BBC versus British government
21/07/2003 20:27  - (SA)  

Kelly: UK press attacks BBC Blair pleased by BBC statement Kelly: BBC under fire Blair versus BBC

London - For all its carefully-won reputation around the world as a model of probity and fairness, over the decades the BBC has managed to annoy British governments of pretty much every political persuasion.

With its slightly anomalous position of being both a state broadcaster funded by a compulsory license fee and avowedly independent, the British Broadcasting Corporation, founded in 1922, has long been in a tricky position.

Just a decade after its foundation, the BBC was in hot water with the government of the day over plans for a broadcast by a German former World War I submarine captain.

Ever since then, the corporation has been regularly lambasted by ministers for being, depending on the issue and the government's view, a hotbed of radical leftism, or a hidebound conservative dinosaur.

This is in stark contrast with the BBC's reputation abroad, where the measured, careful reporting of the World Service radio generally commends affection and respect, especially from people denied access otherwise to impartial news.

Bitter dispute

"Every (British) politician wants to rein in the BBC, more than anything else at all," said Rod Allen, head of the department of journalism at London's City University.

"They can buy the proprietors of the newspapers with political favours and stuff like that, but the BBC is bigger than politicians, generally speaking, and they hate that fact, absolutely hate it," he told AFP.

The corporation's current bitter dispute with the governing Labour Party administration centres on a report alleging the government deliberately exaggerated the risk posed by Iraq's chemical and biological weapons ahead of the war to unseat Saddam Hussein.

The row spiralled into tragedy late last week with the apparent suicide of former weapons inspector David Kelly, who was named by the BBC over the weekend as the single source for the controversial report.

Despite scathing criticism of the BBC's role in the affair from some Labour members of parliament, the corporation has weathered worse storms before, with the catalyst again usually being wars.

In 1956 the Conservative government of Anthony Eden was deeply unhappy with BBC reporting of the Suez crisis.

Margaret Thatcher later complained loudly that reports about the 1982 Falklands War were biased in favour of then-military foes Argentina, levelling similar complaints about the bitter British miners' strike of 1984.

Baghdad, Belgrade

Later, BBC reports covering the 1991 Gulf conflict and then the 1999 Kosovo campaign led to it being dubbed first the "Baghdad Broadcasting Corporation" and then the "Belgrade Broadcasting Corporation".

Perhaps most seriously of all, a series of governments took issue with coverage of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, with Labour prime minister Harold Wilson even reportedly considering legal curbs on the BBC's output in the 1970s.

"This latest row is nothing different at all," said Allen.

"Whatever party is in power, the BBC offends them."

Nonetheless, the fall-out for the corporation could be significant in the long-term.

Some influential Labour lawmakers have called for the BBC's board of governors to be dissolved and for the corporation to be brought under the remit of the government's main broadcasting regulator, the Office of Communications.

While this would not necessarily affect broadcast content, it would mean the BBC losing some of its unique status in being regulated the same way as commercial broadcasters, said Allen, arguing the move would be a mistake.

"The BBC, unlike any other media in the country, is not motivated by commercial objectives, and is therefore fundamentally different," he said.