David Kelly, the BBC and Anonymous Sources
The David Kelly story is of course huge here in England. Though as usual with the Brit press, it's hard to find the important facts buried in all the slush, opinions and speculation. With no irony intended, sourcing is terrible. There are loads of "one person said" and "a friend confirmed" and rubbish like. No nod to the fact that it was the questionable use of an anonymous source that created this mess. That said, here are some interesting bits from today's papers: (My apologies, just realized all the links to the Telegraph stories are broken. Will try to fix.)

*In addition to speaking to Andrew Gilligan and Susan Watts, a science editor at the BBC, Kelly apparently spoke on the same topic to a third BBC reporter, according to today's Telegraph:

The BBC's belief that it accurately reported Dr Kelly's views was bolstered by news on Friday that the scientist had spoken to a third BBC journalist on the subject. Gavin Hewitt, the BBC's special correspondent, spoke to Dr Kelly about Gilligan's report on the day it was broadcast.

Hewitt was looking for an expert opinion on the Today programme's claims, and was unaware that the scientist was the main source of the allegations. Again, Dr Kelly broadly repeated the view that Downing Street had interfered in the compilation of the dossier.

Here are the key bits from the three BBC reporters' stories.

*A poll by the Telegraph shows today that "three times as many voters said they trusted the BBC than had faith in the Government."

*Though none of the reports I've seen have mentioned the pre-war pro-war report from the Brits that turned out to be plagiarized from a grad student's report posted on the Internet, a column in The Independent today makes the point about why Gilligan's initial report was so important. The column, which is worth a read, is from Tim Luckhurst, who spent five years working on the BBC's Today show.

Scant doubt can remain that the Government sent British forces into battle on the basis of exaggerated assessments of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. Gilligan's reporting has done as much as the work of any other journalist to draw that truth to public attention. But the implication of his 29 May report, defended by the director general and the BBC governors against criticism from the Government and Parliament, was that this had been done deliberately and that the BBC knew who was responsible.

*A letter writer to the Telegraph calls for a debate on the use of anonymous sources.

*The Telegraph on the truthfulness of government flaks: "Often, government spokesmen will be far less forthcoming when asked to confirm accurate stories or information, including names, refusing to comment at all if it is in their interests to do so."

*BBC reporter Gilligan apparently has Kelly on record as naming Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's director of communications, as the person who called for the report to be "sexed up." But apparently he didn't name Campbell in the BBC story. Instead, he sat on it a few days and saved it for a story he wrote for the Mail on Sunday. The BBC timeline is here. (Are we to presume Gilligan waited to use this juicy detail obtained on the BBC's dime to sell it to a print publication? Or are we to guess that the BBC didn't want it? Or that Gilligan re-interviewed Kelly after the original story appeared and got better info? Makes you think Jeff Jarvis is spot on when he calls for the BBC to conduct a Jayson Blair-like investigation of the ordeal.)

*The morning before he died, Kelly sent an e-mail to Judith Miller at the New York Times about "many dark actors playing games." Miller, who is the co-author of Germs, was a target of an anthrax mailing and the subject of an earlier media ethics debate about reporters accidentally becoming mouthpieces for government propaganda.

So my guess is, based on the reporting out so far, that Kelly was probably the source for the whole thing. He apparently said just about the same thing to at least three separate BBC reporters on three different occasions. Gilligan, I'm guessing, may have indeed livened up the language for his original BBC story enough to make Gilligan originally think he wasn't the sole source for the Gilligan report. But I'm guessing that Kelly may have been delivering half-truths to the foreign service committee last week, possibly angry that he was in that position but seeing no way out but to stick with the half-confession he originally told his boss. However, my opinion is likely to change as more facts are made public.

- posted by Amy @ 7/21/2003 12:32:00 PM

 

Red Eyes
Arrived at Heathrow about 6 a.m. this morning on British Air, yet had no idea there was any sort of strike taking place. We had no idea of the turmoil until my very fine brother-in-law picked us up to drive us to Peterborough. Turns out we were lucky -- thousands of people were stranded and some are now having to spend a second night at the airport, the BBC said. The only problem we had was with luggage - a delay of about 45 minutes.

I've started reading in on the whole David Kelly mess. It does indeed seem like lots of mistakes were made by lots of people. Wondering why the BBC only went with one source on the story and why (if true) the anonymous source couldn't even realize he was the lone source for the story. Had the reporter not only extrapolated some things for himself, but also not bothered to make clear with Kelly what he could use as background or how Kelly would be identified as the source? And after the governement started demanding to know if Kelly was the source, did BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan have any contact with Kelly to clear up the relationship? Also, whistleblower laws, anyone? More on this in coming days, I'm sure.

Last thought for tonight. It's from the transcript of the foreign affairs committee's grilling of Kelly last week, as appeared in The Daily Telegraph on Saturday:

Mr Anderson: What lessons have you learned from this episode?

Dr Kelly: Never to talk to a journalist again, I think.

- posted by Amy @ 7/20/2003 05:23:00 PM