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Media Matters
September 4, 2003
Relying on Sources: A Cautionary Tale from the BBC
By Jeffrey A. Dvorkin
Ombudsman
National Public Radio
The Hutton Inquiry in London is looking into the "death of an expert witness."
Dr. David Kelly, a British weapons inspector, committed suicide after it became known that he was the unnamed source of a BBC Radio report. That report by Andrew Gilligan on May 29 stated that the source (Kelly) alleged the Blair government embellished ("sexed-up" in BBC parlance) intelligence reports from Iraq in order to get Britain to be part of the U.S.-led invasion.
A Parliamentary Committee was then ordered to investigate these allegations. Kelly informed his supervisors that he was the one who had spoken with Gilligan. Kelly was then ordered to testify before the committee on July 15. In a grueling session, he denied that Gilligan's report was accurate.
On July 18, David Kelly was found dead, an apparent suicide.
The BBC then confirmed that Kelly was indeed the source named in Gilligan's reports.
Enormous Consequences
The politics of this inquest will play themselves out over the coming weeks and months. In the parliamentary system, the consequences are enormous. If it can be shown that the Blair government deliberately misled Parliament, then the government would likely be forced to resign if it lost of vote of non-confidence in the House of Commons. New elections would then be called.
But for journalists, the role of the BBC in this story is emerging as a cautionary tale of the dangers of investigative journalism. What has not been discussed is the BBC's reliance on a single source during the hysterical atmosphere in the British media when politics and pack journalism seemed to trump normal journalistic procedures.
What Constitutes a Reliable Source?
Most journalistic organizations have a rule against using a single source. It has to be very ironclad to go to air or to print with a single anonymous source and still expect your audience (and your editor) to find this credible.
Even the BBC's own "Producer's Guidelines" states on page 22:
Accuracy can be difficult to achieve. It is important to distinguish between first and second-hand sources. An error in one report is often recycled in another. Material already broadcast and newspaper cuttings can get out-of date quickly or simply be wrong. Programmes should be reluctant to rely on only one source... Accuracy is often more than a question of getting the facts right. All the relevant facts should be weighed to get at the truth of what is reported or described. If an issue is controversial, relevant opinions as well as facts may need to be considered. If an item may be legally contentious, its accuracy must be capable of withstanding scrutiny in a court of law.
That seems to mean that a one-source story might possibly be acceptable under unusual circumstances but it must withstand some very rigorous testing.
Journalism or Politics?
From what some media critics imply, that scrutiny seems to have been secondary to the desire by many media outlets to "get" the Blair government and to come up with the scoop that would discredit the British government's policy to invade Iraq alongside the Americans.
Prime Minister Blair and others from his government have testified before the Hutton Inquiry, established after Dr. Kelly's death. Blair in particular says that the allegations that his government had "sexed-up" British intelligence to make going to war more palatable to the British public are utterly untrue. Blair claims that if there was anyone to blame, it was British intelligence for suggesting that Iraq represented a greater threat than it may have been.
Blair along with others in the British government and in some of the pro-Labour newspapers blame the BBC for letting their anti-Blair (and openly anti-Bush) feelings get in the way of their duty and responsibilities as journalists.
But the BBC continues to stand by its story. And it will not allow Andrew Gilligan to be interviewed by other media.
Some of the complicating factors are that the BBC has been eager for some time to do more high profile, investigative journalism.
The Central Role of BBC Radio's Today
Its flagship radio program is called Today. It is on the air five mornings a week on BBC Radio 4 for three hours beginning at 6 am (www.bbc.co.uk). A few years ago it had a staff of 40 full time producers -- huge by any standard -- and a budget to match. "Today" was for many years the gold standard of British journalism. It set a daily national agenda with breaking news and tough -- even rude by American standards -- interviewing.
By the late 1990s, many in BBC management began to believe that Today was beginning to sound entirely too venerable.
Rod Liddle was brought in as the new executive producer to shake the program up. In an interview with The Washington Post, Liddle said the program was resting on its laurels:
"We had a group of middle managers who seemed to depend on their jobs on not getting into trouble, and of course the kind of journalism we wanted to do did cause trouble."
One of the things Liddle did besides firing middle managers and getting rid of outside consultants, was to bring in younger and less risk-averse producers. He also hired Andrew Gilligan from The London Daily Telegraph. Gilligan had a reputation on Fleet Street for his cocky assurance and an impressive ability to break political stories.
It was on Today on May 29 that Gilligan first reported that a senior unnamed British "intelligence" officer (Gilligan was wrong on that -- Kelly was not in British intelligence) was claiming the Blair government had "sexed-up" reports about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. That report led to a Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence to find out if the report was true. Kelly testified before that committee on July 15. He killed himself on July 18 and on July 20, the BBC confirmed that Kelly was Gilligan's source.
A Media Frenzy
Dr. Kelly's death was the inadvertent consequence of the British media pressure to get the story at all costs. In much the same way that many in the U.S. media were obsessed by President Clinton's dalliance, journalistic procedures were tossed aside in the effort to find out who Gilligan's source was. Being first was, it seems, more important than being right.
While the role of an aggressive and questioning media is entirely legitimate and often a sign of political health in a society, there are some worrying question that remain:
What Went Wrong? And Right?
Did the BBC fall victim to the white-hot media environment? Should the BBC have sought a second source in order to protect David Kelly? Should the BBC have released his name earlier, or should the BBC have kept his name a secret even after his death? How was the cause of civic journalism served by the BBC on this story?
While many journalists around the world are quickly rallying around the BBC as an example of a grand old institution that remains the gold standard for all, this incident has unnerved many in the public broadcasting community -- certainly in North America.
Some colleagues have said that it shows that investigative journalism will always fail against a government or an industry with superior resources.
Others say that the BBC was right to go after the Blair government. But by not being cautious enough, the BBC bungled it and brought the institution into disrepute.
But the BBC, like The New York Times in the Jayson Blair scandal, may have succumbed to hubris and to the self-inflicted delusion that since it is the BBC (or The New York Times), it may allow itself to cut corners.
This is an arrogant delusion and one that may have ill-served the BBC's listeners while emboldening the BBC's political enemies on Fleet Street and in Parliament.
It also reinforces the idea that even the best of ethics guidelines (which the BBC has) are useless if they are ignored under the pressure to get the story at all costs.
NPR has traditionally done very little investigative journalism. I hope that it will not be dissuaded by the BBC's experience from doing more and doing it well, when next the opportunity arises.
Listeners may contact me at 202-513-3245 or at ombudsman@npr.org.
Jeffrey Dvorkin
NPR Ombudsman
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