Monday, February 23, 2004
When the Hutton report came out, several voices warned that Blair would appoint the new BBC director. From here, they went on to attack the state ownership of TV.
If something, this case proves that an independent state TV broadcaster is possible. Blair also appointed the previous director. However, it is true that this scandal can influence the new director to have a cautious editorial position towards the government – which was possibly one of the reasons of the whole row.
The supporters of privatisation of the state TV have has central argument the its implicit dependency from the government. Nevertheless, it is known that TV corporations in the US tend to be more influenced by governments than the European state owned TVs.
The American government, through its policies, force the corporations into an editorial self-censure. Recently, a TV ad against Bush tax policies was not broadcasted during the Super Bowl final break, while a Bush ad was. The Bush administration had just approved a law that allows this corporation to expand its TV empire.
Apparently, the intelligence services “editorial boards” decided to ignore the agents and analysts that disagreed with the assumption of the WMD existence.
Traditionally the security reports should be impartial, based on evidence and present all the intelligence. If we were to believe blindly in the politicians – following Hutton’s advice – we can only conclude that the secrets services did that self-censure with out external pressure. The intelligence community accuses their leadership of wanting to please the politicians that appointed them.
If we would accept the above-mentioned argument about the state-owned TVs, we should be demand the immediate privatisation of the secret services.
Meanwhile, the extensive message exchange with corrections from the British government accepted by the intelligence services passed Hutton‘s judgments spotless.
Picture that correspondence being between the government and the BBC and imagine what would happen.
