BBC Reporter in Weapons Probe Resigns

[Barrett808]

BBC Reporter in Weapons Probe Resigns
By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press Writer

LONDON - British Broadcasting Corp. reporter Andrew Gilligan, whose story about Iraqi weapons led to a feud with the British government and a judicial inquiry, said Friday he was resigning from the BBC.

In a statement, Gilligan apologized for mistakes in his May 2003 story.

"My departure is at my own initiative," he said. "But the BBC collectively has been the victim of a grave injustice."

The BBC's two top officials resigned and the corporation apologized to the government after senior judge Lord Hutton, appointed by Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) to investigate the death of a scientist caught up in the dispute, said the BBC had been wrong when it quoted an anonymous source as saying officials had "sexed up" intelligence to justify war in Iraq.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040130/ap_on_re_eu/britain_weapons_adviser&cid=518&ncid=1480

[aquart]

1. Could this be suckier?

Love that the BBC walked out in protest of this whitewash. Blair has become something truly ugly.

[KissMyAsscroft]

2. I would not have left.

I would have written a front page story. It would have been titled "Whitewash" and called for the removal of Blair from office. Include a timeline of all quotes made about WMD, an easy to follow graph or chart, Powell's quotes from 2001 saying Saddam was disarmed, and Cheney's Iraq maps.

Than, maybe after that I would resign.

[Zhade]

3. Maybe Gilligan was threatened.

Of course, this is just a conjecture of mine with absolutely no evidence to support it.

However, it wouldn't surprise me in the least.

[Briar]

4. Gilligan's statement

is here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3446443.stm

Some highlights:

"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."

"This report casts a chill over all journalism, not just the BBC's. 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."

This last is important. Hutton requires all journalists to check whistleblower's stories are entirely accurate before printing/broadcasting. Unlike governments, they need more than one source. Yet this would make investigative reporting impossible - exactly what the government wants, of course.

[Laughing Mirror]

5. Paradoxically, only when you resign from a job like BBC,

where you are supposed to remain neutral and objective, can you tell the true story, and, repudiate the government whitewash.

The three that have now left the BBC can now let it all hang out. And that's exactly what they're doing. That's why they resigned.

[NYC]

6. The Independent's front page story

was a blank white page, representing the whitewash.

[tedzbear]

7. I deleted the BBC from my online media...

...and signed on to the Guardian instead. Now that the BBC is run by that new pro government guy, I don't trust them any more than I do the Washington Post.

:kick: