Dr Kelly should take the blame for it...

If he was the source but denied being the source to Parliment and then couldn't take the pressure of people inquiring into whether it was actually him or not then it was his own doing.

And nobody forced him to kill himself, by all accounts he was a very intelligent man who must have known what he was getting himself into.

I seem to recall Gilligan denying that Dr. Kelly was the source of his report, but in the present circumstances, that carries such serious implications that I'd want to see it in print before saying more about that.

I think I read somewhere today that the BBC have confirmed that Kelly was Gilligan's source. Which, if you believe Kelly before his death, means Gilligan either 'sexed up' his story. Or there's another source the Beeb are keeping quiet about or Gilligan is.

Or that pressure was put on Dr. Kelly to deny that Gilligan had accurately reported his words. Threats to prosecute him for breaching the Official secrets act, say, or withholding his pension. I think both sides have made mistakes, but I also have a sneaking suspicion that Gilligan may have been lured onto a false trail intended to draw attention away from more important matters. The name 'Campbell' is a bit of a draw...

The BBC has admitted that Dr Kelly was the major source. Worth noting they have not used the same language as the government, who claimed he was the sole source. Also worth noting that Dr Kelly went to the government voluntarilly to admit he was a source on this matter for the BBC. However, he did not want this releasing to the press. The government ignored this.

Who's to blame. For the first time in too long I find myself agreeing with our Prime Minister. Let's wait for the inquiry to present some facts rather than guessing and making assumptions. That's the job of the tabloids after all.

One thing that has caught my attention though. All the fingers are pointing at the usual suspects: Blair, Campbell, Houn, the BBC. Even a member of the select committee has apologized for any distress caused. Yet from the examintation by that select committee, the thing that now sends chills down my spine is his mentioning of how his home was no longer his own, the implication that he felt his life was being taken over by the usual sensationalist press members who are prepared to ruin anyone's life in the search for an exclusive soundbite. Yet no one is looking at the behaviour of our press in general, just the BBC.

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by Jayjay
...the thing that now sends chills down my spine is his mentioning of how his home was no longer his own, the implication that he felt his life was being taken over by the usual sensationalist press members who are prepared to ruin anyone's life in the search for an exclusive soundbite. Yet no one is looking at the behaviour of our press in general, just the BBC.

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To be honest I take it as read that our print media is a disgrace, lacking in any sense of ethics or morality in its hunt for a story, not due to some altruistic desire for the truth but in order to sell as many issues as possible.

I think there are sufficient facts available to have an opinion as long as you remain flexible to the possibility of new information.

I have boundless contempt for the BBC's approach to television programming but believe it performs a vital role as a non-pastisan news reporting institution. Moreover it does this under tremendous scrutiny and pressure from many sources.

However, on this occasion, Today ran a story accusing the Government of lying that it could not prove. The BBC's internal guidelines ask that its journalists source their stories in triplicate. The 'sexy dossier' story was a single-source uncorroborated story.

Allegations that go unanswered weigh down governments like the chains of Marley. Consequently, the BBC left the government little option than to deny the story. In sticking to its guns, the BBC upped the stakes further. Since the story was derived from a single confidential source, the government's only effective defence to that BBC intransigence was to identify and discredit that source.

As things stand, Gilligan maintains he accurately represented Dr Kelly's views, implying that Dr Kelly, who can no longer defend himself, lied to Parliament. The Guardian today reports:

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One well-known BBC name said of the BBC's announcement yeste
rday: "It's a bombshell. Like many others here, I had the impression that the source was not Kelly. My worry is that we may have misdescribed him right at the start, when we called him a senior credible intelligence source. Is that really what David Kelly was? All I can say is that I hope Andrew Gilligan has got very good shorthand."

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Subjecting the Government of the day to scrutiny is a vital function of the media and one the BBC takes seriously. It seems to me that on this occasion, they did not adopt sufficiently rigorous standards resulting in poor journalism that is ultimately as corrosive to the perception of truth as is Government spin.

Please do not post unsubstantiated libellous material.

(Edited by Staff 22/07/2003 15:58)

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by The_Host
I seem to recall Gilligan denying that Dr. Kelly was the source of his report, but in the present circumstances, that carries such serious implications that I'd want to see it in print before saying more about that.

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Not true. Gilligan/the BBC refused to confirm or deny any name that was offered. The BBC press office (who didn't know whether Kelly was the source or not) did release a statement when the MOD originally claimed to have identified the source, but hadn't given a name, pointing out that the description given by the MOD differed from Gilligan's source in key ways - some of these seemed to be misrepressntations of Gilligan's words and some a result of the description given by the MOD not tallying with what we now know of Dr Kelly.

Partially true. According to a BBC statement "The description of the individual contained in the statement does not match Mr. Gilligan's source in some important ways. Mr. Gilligan's source does not work in the Ministry of Defence."

Unfortunately, while the Independent, from whose pages I gleaned that information, is not clear on the matter, the Google hits I've picked up suggest that Dr. Kelly was working for the MoD. If this is so, the Beeb, or Gilligan, or both, may be in a spot of bother. I'm surprised that no-one else has picked up on this yet, though. Was Kelly an "MoD 'Mole'"?

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by Jayjay
Let's wait for the inquiry to present some facts rather than guessing and making assumptions.

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And as if to prove your point...

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by willow fantastico
Libellous statement removed

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(Edited by Staff 22/07/2003 15:56)

Regarding Dr Kelly's employers, my understanding (and I admit this kinda falls in the pedantic arena) is that he was attached to the MoD, but not employed by them.

He was a Biological Weapon expert, and former UNSCOM inspector. He had been hired by the government as an advisor, and considering his expertise this would mean spending a lot of time working with the MoD, although he had previously been attached to the FO instead.

End of the day, a journalist should not be forced to reveal their source. It is essential for a free press that informants to the media be allowed to remain annonomous. The government, instead of mudslinging and spinning, should merely have presented an MoD statement that they were satisfied the two pre-war dossiers genuinely reflected the then sum of intelligence we had on the issue, and were not distorted in any way for political reasons. If the government had done this we could have got on with the real issues - why that intelligence seems so far removed from what we have found, and why no one bothered to preplan how to handle the political and legal vacuum created by a successful invasion. And, maybe, allowed Dr Kelly to remain out of the public eye, and most importantly, remain alive.

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by Jayjay
End of the day, a journalist should not be forced to reveal their source.

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Doesn't that leave the door rather wide open for journalists to make up whatever they feel like reporting secure in the knowledge that their accusations can't be subjected to forensic scrutiny?

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by Staff
Please do not post unsubstantiated libellous material.

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Let's leave that to the BBC.

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by Incandenza
Doesn't that leave the door rather wide open for journalists to make up whatever they feel like reporting secure in the knowledge that their accusations can't be subjected to forensic scrutiny?

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Unless they're actually breaking the law, journalists have their right to freedom of expression, and there is no reason to subject them to forensic scrutiny.

What's to stop them making things up? Well, nothing, except journalistic integrity, and the fact that if they get caught their careers are over. As has recently happened to a Sky News reporter who faked a report from the war in Iraq.

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by In a State of Dan
Unless they're actually breaking the law, journalists have their right to freedom of expression, and there is no reason to subject them to forensic scrutiny.

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That's an excellent point.

Aside from the risk of career suicide should a story be deliberately falsified, I wonder if the Government (or members of the Government) can pursue legal recourse in the same manner as an individual through the civil courts?

I'm sure they can. It's interesting, though, that although Gilligan wrote two reports, one for the Beeb, and one for the Mail on Sunday, and it was in the latter that Campbell was actually named, Blair's communications chief had no interest in extracting an apology from the paper. Of course, the publishing of Campbell's name, rather than the more nebulous "behest of Downing Street" allowed him to fight back against the BBC reporter. Maybe Campbell owed the MoS one...