Thursday, January 29, 2004
Kelly and The Hutton Report
A pretty fair semisceptical summary from Juan Cole, bringing out some of the Baha'i background without the high-level paranoia of the 'Kelly Was Murdered sites' (just do a search). Cole says:
"... the substance of Gilligan's report actually seems unexceptionable, though whether what was done could be characterized as a "sexing up" of the documents may still be in dispute.. If Gilligan did anything wrong at all, it was to venture into the territory of intentions, which is admittedly an ethical issue for journalists (how can you know an official's private intentions? Shouldn't you avoid imputing intentions?)"
Actually I think the main problem was the 'Today' programme obsession with 'setting the agenda'. They got caught up in the tabloid-level fascination with a certan A. Campbell and didn'd to proper checks on the sources. Having a verifiable source is NOT enough for good journalism. There will be more on all this...
A pretty fair semisceptical summary from Juan Cole, bringing out some of the Baha'i background without the high-level paranoia of the 'Kelly Was Murdered sites' (just do a search). Cole says:
"... the substance of Gilligan's report actually seems unexceptionable, though whether what was done could be characterized as a "sexing up" of the documents may still be in dispute.. If Gilligan did anything wrong at all, it was to venture into the territory of intentions, which is admittedly an ethical issue for journalists (how can you know an official's private intentions? Shouldn't you avoid imputing intentions?)"
Actually I think the main problem was the 'Today' programme obsession with 'setting the agenda'. They got caught up in the tabloid-level fascination with a certan A. Campbell and didn'd to proper checks on the sources. Having a verifiable source is NOT enough for good journalism. There will be more on all this...
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