-The 45 minute claim was not absent from the first draft of the Iraq dossier because it was considered unreliable, but because it was intelligence gathered too late to be included.
-It was from what was believed to be a trustworthy source and it was not true that there always had to be a second source for intelligence to be deemed trustworthy. Many of the assumptions that Gilligan made were likewise ignorant.
-The dossier had not been ‘sexed up’, and absolutely not in the way that Gilligan implied.
-Gilligan reported Kelly as saying things that he never actually said:
‘I am satisfied that Dr Kelly did not say to Mr Gilligan that the Government probably knew or suspected that the 45 minutes claim was wrong before that claim was inserted in the dossier. I am further satisfied that Dr Kelly did not say to Mr Gilligan that the reason why the 45 minutes claim was not included in the original draft of the dossier was because it only came from one source and the intelligence agencies did not really believe it was necessarily true.’– Lord Hutton, Chapter 12, 2.i, The Hutton Report.
In other words, Gilligan lied in referring to his source, his only source, and (we learned from Hutton if we didn’t already know) no-one at the BBC cared, or cared much. Why? I would submit because of BBC bias.
I am in agreement with Jeff Jarvis’s position on this:
‘I used to respect and even love the BBC and I didn’t join in with many others going after them at every turn. But the more I saw of Gilligan, as a symptom of the disease, and the more I saw the BBC leadership allow Gilliganitis and its lies and irresponsibility and journalism-by-agenda to spread through its organization unchecked, and the more I heard the head of the BBC attack American journalism, the more I believed that the vaunted BBC was blindly destroying its own credibility and even that of journalism.’. Go and read it all.
Andrew Marr at the head of this blog asks where he got it wrong.
On Today he refuses to accept the word of his fellow journalist, Trevor Kavanagh, & insists the leak is politically motivated.
No signs either of humble pie from John “Cobbled Together” Humphrys.
The spinning on the Today programme this morning was unbelievable. Do they really think people will be taken in by their attempt to deflect attention away from the report to who leaked it.
Tonight’s the niiight,
We’ve waited for!!!
Just two and half more hours or so till the Beeb gets it in the neck. I saw their website is already talking of “structural changes”. Hows about “total dismembering” as a structural change.
Remember, BBC watchers, you’ve never ‘ad it sew good!
After practicing for such a long time, finally the time has come to use all those decietful little techniques the bbc do to bypass reality.
I truely hope that it wont work this time.
Heads start rolling!
All morning News24 has effectively been calling Kavanagh a liar.
Gutto Hari & John Sopel’s tone have got more & more strident as theyhave acted as prosecting counsel against the government position.
No sign at all that the BBC accept themselves as being in the frame.
Is Rupert Murdoch really viewed as a reliable, unbiased source in B-BBCland?
Without a shadow of doubt, the Sun has tried (at least as hard as anyone on this site to paint the BBC as the main party at fault) in the Kelly affair.
We’ll find out in half an hour what the *real* story is…
Um… why is there anything at all noteworthy in the BBC attributing the coverage from the Sun to the Sun? All the words you’ve highlighted are pretty standard for any news organisation reporting material from other outlets. And since Trevor K himself admitted he’d not seen a copy of the report, surely it makes sense to stress that the report is based on reports elsewhere.
1.30pm: It will all begin in a few minutes-
“HUTTON LIED AS WELL!”
Up yours Humphries
Oh how I am enjoying this !
I am a solicitor and can assure those non-lawyers out there that Hutton, in his formal legalistic way, has just torn the BBC apart. In legal terms, this was even worse than the BBC could have expected. Note that Hutton has carefully slammed them – no level can escape by blaming the other, as they were equally negligent. Equally the ogvernment is absolved, except for a few adverse comments regarding the intelligence community.
The BBC are the offenders here. It’s a total failure, a disgracefully biased institution and needs reform urgently.
“BBC political editor Andrew Marr’s reaction to the report was: “In the end what it comes down to is a judgement by Lord Hutton – who he believes, whose motives he trusts most and in that, again and again, he comes down on the side of politicians and officials.Lord Hutton has made his judgement”.
It’s all opinion you see, each case can be interpreted differently depending upon perspective adopted, or ‘conceptual lenses’ shaping analysis. In this case Hutton is merely being a mouthpiece of the government. It’s all there.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3434661.stm
If Hutton had criticised Ministers, the BBC would be calling for resignations – John Humphrys would be having a field day.
Now is the time for resignations from the BBC.
Just listened to the report summary by Hutton live on Radio 5. Pure pleasure. An unmitigated delight, and a total vindication of everything this site stands for. ‘Today’ was twisting in the wind badly enough this morning – what on earth are they going to do tomorrow? I almost feel sorry for John H and his colleagues – almost, but not quite.
I do, however, feel sympathy for the Kelly family. The train moves on, and they are still left without husband and father. The report has little of comfort for them, of any kind.
“What is important once Hutton is published is that if the BBC is criticised we learn from whatever is written – assuming of course that we agree with what is said,” Greg Dyke
Bye Bye Greg…
4 hours on, and still no resignations from the BBC. Not even an apology – even though they have had the report for over 24 hours.
Have they no sense of honour ?
Honour at the BBC? – gone are the days when people fell on their swords…
The BBC (annoyed with the Government’s decision to side with the US) decided at the beginning that it opposed the war and it started spinning at high speed anything it could get its hands on (just read this blog’s archive).
Every single thing it did from then was distorted through this lens, and when it came across kelly’s vaguely (or possibly) semi-critical remarks, it took the worst possible construction against the government and pressed it remorselessly, and refused to back down. See the dictionary definition of ‘bias’ and ‘prejudice’ and you will see the BBC’s conduct in the Iraq War described.
The BBC in its overweening arrogance thought it could take on a democratically elected government and that it would win. The Greeks called this hubris.
The whole argument is moot. There are no WMDs, hence no 45 minute claim. Tony’s precious Iraq Survey group will not report this side of the US election.
Here is the Guardian’s spin on Hutton:-
“Hutton gives government benefit of the doubt”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/hutton/story/0,13822,1133376,00.html
So predictable, and so predictable.
AC – that is not what Kay said. Perhaps you have been relying on the BBC too much for your news?
See here
and discussion
here.
In any event, this is evasive argument and illogical, as your point has no relevance to the thesis (that the BBC has egregiously breached its constituive document). Hutton has weighed the evidence and delivered his report. The BBC is in the wrong.
Not liking my HTML:
http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/archives/000294.html
http://www.seanet.com/~jimxc/Politics/January2004_4.html#jrm1807
At last, 4.32pm, Gavyn Davies does the decent thing and resigns as Chairman of the BBC Governors. How long before Dyke, Sambrook and Gilligan do likewise?
I think the upcoming charter review will be interesting – I don’t see the BBC reforming itself from the inside, whoever is running it, so I hope the government finally gets around to doing it for us by making the BBC properly accountable to those who are forced to pay for it.
Given that Lord Hutton has pretty thoroughly condemned the BBC for acting in direct contradiction to statements made by Blair and his Labour Government – ie it’s showing signs of a strong anti-Labour bias at the expense of all else – isn’t it time you found a new quotation for your header, perhaps? If he wanted it, Marr now has a 337-page report to back up his claim that the corporation is not biased towards this government at least…
Marr is complaining that Hutton did not acknowledge that Gilligan got part of his story right.
The BBC still do not understand how outrageous was the part that Gilligan invented.
The BBC are beyond shame, beyond redemption.
The above comment makes sense. This blog needs a new statement, probably something along the lines of ‘BBC bias works in terms of individual issues, not political parties. If you are not in tune with their view on any given issue, watch out!’
Quite right. For example, one of the contributors here would have great difficulty defending the extremely poor performance of his leader (MH) on this issue.
Great fun reading the Stop the War Coalition’s website now:-
“Hutton Whitewash
The Stop the War Coalition today completely rejects the conclusions of Lord Hutton’s Inquiry.”
http://www.stopwar.org.uk/release.asp?id=280104
And Charles Kennedy on Radio 5 Live at present is spinning madly and desperately trying to say that Hutton didn’t really matter, we must now focus on the war blah blah blah…
Ho Ho Ho!
Is stoning legal in England?
I don’t see any reason why the Beeb-Labour deathmatch invalidates the argument that the BBC bends left. Here, the BBC was attacking Labour from the Left.
If the Beeb attacks Labour for implementing the minimum wage, then it bends right, but if it attacks the government for not raising the minimum wage then it’s bending left. There’s no contradiciton here.
Andrew ‘bad loser’ Marr. Greg ‘Green shirt, green tie, green face’ Dyke. Andrew ‘reporter’Gilligan.’Comical Dick’ Sambrook. Goodbye and good riddance.Hubris, hubris, hubris.
Where is your sense of scale? Is the BBC getting a fact wrong more important than the Government lying to the electorate in order to justify a US invasion?