The Clipboard: Tragic price of contempt for free press

From an article¹:

Their public calls for the BBC to cofirm or deny that Dr Kelly was their source were not just a disingenuous attempt to ignore the rules; they were a deliberate, disgraceful attempt to undermine the foundations of genuine journalistic inquiry in a desperate pitch to shore up their own credibility.

In the light of what has happened, BBC journalists may be asking themselves whether they should have behaved differently. It is hard to see how. The nature of their investigation goes to the heart of how a free press should operate independently and in the public interest.

The government, however, cannot be let off the hook. It has demonstrated a profound contempt for the most basic conventions governing relationships between press and politicians. It is possible that, as a result, a man has died.

As a price to pay in the battle for political survival, that is unforgiveable. (link)

An excellent editorial on the David Kelly affair.

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Complete text of the article, Tragic price of contempt for free press, by Steven Barnett

One of the fundamental differences between genuine democracies and totalitarian regimes is a free press.

For a free press to operate effectively, governments must accept that their decisions and policies will be challenged, interrogated, investigated and analysed by people acting independently and using whatever legal means are available to them. It can be desperately uncomfortable, and sometimes even unfair. Very occasionally, as for Richard Nixon over Watergate, it can be politically fatal. But the alternative is far worse.

The case of David Kelly, the Ministry of Defence weapons expert who ministers "outed" as the source of Andrew Gilligan's story that the government exaggerated Iraq's weapons capability, raises crucial questions about the operation of a free press and the relationship between government and journalists.

There is no question that Gilligan's report for the BBC's Today programme was explosive. There is no question that it made the government's position uncomfortable - perhaps even untenable - on the reasons for going to war. And there is no question that Alastair Campbell, in particular, was apoplectic about the allegations being made.

The BBC response was robust, defending not only Gilligan's journalism, but pointing out a similar and completely independent report on Newsnight four days later: its science correspondent Susan Watts also reported a conversation with "a senior official", saying that intelligence services came under heavy political pressure to include evidence that weapons of mass destruction could be ready for use within 45 minutes.

While the Newsnight story went unchallenged, battle raged over the authenticity of Gilligan's source. Then, a name "emerged" from the Ministry of Defence. Dr Kelly was named by ministers, who insisted that he came forward voluntarily after "discussions with a colleague".

We can speculate on the nature of those discussions, but one thing is clear. The political pressure to find a name - to switch from an institutional assault on the BBC to the identification of a single (and therefore more vulnerable) individual - was intense. It was clearly not going to be possible for a government whose reputation for honesty and integrity was already in terminal decline to discredit BBC journalism when the whole of the BBC, from its chairman downwards, was standing foursquare behind their journalists. But if they could nail down the individual source and discredit that there might be some chance of a respite.

The games-playing that followed was a travesty of the principles of a free press, and a disgraceful display of political chicanery. Every politician and every journalist knows the rules: it is axiomatic to the operation of a free press that no journalist will ever name their source, because the vast majority of information would dry up if there was any risk of exposure.

In issues such as defence and security, where sources are usually in breach of the Official Secrets Act, no one would talk. Governments would be free to spend money corruptly, take ill-judged decisions or implement undemocratic policies without fear of public scrutiny.

In defence and security matters, more than any other area of public reporting, the source/journalist relationship is central to this democratic process of scrutiny and interrogation. Alastair Campbell, a journalist, knows that better than anyone. So do defence secretary Geoff Hoon and prime minister Tony Blair.

Their public calls for the BBC to cofirm or deny that Dr Kelly was their source were not just a disingenuous attempt to ignore the rules; they were a deliberate, disgraceful attempt to undermine the foundations of genuine journalistic inquiry in a desperate pitch to shore up their own credibility.

In the light of what has happened, BBC journalists may be asking themselves whether they should have behaved differently. It is hard to see how. The nature of their investigation goes to the heart of how a free press should operate independently and in the public interest.

The government, however, cannot be let off the hook. It has demonstrated a profound contempt for the most basic conventions governing relationships between press and politicians. It is possible that, as a result, a man has died.

As a price to pay in the battle for political survival, that is unforgiveable.

reference=http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,1001072,00.html