| Simon Pirani |
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Read my letter to the Guardian here. MY LETTER TO MARK THOMPSON, BBC DIRECTOR GENERAL, ABOUT BBC EDITORIAL STANDARDS 22 July 2007 Dear Mr Thompson, I draw your attention to an extremely serious breach of BBC editorial standards, arguably far more serious than that involving Her Majesty the Queen, that was not satisfactorily dealt with at the time that it was committed. I refer to the reversal of the order of film on the Nine O’Clock News – in a manner similar to that applied to the clip of the Queen that has recently been at the centre of attention – of the so-called “Battle of Orgreave”, one of the pivotal events in industrial relations in the last 40 years. The BBC failed to deal satisfactorily with complaints about this incident, either immediately, or when attention was drawn to it again in 1991. For this reason I submit that, notwithstanding the time that has passed, it should now be considered by the independent inquiry headed by Will Wyatt CBE. I ask you to draw Mr Wyatt’s attention to it, and would welcome your own comments. The relevant facts are: On 18 June 1984, in its report on the “battle of Orgreave”, the Nine O’Clock News screened film showing mounted police charging a large group of striking mineworkers, and a group of mineworkers throwing stones at police. By reversing the order, and showing the stone-throwing first, the editors of the programme gave the impression that the police charge had been provoked by violence from the mineworkers’ side. This was the reverse of the truth. I submit that the BBC thereby failed in its duty to report accurately a pivotal moment in the most significant industrial dispute in recent history, the mineworkers’ strike of 1984-85. I undertand that the issue was raised by defence lawyers at the “Orgreave riot trial” in Sheffield Crown Court in 1985. It was part of their argument that public opinion had been unfairly influenced by, among others, the editors of the Nine O’Clock News. The prosecution case at the trial, at which 50 participants in the Orgreave demonstration were charged with riot, conspiracy and other offences, collapsed. At some time in 1990 or 1991, Tony Benn, then a Labour MP, was interviewed on the Radio 4 programme PM, and claimed that the film had been deliberately reversed. Following this, a listener to the programme, Charles Alverson, a member of the Concerned Citizens of Cambridge group, wrote to the BBC asking for its comments. He received a reply from Martin Hart, on behalf of the then Director General, acknowledging that the film had been shown in the wrong order. Mr Hart’s letter claimed: “It was a mistake made in the haste of putting the news together. The end result was that an editor inadvertently reverse the occurrence of the actions of the police and of the pickets.” He added that there was “no truth whatever” in Mr Benn’s claim that the reversal was deliberate. The information I have summarised here appeared in the following article: “We Reversed Orgreave Pictures”, The Miner (the National Union of Mineworkers journal), October 1991, page 9. At that time I was the editor of The Miner, and wrote the story on the basis of correspondence forwarded to me by Mr Alverson. As a journalist, I welcome the vigour with which you have responded to the recent incidents of editorial standards being breached. You should also clarify what happened in the case of Orgreave – not in a promo clip for a feature, but on the main evening news. Presumably the BBC archives, either for 1985 or for 1991, will show that management investigated this incident. It is time that the details of that investigation were made public, otherwise sceptics will always believe that the BBC capitulated to the considerable political pressure being exerted by the government in 1984 to slant its coverage against the mineworkers. Yours sincerely, Simon Pirani. RESPONSE FROM MARK THOMPSON, BBC DIRECTOR GENERAL BBC, Media Centre, Media Village, White City, 201 Wood Lane, London W12 7TQ. From the Director-General. Our Ref: 14424059. Dear Simon, Thank you for your letter of 22 July, in which you raised questions regarding BBC News coverage of events at Orgreave in 1984. I note that you believe the BBC transposed key pieces of footage on the day in question in order to present a falsified version of events, and that you would like us to investigate these matters now. While I appreciate the seriousness of your accusation, I have to say that we do not intend to investigate this matter at this point, and I cannot agree that to do so would serve a useful purpose. Will Wyatt’s investigation will focus exclusively on issues surrounding the programme A Year With The Queen, and it is not possible to expand that investigation to look into news coverage of 23 years ago. I do not have access to the letter from Martin Hart that you refer to, and so I am unable to comment on the content of it or the extent to which it accurately reflected the position of the BBC. Best wishes, Mark Thompson. |
| Posted July 2007, revised September 2007 |