[Media-watch] 'Tragic price of contempt for free press' passionate article

[Sigi D]

Dear Media Watch friends,
this is a  courageous + passionate article from Prof
Barnett in the Guardian from 18.07.03.
Best,
Sigi
http://media.guardian.co.uk/bbc/story/0,7521,1001078,00.html
Tragic price of contempt for free press 

A man may have died as a result of the government's
contempt for one of the cornerstones of democracy - a
free and independent press 

Steven Barnett
Friday July 18, 2003 

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.

· Steven Barnett is professor of communications at the
University of Westminster. 



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