Volume 14, Number 4, 2003 |
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ContentsEditorial - Saving the BBC's credibility 3BBC in crisis Tim Crook - Is your source ever really safe? 7 David Cox - Public and be damned 13 Richard Lindley - Pick your fights carefully 20 Jean Seaton - Rows and consequences 26 Brian Jenner - Diary Daze 33 Sandra Nyaira - Chill wind in Zimbabwe 39 Geoffrey Goodman - Hugo Young: an appreciation 45 Patrick Collins - United we fall 49 Louisa Young - Journalism by the book 55 BOOK REVIEWSMatthew Engel on Roy Greenslade 61Anthony Delano on Chris Horrie 63 Mark Hollingsworth on Bill Hagerty 66 Gerald Kaufman on Geoffrey Goodman 69 Ivor Gaber on Stuart Allan 72 Michael Leapman on Bruce Page 75 Charles Perkins on Sidney Blumenthal 77 
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Editorial - Saving the BBC's credibilityAmong journalists who work for rival news media, the BBC has never had a great number of friends. One reason may be the attitude of some of its reporters and producers in the field, those who have earned the Corporation a reputation for arrogance by assuming they have a right to precedence and exclusivity, a right which officials and other sources of information have often been eager to concede... [Read full article]
Tim Crook - Is your source ever really safe?Doctor David Kelly told the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee that one lesson he had learned was never to talk to journalists. Despite the valiant attempts by Andrew Gilligan, the BBC and Susan Watts, the confidentiality he had hoped for as an anonymous, non-attributable source had crumbled... [Read full article]
David Cox - Public and be damnedWhat is the purpose of journalism? For those who work in print, “selling papers” should do as an answer. Attempts to impose more elevated responsibilities on Grub Street's hacks only muddy the waters. We know where we are with our rampant British newspaperpersons. Their job is to seize our attention, and in the process we expect them to write pretty much what they can get away with. Faked interviews, bogus diaries, paedophile witch-hunts? Not to worry: we take our papers each morning with a pinch of salt, and smile at American agonising over newspaper ethics... [Read full article]
Richard Lindley - Pick your fights carefullyWhen the row between Government and the Today programme erupted I felt again that moment of nervousness that was familiar to me and, I suspect, most of my contemporaries at Panorama. The fact that we were often paranoid did not always mean that they were not out to get us. We might have felt pleased and proud to have got a story on air but we knew there would be repercussions, and sometimes we could not tell how far our colleagues and our bosses in the BBC would support us. Occasionally, facing hostile reaction, we might wish we'd told the story just slightly differently... [Read full article]
Jean Seaton - Rows and consequencesWhat a mess. How could the BBC and a Labour Government that was basically sympathetic to the Corporation have got into such a mutually damaging conflict? That this conflict has been sustained at every point where it could have been contained has not helped. As for the basis of the Hutton Inquiry, the nasty smell of two apparently selfish behemoths, (followed by the usual ravening press mob), bearing down on one professional man – who had broken the terms of a contract he must have signed and who had made errors, but who was a respected authority in his field – will not be dispelled fast... [Read full article]
Brian Jenner - Diary DazeIt was a curious time. The UN was in turmoil over the imminent Iraq war, Londoners were braced for a possible chemical attack, and I was thumbing through the Public Schools' Yearbook reading about bursars, Hilary Term and Divinity. I was investigating whether Harrow School had had its CCF machine gun requisitioned for the Gulf. A world I had completely forgotten about had suddenly sprung back into life. After an absence of nine years, I was back doing shifts on the Peterborough column. Not on The Daily Telegraph but on the Daily Mail... [Read full article]
Patrick Collins - United we fallSome 20 years have passed since the sports writer Julie Welch was sent to interview an international footballer. Lunch was ordered and small talk was exchanged, then the player came to the point. “I was wondering about the fee,” he said. “Fee?” said Julie. “That's right,” he said. “I thought, maybe £250?” Julie shook her head. “Out of the question,” she said. “I couldn't possibly accept it.” He stared at her, confused. She smiled at him, indulgently. There was a brief silence, and the interview proceeded without further mention of money... [Read full article]
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