[Media-watch] Five Live on Mike Jackson

[david Miller]

Dear Simon,

I heard your discussion about the war this afternoon which included an interview with General Sir Mike Jackson the commander in chief of the British Army in the gulf.  After the interview at around 3.54pm you announced that 'when Mike Jackson speaks we can trust his answers'.   This is a truly staggering statement for a BBC presenter to make.  It totally violates the principle of impartiality.  Whether we can trust Mike Jackson or not, is both a matter of opinion and a matter on which the public should be able to make up its own mind on the basis of the evidence.  For a BBC journalist to give an openly partial view of the most senior officer in the British army when we are in the middle of a war on which the country is deeply divided is even more incredible.  Add to this, the series of stories which the BBC (and other media) have carried in the past week which have emanated from British and US sources and have since been revealed to be false (I can send you a full list if you like, but let's make do with scuds, Chemical factory, Basra uprising, the fall of Umm Qasr).  In the past week the British Army has openly admitted that it is engaged in psychological operations in the gulf.  More commonly known as disinformation, this involves deliberately circulating false stories in the world's media.

Given this the notion that General Sir Mike Jackson is trustworthy is perhaps somewhat less obvious.  

But the case of Mike Jackson is particularly inopportune for another reason.  As you may or may not know, in 1972 Jackson was then an intelligence officer in an interrogation centre outside Belfast, later condemned by the European court of Human Rights for practicing torture.  In January of that year he  was centrally involved in a military operation about which entirely false stories were circulated to the world's media by the British Army and their psychological operations staff, who worked in a department in army HQ outside Belfast called Information Policy.  As you may by now have surmised, this operation became known as 'Bloody Sunday' since it involved the the Paratroop regiment in shooting to death 14 unarmed civilians.  I quote a recent description of Jackson's account of the day and his statements about it: 

In a tribunal investigating the affair, Jackson said, "I was one of the group around Derek Wilford (the commanding officer) and that is where my memory properly kicks in."

He describes how he moved into Rossville Street [in Derry], where the murders took place, and said he had "the impression of coming under fire." He said that the company he was with "had become involved in a fire fight." He then said, "I had no -- absolutely no -- reason to suppose that any of the paratroopers would have been using their weapons had there not been incoming rounds." Even though Jackson was surrounded by soldiers and apparently came under fire with them, he told the tribunal that he did not see any soldiers firing weapons. Within hours of the massacre that Sunday, Jackson put out a statement claiming that the victims were on the wanted list and were carrying weapons. Jackson told the tribunal that he was involved in taking statements from British troopers. In anticipation of overwhelming evidence that there was then a cover-up, Jackson was outraged. "There was absolutely no question of briefing soldiers as to what they should say. Such a statement is absolutely outrageous."

Official statements supplied to the tribunal quote Jackson as describing the Parachute Regiment's activities on the day as "first rate." He also said that telling the paras to go in "hard and ready" and "inflict casualties" gives a misleading impression.

Recently, Jackson was the most senior British officer on an army board which ruled that two soldiers convicted of the murder of an eighteen year old were fit to continue serving in the Army.
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/iraq/nyc-bres0322.story

This is an account by a US journalist and clearly the use of evaluative words such as 'murder' indicates a point to view.  But my point is that this does rather undermine any notion that your remark could be seen as a straightforwardly neutral or factual comment.  It too was evaluative.

It may be the case that you personally found Jackson convincing and no doubt he is a charming man.  But it really does the BBC's reputation for impartiality no good for you to present propagandist views as acceptable comment.

Without making this a personal criticism I think you owe your listeners an on air apology.  Please try to be more impartial in the future.

Yours sincerely,


David Miller
Stirling Media Research Institute.


PS. If you are interested in finding out more about psychological operations and military spin in Northern Ireland, I am more than happy to send you a copy of a book which I co-edited on the issue which includes chapters by a number of well-respected BBC journalists.