This article is about BBC controversy. For the main article see: BBC

Although the BBC has attempted to distance itself from controvery, it has generated controvery due to its unique position within British society. The following subjects reflect some of the controversial issues in which the BBC has become involved.

Contents

1 Brief history 2 1986: The Secret Society series 3 2003: Iraq war coverage 3.1 Hutton Report 3.2 Butler Report 4 World opinion 5 References 6 Sources

Brief history

Commercial radio broadcasting from the continent of Europe before World War II; the introduction of American Armed Forces Radio programming heard within the UK during WWII; the offshore pirate radio stations of the 1960s and again in the 1980s, have all influenced and substantially changed BBC radio broadcasting.

In the 1950s Sir Winston Churchill retaliated against the BBC because of his treatment at the hands of Sir John Reith who banned him from the BBC airwaves prior to WWII. Lord Moran recorded that Churchill denounced the BBC as a communist operation which resulted in Churchill leading the campaign to introduce commercial television into England. (See reference 6 below.) Details of this well documented campaign are recorded in the book Pressure Group, by author H. H. Wilson, published by Rutgers University Press in 1961. (See reference 1 below.)

1986: The Secret Society series

In 1986 BBC journalists went on strike to protest police raids to silence a series of BBC broadcasts. The police searched both the BBC studios in Glasgow, Scotland and the London home of Duncan Campbell, a investigative journalist.

Controversy began when on on June 12, 1985, Graeme McDonald as Controller of BBC-2 TV, was offered a series of documentaries by the BBC studios in Scotland in conjuntion with an offer to them by Duncan Campbell whose work had previously appeared in the New Stateman magazine. The programmes were six half-hour films by Duncan Campbell (researched and presented by Campbell and produced according to BBC standards), which illuminated hidden truths of major public concern. The six programmes were:

• One: The Secret Constitution about a small, secret Cabinet committee that was in reality the Establishment that ruled the United Kingdom.
• Two: In Time of Crisis about secret preparations for war that began in 1982 within every NATO country. This programme revealed what Britain would do.
• Three: A Gap In Our Defences about bungling defence manufacturers and incompetent military planners who have botched every new radar system that Britain has installed since World War II.
• Four: We're All Data Now' about the Data Protection Act.
• Five: Still in production about the Association of Chief Police Officers and how Government policy and actions are determined in the fields of law and order.
• Six: Still in production about communications with particular reference to satellites.

Work began on the series. In April 1986 Alan Protheroe, acting on behalf of BBC Director General Alisdair Milne was asked for permission to bug a private detective who said he could access a Criminal Records Office computer. Permission was granted and filming took place. The police were informed and the man was subsequently charged under Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act.

The sixth program would have revealed details of a top secret spy satellite and Alisdair Milne had already decided to cut it from the line-up when the Observer newspaper broke the story on January 18, 1987 with the headlineL "BBC GAG on £500M DEFENCE SECRET". Combined with this story was a report that the Home Office intended to restrict the broadcast receiver license fee, the implication being that the Government had decided to censor BBC investigative journalism.

Concurrent with these events was a critical BBC television programme in the Panorama serues called Maggie's Militant Tendency. It was about extreme right-wing MP's who were members of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's ruling Conservative Party. They were exposed as being members of fascist organisations. A series of programmes on BBC Radio Four called My Country Right or Wrong. They wee also which the work of Duncan Campbell and similar to the television series.

On January 29, 1987 Alisdair Milne was sacked by the Chairman of the BBC. He later wrote his account of this affair in The memoirs of a British broadcaster. (See reference 2 below.)

2003: Iraq war coverage

In May 2003, the BBC Radio 4 show called Today programme quoted a government official who stated that the British Government had "sexed up" a dossier concerning weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, against the wishes of the Intelligence services. A newspaper report claimed that Alistair Campbell (the Prime Minister's Director of Communications and Strategy), was responsible. The British Government strongly denied the claims and this prompted an investigation by Parliament.

A Ministry of Defence scientist, Dr David Kelly, was named as the alleged source of the news item in another leaked news briefing. The subsequent suicide of Dr Kelly resulted in an escalation of the conflict between the government and the BBC, during which both sides received severe criticism for their roles in the matter.

Hutton Report

The publication in January 2004 of the Hutton Report into Dr Kelly's death was extremely critical of the BBC journalist, Andrew Gilligan, and the management processes of the Corporation. In the aftermath both the Chairman of the BBC Gavyn Davies and the Director-General Greg Dyke resigned, followed by Gilligan himself. This report criticised the standards of journalism at the BBC, and led to the resignations of Director-General Greg Dyke, Chairman of Governors Gavyn Davies, and the reporter at the centre of the storm, Andrew Gilligan. Lord Hutton was accused of failing to take account of the imperfections inherent in journalism, while giving the Government the benefit of the doubt over its own conduct. (See Hutton Report for details.)

Butler Report

A second inquiry by Lord Butler did review the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction and the production of the dossier. Amongst other things, the Butler Report concluded that:

... the fact that the reference [to the 45 minute claim] in the classified assessment was repeated in the dossier later led to suspicions that it had been included because of its eye-catching character.

Andrew Gilligan claims that the Butler Report vindicated his original story that the dossier had been "sexed up". Lord Hutton himself is said to be surprised at what he apparently views as an over-reaction to and misinterpretation of his criticisms of the BBC. (See Butler Report for details.)

In October 2004, the British government finally withdrew the "45 minutes" claim, which was central to the Hutton Inquiry and their claims about the war's legitimacy. Interpretations of these two reports has been mixed by both postitive and negative comments.

World opinion

The BBC has been banned by a number of governments because of its news reporting, which has not always been considered unbiased by overseas nations. For instance, its correspondents were banned for a while by the former apartheid régime of South Africa; and the corporation is currently banned from Zimbabwe, which has proscribed it as a terrorist organisation.

The corporation has long been accused of an anti-American bias; in January 2004, after the publication of the Hutton Report, presenter John Gibson, who works for the US cable news channel Fox News, attacked the BBC in accusing it of having "a frothing-at-the-mouth anti-Americanism that was obsessive, irrational and dishonest". He also claimed that reporter Andrew Gilligan, who was covering the 2003 Iraq War for BBC Radio 4 in Baghdad had "insisted on air that the Iraqi Army was heroically repulsing an incompetent American Military". [1] (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,109821,00.html) Gibson's criticisms were roundly rejected and severely criticised by Ofcom when it investigated viewer complaints of Gibson's item. [2] (http://www.ofcom.org.uk/bulletins/prog_cb/pcb_11/upheld_cases?a=87101)

References

1. Pressure Group - by Wilson, H.H. - Rutgers University Press, 1961. - History of the political fight to introduce commercial television into the United Kingdom.
2. The memoirs of a British broadcaster - by Milne, Alasdair. - Coronet, 1989. - ISBN 0-34-049750-5 - History of the Zicron spy satellite affair, written by a former Director General of the BBC. A series of BBC radio programmes called "The Secret Society" led to a raid by police in both England and Scotland to seize documents as part of a government censorship campaign.
3. Churchill at War 1940 to 1945 - The Memoirs of Churchill's Doctor by Moran, Lord. - Carroll & Graf, 2002. Reissue ISBN 0-78-671041-1 with an introduction by (Lord Moran's son, John, the present Lord Moran. This diary paints an intimate portrait of Churchill by Sir Charles Watson, his personal physician (Lord Moran), who spent the war years with the Prime Minister. In his diary, Moran recorded insights into Churchill's character, and moments when he let his guard down, including his views about the BBC being riddled with communists.
4. Mass Media Moments in the United Kingdom, the USSR and the USA, by Gilder PhD., Eric. - "Lucian Blaga" University of Sibiu Press, Romania. 2003. ISBN 973-651-596-6 - Historical background relating to various controversial issues involving the BBC.

Sources

• See the main article about the British Broadcasting Corporation from 1927 at BBC