that effectively leaked his name – after he came forward, having been promised anonymity – to his bosses. As Alastair Campbell put it in his diary: "The biggest thing needed was the source out", in order to "fuck Gilligan".
As I've always said, I was wrong to email a member of the foreign affairs committee saying I thought David had spoken to Newsnight's Susan Watts. But that email made no difference to what David was asked. Watts had broadcast her report a few days after mine. The similarity between the statements of her anonymous source and mine had already been noted by the government and media. The questions prepared by the clerks for members of the committee (on the Hutton inquiry website as FAC/1/0021) shows they always intended to ask him about his contacts with Watts.
It was Watts, not me, who made clear in her testimony to Hutton that David's "less than frank" answers to the committee about his contacts with her "relieved me of my obligation to protect his identity as a confidential source". But clearly even she cannot be blamed for his death, since she states that she did not see the transcript of David's testimony until after he died.
No one involved in this sorry business, least of all me, behaved perfectly. But the people in the best position to know who David blamed for his predicament are those with whom he spent the last days of his life – his widow and daughters. Mrs Kelly did indeed say that her husband felt "betrayed" – by the MoD. In several hours of testimony to Hutton, his family made it quite clear who he and they blamed for his plight – and it wasn't me or the BBC.
Andrew Gilligan
London SE10http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2010/aug/29/david-kelly-nick-cohen-andrew-gilligan
The Observer, Sunday 29 August 2010
Contrary to Nick Cohen's belief (Comment), neither I nor the BBC "betrayed" David Kelly. Neither I nor the BBC ever revealed him as my source, either in public or in emails to an MP, until after his death. It was his employer, the Ministry of Defence, that effectively leaked his name – after he came forward, having been promised anonymity – to his bosses. As Alastair Campbell put it in his diary: "The biggest thing needed was the source out", in order to "fuck Gilligan".
As I've always said, I was wrong to email a member of the foreign affairs committee saying I thought David had spoken to Newsnight's Susan Watts. But that email made no difference to what David was asked. Watts had broadcast her report a few days after mine. The similarity between the statements of her anonymous source and mine had already been noted by the government and media. The questions prepared by the clerks for members of the committee (on the Hutton inquiry website as FAC/1/0021) shows they always intended to ask him about his contacts with Watts.
It was Watts, not me, who made clear in her testimony to Hutton that David's "less than frank" answers to the committee about his contacts with her "relieved me of my obligation to protect his identity as a confidential source". But clearly even she cannot be blamed for his death, since she states that she did not see the transcript of David's testimony until after he died.
No one involved in this sorry business, least of all me, behaved perfectly. But the people in the best position to know who David blamed for his predicament are those with whom he spent the last days of his life – his widow and daughters. Mrs Kelly did indeed say that her husband felt "betrayed" – by the MoD. In several hours of testimony to Hutton, his family made it quite clear who he and they blamed for his plight – and it wasn't me or the BBC.
Andrew Gilligan
London SE10http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2010/aug/29/david-kelly-nick-cohen-andrew-gilligan
Saturday 28 August 2010
News - Key quotes from Mark Thompson's speech
BBC Director General Mark Thompson delivered the James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture at the 2010 Edinburgh International Television Festival. Here are some of his key quotes.
ON THE FUTURE OF THE BBC
- "In a year or so's time, there will be a debate about the future level of the licence fee. For the BBC, I believe this will be a moment for realism and a recognition of the scale of the challenge facing licence payers and the country as a whole."
- "Do not believe anyone who claims that cutting the licence fee is a way of growing the creative economy... A pound out of the commissioning budget of the BBC is a pound out of UK creative economy. Once gone, it will be gone forever."
- "Radical and rapid change inside the BBC is... essential."
ON THE BBC'S CRITICS
- "Systematic press attacks on broadcasters, and especially on the BBC, are nothing new... but the scale and intensity of the current assaults does feel different."
- "But - perhaps surprisingly - there's no evidence that any of this is having any effect on public attitudes to the BBC at all."
- "The same commercial and political forces which are undermining the independence of the public broadcasters in other European countries - Italy and France spring to mind - are at work here as well. In the UK, they know that a frontal assault will fail so they adopt different tactics... Sometimes calls for transparency turn out to be a cloak for something else."
ON THE BBC'S RELATIONSHIP WITH ITS AUDIENCE
- "On the Tuesday after the General Election, over 17 million viewers joined us on BBC One during the evening to see events unfold. They came to BBC One because, along with ITV1, it remains one of the nation's front rooms."
- "Across the UK population, 71% of people say they're glad the BBC exists."
- "[Audiences] want the best and they want it all year round, which is why nowadays at the BBC we play pieces like Sherlock, The Normans and Rev in high summer."
- "The public don't seem to want fewer or thinner services from the BBC. Indeed, as we've seen this year with 6 Music, proposals to remove even niche services can be greeted with real dismay. "
ON SKY
- "Sky has an annual turnover of £5.9bn, of which £4.8bn is from its core retail subscription business. That revenue line alone is £1.1 billion more than the BBC's UK public service turnover."
- "Sky's marketing budget is larger than the entire programme budget of ITV1. As a proportion of Sky's own turnover and its profits, its investment in original British content is just not enough."
- "With Sky News and Sky Arts, the company has... shown a commitment to services which share many values with the BBC and the other PSBs. Sky is not the enemy of quality British Television - it's an important provider of it.
- "But when it comes to investing in original British production, it's a different picture. When ITV was the dominant commercial player in UK television, it poured money into original programming and often in key genres - like drama in the 1980s and 1990s - it did a better job than the BBC."
- "It's time that Sky pulled its weight by investing much, much more in British talent and British content. "
Thursday 26 August 2010
News - Think tank urges costs cap in ‘no win, no fee’ cases
26 August 2010
Defendants that lose so-called “no win, no fee” cases should have the amount they pay towards legal cost capped, a leading think tank said yesterday.
Civil legal aid should be abolished for almost all compensation cases as the UK cuts the cost of its "risk-free, compensation culture", the Adam Smith Institute said.
It called for a fundamental review of the funding of access to justice, saying civil legal aid provides "dubious value for money" and should be abolished in most cases.Both the current system and no-win, no-fee arrangements are so biased in favour of the claimants, the think tank said, that they encourage people to “make a claim effectively risk-free”. (PA)
to read more: http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=45905&c=1
