When Reporters Cross the Line

by Stewart Purvis

  530 Richard Sambrook, Delivering Trust: Impartiality and Objectivity in the Digital Age, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, July 2012, p. 5

  531 The Radio Newsroom, News Guide, BBC, 1967, held in BBC Written Archive, Caversham

  532 Bell interview, When Reporters Cross the Line, BBC Radio 4, 3 December 2011

  533 ‘Prime Minister on the Issues’, The Times, 28 September 1938, p. 10

  534 Douglas Hurd, ‘We Can at Least Save Civilian Lives’, The Independent, 12 December 1994

  535 Bell, In Harm’s Way, p. 114

  536 Ibid., p. 132

  537 Martin Bell, ‘Forcing a Peace’, Panorama, BBC, 8 February 1993

  538 McKay, ‘Bosnia? Let’s Go!’

  539 Andrew Marr, ‘A Dumb Witness Mouthing Horror’, The Independent, 10 February 1993

  540 Simon Jenkins, ‘The Swamp of Civil War’, The Times, 10 February 1993

  541 John Naughton, ‘Engaged in the Conflict’, The Observer, 14 February 1993, p. 64

  542 Glenwyn Benson, Letter to the Editor, The Times, 17 February 1993

  543 When Reporters Cross the Line, BBC Radio 4

  544 Charles Dickens Jr, Dickens’s Dictionary of London, 1879

  545 Michael Binyon, ‘Media’s Tunnel Vision Is Attacked by Hurd’, The Times, 10 September 1993

  546 Michael Leapman, ‘Media: Do We Let Our Hearts Rule Our Headlines?’, The Independent, 15 September 1993, p. 19

  547 John Simpson, ‘War of the Worlds’, The Guardian, 17 September 1993

  548 Martin Bell, lecture to the Ulster Museum, Belfast, October 1993, reprinted in British Journalism Review, vol. 4, no. 4 (1993).

  549 Hurd, ‘We Can at Least Save Civilian Lives’

  550 Bell, In Harm’s Way, p. 128

  551 Martin Bell, lecture to the Ulster Museum

  552 ‘Martin Bell Slates “Neutral reporting”’, The Guardian, 23 November 1996

  553 Martin Bell, ‘The Journalism of Attachment’ in Matthew Kieran (ed.), Media Ethics (London: Routledge, 1998)

  554 John Lloyd, ‘Babel’, Prospect, 20 July 1997

  555 Philip M. Taylor, Munitions of the Mind, 3rd edn (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003), p. 303

  556 ‘John Simpson Spoils for Battle on Home Front’, The Independent, 5 August 1997

  557 Robert Fox, Peter Naylor Memorial Lecture on Defence, Gresham College, 2009

  558 When Reporters Cross the Line, BBC Radio 4

  559 Martin Bell, ‘The Truth Is Our Currency’, From Our Own Correspondent, BBC Radio Four, 1997, repeated on BBC World Service, 28 December 2011

  560 John Bridcut, ‘From Seesaw to Wagon Wheel: Safeguarding Impartiality in the 21st Century’, BBC Trust, 2007

  561 See http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/collegeofjournalism/ethics-and-values/impartiality/ Some of the text remains, but not the video.

  562 See the impartiality section of the BBC College of Journalism website.

  563 Kevin Marsh, ‘Issues of Impartiality in News and Current Affairs: Some Practical Considerations’, in Leon Barkho (ed.), From Theory to Practice: How to Assess and Apply Impartiality in News and Current Affairs (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013)

  564 Sambrook, Delivering Trust

  565 Martin Bell report on the massacre at Ahmici, BBC News, 1993

  566 Paragraph 4.4.31 of the current BBC guidelines, Section 4: Impartiality, Personal View Content, http://www.bbc.co.uk/editorialguidelines/page/guidelines-impartiality-personal-view/ (last accessed 18 July 2013)

  567 Martin Bell, Desert Island Discs, BBC Radio 4, 15 July 2001

  568 Martin Bell, ‘Here is the War Live by Satellite’, The Guardian, 8 March 1997

  569 Poem read by Martin Bell at the Frontline Club, September 2011

  570 All the documents quoted in this chapter unless otherwise stated are in the ‘due impartiality’ files of the ITA, stored at Bournemouth University.

  571 Ray Fitzwalter, The Dream that Died: The Rise and Fall of ITV (Leicester: Matador, 2008), p. 2

  572 Denis Forman, Persona Granada (London: André Deutsch, 1997), p. 163

  573 TNA KV2/3221 and TNA KV2/3222

  574 The Times, 8 March 2010

  575 R. R. Ford, ‘British Film Officer in New York, February 1941’, quoted in Kay Gladstone, British Interception of German Export Newsreels and the Development of British Combat Filming 1939–1942, Imperial War Museum Review. no. 2, 1987

  576 Ibid.

  577 Forman, Persona Granada, p. 49

  578 Bernard Sendall, Independent Television in Britain: Volume II, Expansion and Change 1958–68 (London: Macmillan, 1983), p. 335

  579 Fitzwalter, The Dream that Died, p. 2

  580 Minutes of 93rd meeting of the ITA, 3 June 1958

  581 Forman, Persona Granada, p. 125

  582 Ibid., p. 214

  583 Ibid., p. 125

  584 Ibid., p. 217

  585 Ibid., p. 223

  586 ‘A Painful Reminder: Evidence for All Mankind’, ITN Source, http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist/ITVProgs/1985/09/08/306430001/?s=*

  587 Sandy Gall, News from the Front (London: Heinemann, 1994), p. 117–118

  588 IRA Demonstrations, ITN Source, http://www.itnsource.com/en/shotlist/BHC_ITN/1965/01/20/X20016501/?s=IRA+demonstration&st=2&pn=1

  589 Sandy Gall interviewed on Reporters’ Notes, BBC Radio 4, 18 December 2001

  590 Sandy Gall, Don’t Worry About the Money Now, p. 83

  591 Sandy Gall interviewed on John Dunn Show, BBC Radio 2, 17 October 1983

  592 Sandy Gall interviewed by Steve Jones, BBC Radio 2, 29 September 1983

  593 Gall, News from the Front, p. 2

  594 Ibid., p. 28

  595 Zia ul-Haq interview with Sandy Gall, ITN, April 1979

  596 Sandy Gall, War against the Taliban (London: Bloomsbury, 2012), pp. 7–8

  597 Ibid., p. 10

  598 Gall, News from the Front, p. 158

  599 Ibid., p. 162

  600 Sandy Gall, report on ITN, 6 December 1989

  601 Hekmatyar was a leading rebel commander who received financial support from the United States, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. A long-time rival of Massoud, it has been alleged that in 1975 he received Pakistani help in trying unsuccessfully to assassinate him.

  602 Sandy Gall interviewed on When Reporters Cross the Line, BBC Radio 4

  603 Gall, News from the Front, dedication

  604 Ibid., p. 173

  605 Richard Gott, ‘Playing the Great Game with Incredible Gall’, The Guardian, 12 February 1994

  606 Moira Whittle, ‘Guardian Journalist Quits over KGB’s Spy Claims’, PA News, 8 December 1994

  607 Sandy Gall, recorded interview with author for BBC radio, November 2011

  608 Section 5, Ofcom Broadcasting Code, http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/broadcasting/broadcast-codes/broadcast-code/impartiality/ (last accessed 9 July 2013)

  609 Sherard Cowper-Coles, Cables from Kabul (London: HarperPress, 2011), p. 264

  610 Bill Berkeley, The Graves Are Not Yet Full: Race, Tribe and Power in the Heart of Africa (London: Basic Books, 2002), p. 249. ICTR and ICTY were ‘dry runs’ for the International Criminal Court, which was established by the 1998 Rome Conference.

  611 Berkeley, The Graves Are Not Yet Full, p. 269

  612 Lindsey Hilsum, ‘Where is Kigali?’, Granta 51, Autumn 1995, p. 148

  613 Berkeley, The Graves Are Not Yet Full, p. 257

  614 The word in Kinyarwanda was inyenzi (Roméo Dallaire, Shake Hands with the Devil (London: Arrow, 2005), p. 142)

  615 Linda Melvern, A People Betrayed (London: Zed, 2000), pp. 70–73

  616 Simone Monasebian, ‘The Pre-genocide Case against Radio-Television Libre des Mille Collines’, in Allan Thompson (ed.), The Media and the Rwanda Genocide (London: Pluto Press, 2007), p. 310

  617 Ibid., p. 71

  618 Dina Temple-Raston, Justice on the Grass: A Story of Genocide and Redemption (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005), p. 3

  61
9 Monasebian, ‘The Pre-genocide Case…’, p. 310

  620 Ibid., p. 311

  621 Dallaire, Shake Hands with the Devil, p. 156. Dallaire saw paperwork that showed the shipment included material from companies operating in Belgium, Israel, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Egypt.

  622 See Melvern, A People Betrayed, pp. 115–116; ‘Rwanda: des missiles qui pointent Paris’, http://journal.liberation.fr/publication/liberation/943/#!/0_2; subsequent French judicial investigations have unearthed contradictory evidence and France’s role has also been questioned: Christophe Châtelot, ‘Rwanda: un rapport de l’ONU pose la question du rôle de la France’, Le Monde, 4 June 2012.

  623 Lindsey Hilsum, ‘Rwandan PM Killed as Troops Wreak Carnage’, The Guardian, 8 April 1994, p. 1

  624 Years later the Belgian government purchased the building in which they died. Heavily pock-marked with bullet holes it is now maintained as a permanent monument in Kigali.

  625 Hilsum, ‘Rwandan PM Killed as Troops Wreak Carnage’

  626 Lindsey Hilsum, ‘Thousands Massacred in Rwanda’, The Guardian, 9 April 1994, p. 1

  627 Ibid.

  628 Lindsey Hilsum, ‘Bloody Vengeance in Rwanda’, The Observer, 10 April 1994

  629 Lindsey Hilsum, ‘Foreigners Flee Bloody Horrors of Rwanda’, The Guardian, 11 April 1994, p. 8

  630 Lindsey Hilsum, ‘Rwandan Blood Flows as Foreign Forces Depart’, The Guardian, 16 April 1994, p. 12

  631 Lindsey Hilsum, ‘The UN’s Scuttle Diplomacy; Somalia, Angola and Now Rwanda’, The Independent, 17 April 1994, p. 21

  632 Ibid.

  633 Ibid.

  634 Berkeley, The Graves Are Not Yet Full, p. 250

  635 This is more than can be said for how the massacre of between 100,000 and 300,000 Hutus by Tutsis in Burundi in 1972 was handled. In a world focused on the Vietnam War, and other conflicts, it barely caught international attention at all. See Lord Brockway, ‘Need for UN Peace Initiatives’, Letter to the Editor, The Times, 12 June 1972, p. 13.

  636 Berkeley, The Graves Are Not Yet Full, p. 246

  637 Ibid., pp. 245–248, 277–284

  638 Lindsey Hilsum, ‘Crossing the Line to Commitment’, British Journalism Review, vol. 8, no. 1, 1997, p. 29

  639 Ibid.

  640 Ibid., p. 30

  641 Ibid., pp. 30–31

  642 Nick Hughes, an independent cameraman. See Nick Hughes, ‘Exhibit 467: Genocide Through a Camera Lens’, in Allan Thompson (ed.), The Media and the Rwanda Genocide (London: Pluto Press, 2007), pp. 231–234

  643 Hilsum, ‘Crossing the Line to Commitment’, p. 30

  644 Ibid.

  645 Ibid.

  646 Prosecutor v. Radoslav Brdjanin, ‘Decision on Prosecution’s Second Request for a Subpoena of Jonathan Randal, ICTY’, case no. IT-99-36-T, para. 11

  647 Nina Bernstein, ‘Testing Different Expectations of Journalism’, http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/article/101207/Testing-Different-Expectations-of-Journalism. aspx (last accessed 11 December 2012)

  648 Roy Gutman, ‘Consequences Occur When Reporters Testify’, http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/article/101208/Consequences-Occur-When-Reporters-Testify. aspx (last accessed 6 December 2012.)

  649 Bill Berkeley, ‘A Reporter Decides to Testify, Then Decides Against It’, http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/article/101242/A-Reporter-Decides-to-Testify-Then-Decides-Against-It.aspx (last accessed 6 December 2012)

  650 Ibid.

  651 Ibid.

  652 Hilsum, ‘Crossing the Line to Commitment’, p. 31

  653 Bernstein, ‘Testing Different Expectations of Journalism’

  654 Hilsum, ‘Crossing the Line to Commitment’, p. 31

  655 See Richard Ashby Wilson, Writing History in International Criminal Trials, Chapters 1 and 7, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011)

  656 Jean-Paul Akayesu, Hague Justice Portal, http://www.haguejusticeportal.net/index.php?id=8778 (last accessed 11 December 2012)

  657 For videos of both Ryder and Byford see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3441869.stm

  658 For Gavyn Davies’s resignation statement see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3439595.stm

  659 Richard Tait speaking at the Frontline Club, 19 September 2012, at an event to mark the publication of Kevin Marsh’s book Stumbling over Truth.

  660 Rod Liddle, ‘Labour’s Attack on Gilligan is Just Nit-picking’, The Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/aug/13/iraq.davidkelly

  661 Elizabeth Day, ‘Fallout From a “Rubbishy Piece of Journalism”: The Extraordinary World of Andrew Gilligan’, Sunday Telegraph, 1 February, 2004

  662 Ibid.

  663 Kevin Marsh, Stumbling over Truth (London: Biteback Publishing, 2012), p. 102

  664 Greg Dyke, Inside Story (London: HarperCollins, 2004), p. 253

  665 BBC WAC file C41

  666 Andrew Rawnsley, The End of the Party (London: Penguin, 2010), p. 204

  667 Ibid., p. 206; Blair’s friend Barry Cox is quoted by Andrew Rawnsley.

  668 Dyke, Inside Story, p. 257

  669 Transcript: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090128221550/http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/content/bbc/bbc_4_0156to0162.pdf

  670 Quoted in Dyke, Inside Story, p. 257

  671 The Hutton Inquiry, document no. BBC/4/0213

  672 Marsh, Stumbling Over Truth, p. 90

  673 Transcript: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090128221550/http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/content/bbc/bbc_4_0203to0204.pdf

  674 ‘Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government’: http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/middle_east/02/uk_dossier_on_iraq/pdf/iraqdossier.pdf

  675 Author interview with former BBC newsroom journalist, December 2012

  676 Hutton Inquiry, BBC evidence BBC/18/0014

  677 Hutton Inquiry, BBC evidence BBC/4/0223

  678 Marsh, Stumbling over Truth, p. 127

  679 Hutton Inquiry, BBC evidence BBC/4/0262

  680 Hutton Inquiry, BBC evidence BBC/8/0001

  681 Marsh, Stumbling over Truth, p. 136

  682 Mail on Sunday, 1 June 2003, p. 26

  683 Hutton Inquiry, BBC evidence BBC/5/0066

  684 TVC is BBC Television Centre, where both the radio and TV newsrooms were based in 2003.

  685 Hutton Inquiry, BBC evidence BBC/5/0118

  686 Marsh, Stumbling over Truth, p. 156

  687 ‘Timeline: David Kelly’, The Conspiracy Files, BBC, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/conspiracy_files/6380231.stm

  688 Hutton Inquiry, Cabinet Office evidence CAB/1/0352-0354

  689 Hutton Inquiry, Cabinet Office evidence CAB/1/0355-0366

  690 Channel 4 News, 27 June 2003; Nicholas Watt, ‘Master of Spin Storms Studio to Become the Story’, The Guardian, 28 June 2003

  691 Hutton Inquiry, BBC evidence BBC/6/0006

  692 Hutton Inquiry, BBC evidence BBC/14/0115

  693 Rawnsley, The End of the Party, p. 211

  694 ‘A Year on From the Death of David Kelly’, BBC, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3901183.stm

  695 Tony Blair, A Journey (London: Hutchinson, 2010), p. 459

  696 Andrew Caldecott, QC, One Brick Court, http://www.onebrickcourt.com/barristers.aspx?menu=main&pageid=25&barristerid=24

  697 Dyke, Inside Story, p. 3

  698 Preliminary statement of the BBC to the Hutton Inquiry

  699 Kevin Marsh, ‘Lord Hutton Did Us All a Disservice’, British Journalism Review, vol. 23, no. 3, September 2012

  700 Marsh, Stumbling over Truth, p. 157

  701 Ibid., p. 172

  702 Ibid., p. 206

  703 Dyke, Inside Story, p. 258

  704 Marsh, Stumbling over Truth, p. 207

  705 Preliminary statement of the BBC to the Hutton Inquiry, para. 13

  706 Andrew Gilligan cross-examination at the Hutton Inquiry, 12 August 2003

  707 Ibid.

  708 Battle for the Airwa
ves, Episode 7, BBC Radio 4, 5 March 2013

  709 Marsh, Stumbling over Truth, p. 215

  710 Andrew Gilligan cross-examination at the Hutton Inquiry, 12 August 2003

  711 Andrew Gilligan cross-examination at the Hutton Inquiry, 17 September 2003

  712 Marsh, Stumbling over Truth, p. 125.

  713 ‘Decisions reached in the BBC disciplinary process’, Appendix 2, in ‘The BBC’s Journalism after Hutton, The Report of the Neil Review Team’, June 2004

  714 Email exchange between the BBC and authors

  715 Email from Andrew Gilligan to Stewart Purvis, 14 February 2013

  716 Email from Kevin Marsh to Stewart Purvis, 19 February 2013

  717 Hutton Special, Ariel (BBC in-house staff magazine), BBC, 29 January 2004, p. 6

  718 Andrew Gilligan cross-examination by Jonathan Sumption QC at the Hutton Inquiry, 17 September 2003

  719 For the Hutton Report see http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090128221550/http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/content/rulings/statement280104.htm

  720 For the Hutton Report see http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090128221550/http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/content/fsb/fsb_1.pdf

  721 ‘The Hutton Inquiry’, The Reunion, BBC Radio 4, 10 May 2013

  722 ‘Whether It’s the Hutton Report or Jimmy Savile, the BBC is Hopeless in a Crisis, The Telegraph, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/9633399/Whether-itsthe-Hutton-Report-or-Jimmy-Savile-theBBC-is-hopeless-in-a-crisis.html

  723 ‘The Hutton Inquiry’, The Reunion, BBC Radio 4

  724 Kevin Marsh, Frontline Club, London, 19 September 2012

  725 ‘At-a-glance: Butler Report’, BBC, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3892809.stm

  726 Iraq inquiry website: http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/52051/Laurie-statement-FINAL.pdf

  727 Interview with Tom Bradby, Channel 4 News, 9 August 2006

  728 Interview with Tom Bradby, Radio Times, 24 August 2012

  729 ‘Phone-hacking: The Movie’, Tom Bradby Blog, 10 November 2011

  730 ‘Paul Dacre’s Speech at the Leveson Inquiry – Full Text’, The Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/oct/12/paul-dacre-leveson-speech

  731 Andrew Boyd, Broadcast Journalism: Techniques of Radio and Television News (Oxford: Focal Press, 2001), p. 32

  732 Nicholas Jones, ‘Great Political Theatre Mr Jay, Shame About the Questions’, in Richard Keeble and John Mair (eds), The Phone-Hacking Scandal: Journalism on Trial (Bury St Edmunds: Abramis, 2012), p. 131