It was good journalism, and especially good to hear at that particular moment, since I was on my way to the BBC to be interviewed about what was being generally described as the Corporation’s worst-ever crisis. Webb’s report was clear and precise and full of good information – exactly the kind of work we expect from a senior member of any reporting team. The contrast to Gilligan’s rambling delivery and ill-considered allegation about the Government’s deceitful handling of intelligence information in the run-up to the Iraq war could not have been greater, and it is to the maintenance and furtherance of the gold standard of high-quality work which Webb’s report represented that, post-Hutton, all journalists need to devote themselves.

The BBC has paid a very high price, not just for Gilligan’s error, but for its failure to recognise that, in its immediate wake, what they were hearing from Downing Street was more than just another choleric rant by Alastair Campbell. Whatever view we may take of Lord Hutton’s report as a whole, he was surely right to find that Gilligan’s broadcast contained a grave charge, namely that of calling into question the Government’s integrity, and that Campbell’s complaint about it required earlier and better examination by the BBC.

However much the BBC felt aggrieved by Lord Hutton’s findings overall, and however much it may think that his Lordship used different standards in judging politicians and journalists, it was right for the Chairman of the Governors, Gavyn Davies, to resign. It is now clear that the Governors had rushed to judgment in their defence of the Corporation and let their role as the protectors of the BBC outweigh their duty as the body which holds the BBC to public account. In doing so, I believe they sealed their own fate and that the duty of the external regulation of the BBC should now pass to the newly formed Office of Communications, Ofcom. I hear what the editor of The Times, Robert Thomson, says when he denounces members of Ofcom as “cultural engineers” who are unfit to assume such a role. I acknowledge that people like the distinguished commentator on media matters, Steven Barnett of the University of Westminster, fear that the BBC could be emasculated if it is governed by a body that was set up primarily to regulate commercial broadcasting. However, it is a fact that since Ofcom has taken over the work of the old Broadcasting Complaints Commission, the BBC is already accountable to it over complaints made by individual members of the public. I see no reason why Ofcom, making due allowance for the fact that the BBC is a public service broadcaster, should not exercise wider jurisdiction over it, as it does over every other broadcasting organisation in the United Kingdom.

Embarrassing viewing

The BBC has pledged to introduce a better complaints procedure. Indeed I heard Greg Dyke say, in his initial response to Hutton, that the new procedure was already in place. I think he may have jumped the gun a bit – but when it is published, let us have the fullest possible information about it. One of the most remarkable things about this whole episode was the way that it revealed, after so many attacks on, and complaints about, the BBC by so many governments over such a long period, just how ramshackle the Corporation’s procedures were for dealing with them. Clearly, then, as the BBC undertakes its review of what went wrong and what needs to be changed, it also needs to pay a great deal of attention to the rebuilding of confidence among its badly shaken journalists. The splenetic outbursts from Greg Dyke and Gavyn Davies in the days following Lord Hutton’s findings were perfectly understandable, and clearly reflected the feelings of many of those who work for the BBC. But the Corporation needs some time in calmer waters. Many of the points being made, for example, by Greg Dyke and others about Lord Hutton’s understanding of media law do indeed need careful examination, but a period of reflective silence, leading in time to more measured debate, would surely be Greg’s last and finest gift to the Corporation.

But what of the rest of us? What lessons, if any, do journalists need to take away from this whole affair? Alastair Campbell himself tossed down the gauntlet when he said, in his statement following the release of the Hutton report, that the British public would be appalled if they knew the true state of British journalism. Typical Alastair – lob the grenade and then step back and watch the explosion. Except that on this occasion, there wasn’t one. Of course, over his years in Downing Street, he grew angry at newspapers that denounced him as the “King of Spin” but whose reporters were privately begging him for stories. Of course, he grew weary of hearing the Government being criticised, not just by seasoned political commentators, but by the most junior arrival in the BBC newsroom.

Yet, as the post-Hutton opinion surveys showed, people are still more inclined to believe and trust the BBC than the Government and its spindoctors. I think that may indicate a wider view. What probably appals the public more than the state of British journalism is what they saw and heard for themselves of Tony Blair’s former Communications Director in action. What on earth did they make of his angry and intemperate outbursts at the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee and on Channel Four News, or those entries in his diaries about his wish, overruled by Tony Blair, to “fuck Gilligan” by getting Dr Kelly’s name out into the open? I think the public would be far from appalled, and, on the contrary, extremely impressed, were they to realise how incredibly hard and with what dedication most journalists work, not least to ensure that what they produce is both accurate and fair.

So if we journalists are to beat our breasts, it should not be on account of anything that Campbell has said. Yet breast-beating, or something very close to it, has been quite a common reaction. For example, the former editor of The Sun, David Yelland, declared in The Times: “I am ashamed of the Corporation and its journalists. In fact, I am slightly ashamed to be a journalist at all.” There was talk among the commentators of far too cynical an attitude in the British press. Others among the pessimists, following Greg Dyke’s lead, seemed to suggest that journalism, and particularly investigative journalism, had been dealt a hammer blow by Hutton’s waywardly one-sided findings. Peter Preston warned darkly in The Observer of media freedoms facing “an ice age”. Jon Snow, writing in The Guardian, said: “Let’s be clear. Hutton’s verdict affects us all. Andrew Gilligan, Greg Dyke, Gavyn Davies; there, but for the grace of God, go all of us.”

Breakdown in trust

Yet the gloom and doom has gone too far. This is plainly not a time for complacency, but neither is it a time for any kind of defeatism. It is time to replace our anger at a manifestly one-sided piece of work by Hutton with a more positive view. Mark Byford, as he took over the reins as Acting Director-General at the BBC, led the way when, after a suggestion from David Frost that Gilligan’s story was “mostly right”, swiftly responded that “mostly right isn’t good enough for the BBC”. Nor should it be for any of us. Every piece of information a journalist handles and disseminates requires the application of rigorous scrutiny, certainly by him or herself and probably by others with whom the journalist works. But we must also be clear about what really motivates us as we work. A search for the truth, certainly – but all of us, and most particularly those who work as political journalists, should appreciate that scepticism, a deep mistrust of commonly held beliefs, especially those held by people in authority, is not the same thing as cynicism, which is a constant refusal to see anything but the worst in any and every situation.

I am not calling, post-Hutton, for a weak and woolly “on the one hand, on the other hand” kind of journalism, political or otherwise. I am simply suggesting that fairness has a very important part to play in what we do. Scepticism is a necessary tool of journalism, but cynicism can corrode it.

One other course of action is required. Almost every media organisation, and not just the BBC where they were so conspicuously lacking, would do well to examine its complaints procedures. It is no surprise that this crisis arose in the context of the war in Iraq. All wars, and the preparations for and the aftermath of armed conflicts, can strain complaints procedures to breaking point, particularly when modern communications mean that governments have far less control than they used to over the information reaching journalists both from the battlefield and from enemy capitals. Add to that a public outcry such as we saw last year, not just in Britain but around the world, in the run-up to the war, and there is bound to be a stream of protest from any government which finds such widespread opposition to its intentions so heavily reported in the media. We have to be ready to deal with it.

There is one other problem. When governments fight the political battle with the intensity shown in Britain since May 1997, peacetime complaints can be just as voluminous as those that arise during a time of conflict. Peacetime procedures for handling them need to be equally robust. As the Phillis inquiry concluded, a greater willingness to separate fact from comment and entertainment might do the media a power of good, but so might “a greater willingness to admit and to correct mistakes and inaccuracies”.

However, if Gilligan’s mistake and the consequences that still may flow from it affect us all, it should only be in the sense that it provides us with a chance for a great strengthening of British journalism. It should be an opportunity to examine our standards, to re-establish best practice and to question what it is that truly motivates us as the cameras roll, the microphone is turned on or the fingers begin to tap the keyboard. The best response to our sense of grievance about the standards of Lord Hutton’s judgment is to make sure that our own are beyond reproach.