BBC World showing Kelly-Hutton "Panorama" now (11:30am EST)

[Newsjock]

This is the 90-minute documentary that aired last week in the UK, taking an extremely critical look at both the BBC and No. 10.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/23/arts/television/23BBC.html?pagewanted=print&position=

Soul-Searching in Prime Time, BBC Responds to its Detractors
By SARAH LYALL

LONDON, Jan. 22 — On Wednesday night, the BBC's "Panorama" program broadcast an investigation into the events leading to the death of David Kelly, a government weapons expert who killed himself last July after he was revealed as the source of a BBC report critical of the government's justification for the Iraq war.

The 90-minute program, highly self-critical, is just one move by the BBC, one of the world's largest and most influential news organizations and broadcasters, to blunt attacks on its practices.

The program was broadcast a week before Lord Hutton, who led the public inquiry into Dr. Kelly's death, is to release his conclusions. "Panorama," the corporation's flagship investigative show, did not try to justify the BBC's role in the Kelly affair but was a largely unflinching examination of the broadcaster's errors. It concluded that the original BBC report that started the turmoil was wrong. That was a radio report on the "Today" program last summer charging that Prime Minister Tony Blair's staff had "sexed up" the intelligence service's September 2002 dossier laying out the case for war in Iraq.

The "Panorama" report, which the BBC said had not been shown in advance to Greg Dyke, its director general, was broadcast in prime time, indicating the soul-searching and self-criticism that the BBC has undertaken since the Kelly affair.

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