The Hutton Report

[nemafakei]

You may remember a few months ago I posted to note the death of Dr David Kelly, a weapons expert involved in many aspects of the search for WMD, seconded to Britain's Ministry of Defence (MoD) as well as a UN weapons expert. After meeting with BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan, the reporter produced a series of alligations concerning the UK Government's Iraq Dossier (with a foreword by the PM; this was not the 'dodgy dossier' copied from the internet), such that No. 10's Spin Doctor, Alistair Campbell 'sexed up' the dossier, and gave undue prominence to the claim that WMDs could be deployed in 45 minutes by Hussein. This was the dossier used to convince parliament (just) to back (sort of) a war on Iraq.

Lord Hutton, a senior judge, was asked to inquire into the circumstances of his death, and produced the following report, damning of the BBC, and almost unreservedly uncritical of the Labour government and ministries.

What are your opinions of the verdict? What do you think the effects are on one of the world's most well-known and well-respected news organisations? And what about the Labour party?

PDF version of the Hutton Report (Beware: 2MB, >300 pages)

http://news1.thdo.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/uk/03/hutton_inquiry/documents/pdf/hutton_inquiry.pdf

HTML Version

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/uk/03/hutton_inquiry/hutton_report/html/contents.stm

[Dragoon Knight]

I, personally, don't think that the report was all that fair.  It was far too biased in my view, and left the government high and dry, while the Chairman and Director General of the BBC have had to resign.  This is stupid - they're blaming it all on the media... but tell me this; who MUST have leaked the name to the media?  Why would it NOT be right for the media to know if our own smegging goverment told us?  OK, so they didn't exactly TELL us, but that is just fiddling the definition of 'tell'.  And who, precisely, MUST have leaked the info to The Sun newspaper about The Hutton Report the night before it was due to be released publicly.  I'll tell you who...

THE GOVERNMENT.

As for Tony Blair's involvement, I think he has been excellent.  I support him fully in what he has done, and he has endured a lot of criticism.  He took down an EVIL DICTATOR, he has introduced a BETTER UNIVERSITY FEES SYSTEM, and has now said that "he only ever wanted an apology for the accusations made against the government", for it was the fault of both parties.  NOT just the BBC.

[Dante]

I was wondering If I should start a topic on this myself...

I take a somewhat more extreme view. I wanted Hutton to damn Blair's government to the farthest reaches of disgrace and humiliation that it was possible to bring. I wanted Blair to be sacked by Friday (as some said he might be) and I wanted the BBC to be given full apologies by the government for acting in such a stupid way.

It seems I am disappointed but I am not in the minority. I'll get the statistics later.

The Hutton report was indeed a whitewash, performed by a government stooge (come on, picking the judge at your own trial? Please...) who exonerated them completely. He went on to damn the BBC and cause three resignations so far, all of which have been both reluctant and not supported by the rest of the BBC staff. Except maybe Gilligan's.

Blair has gone from disaster to disaster. On the subject of the Hutton reoprt, which declared on numerous occasions that the search for weapons in Iraq lay outside it's duty (another government ploy), why aren't there any? If the BBC was wrong, and the government thought that it's 45-minute claim was correct, then where oh where are Iraq's nucear and chemical weapons?

Finally; I read this in the paper today and though it excellent:

"It wasn't the BBC who bombed Baghdad."

[TMA_1]

bbc takes things way too far, and I think that it, like so many media outlets is biased beyond belief. It just so happens that liberals love some media outlets, and will defend it dispite the fact that it is so biased, because they have no character. Same with the conservitives with groups like fox news.

it makes me sick, intellectual dishonesty.

[Dante]

The BBC is mostly unbiased; here at least. If anything it is biased towards the will of the people, especially at the moment.

Statistic A: 2 in 3 people believe the BBC was wronged. Here at least.

[Wolf]

Can you cite where you got that statistic?

[Dante]

Newspaper: 'The Independant.' No link since I read it in the paper itself and am just about to leave so I'm not going looking for one.

[nemafakei]

"bbc takes things way too far"

In what context do you mean? And what makes you say that the BBC is biased (In the context of the news, I mean)? And how much are you referring to its world service or its British service?

I personally think that Gilligan's interpretation of Dr Kelly's evidence was wrong, which could have come about in many ways, and that he exaggerated a little. But if what Kelly said to Susan Watts is anything to go by, 'sexing up' is not an unfair claim, though many people may not have quite understoos this in the truer sense of the phrase.

But that No. 10 had a serious involvement in the formatting of a report ostensibly from the intelligence services, in which the 45-minute claim was clearly given prominance by Blair in Blair's own foreword... any dossier presented to the public should not be so directly affected by such a party as would have interest in its conclusions fitting its own ends. The intelligence services were asked to come up with a dossier on all the charges against Iraq, not a balanced analysis of the facts, surely this makes only for good propaganda, and hardly for good information.

Note also that John Scarlett (Head of the JIC) refers to the Government as 'we' in the Hutton Report; I am surprised at this; he is, after all, a civil servant, not a No. 10 employee.

I'm about a third of the way through the Hutton report, appendices excluded.

[Dante]

You're reading it? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised but I'm impressed nonetheless.

[Egeides]

Personally, I heard that Lord Hotton gave the benefit of the doubt each time to Blair and his party, while never giving the benefit of the doubt each time it could have been given to the BBC.

[Dante]

More than that. It was a government whitewash decided upon by a guy the government picked. No wonder the BBC lost out.

[nemafakei]

The google ad on this page is wonderful! Haha! Smug indeed.

Hutton did give the MoD a tap on the knuckles for not giving Dr Kelly advance warning of his name being released, but hardly a decent reprimand for putting him under enough stress such that he committed suicide (though granted, Hutton was satisfied that no-one could have been expected to know he would kill himself).

[filecore]

bbc [snip] fox news.

it makes me sick, intellectual dishonesty.

Okay, I have to start by saying that if you believe that there is or should be possible to have a totally unbiased news agency, then you're a moron beyond belief.  But if you take an objective and unbiased look at how these agencies report (and yes, I am a journalist, and yes, I have taken an academic view of this in my four-year Honours degree), then you will be able to see that while the BBC does indeed make some bias slips, by and large they don't make nearly so many as other news agencies, and aren't so clearly patriotic to the point of being propaganda machines, like the US agencies.

Also, you can't lump together a legitimate and efficient independent news agency which has existed and fought against government control for many more years than you've been alive, against a relatively new so-called "news" agency which has been set up as an arm of an entertainment company!  Fox news and the infamous "Chicken Noodle News", CNN, are quite clearly commerce whores.  They're a whole different category.