BBC and Campbell
It's been a funny few weeks watching the Daily Mail, Norman Tebbit and the rest of them standing up for the BBC's reputation for honesty and integrity. In a way of course such behaviour is not surprising -- they hate the BBC, but boy do they hate the government and Alistair Campbell more.That in itself is the best reason for supporting the government -- rarely is it that either the best moral or practical position is not the opposite of that of the Daily Mail and Norman Tebbit. But this case goes to prove the old adage 'you can't be wrong all of the time'.
Let us remind ourselves simply of the issue here. The war on Iraq was a new type of war in that it was not in response to a clear and present danger. Even its supporters (well most of them) acknowledge that, and indeed many of them welcomed it -- the phrase used back in those heady pre-war days was 'pre-emptive'.
Pre-emptive wars are based more than any other type of war on the accuracy of millitary intelligence. Thus if there are claims -- subsequenly largely proven -- that the government attemped to spin such intelligence, then clearly that is a major public interest story. And thus the BBC was right to publish its story.
posted by Matthew @ 7/08/2003 05:03:00 PM
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