Andrew Gilligan: Keynote speaker for the second Bristol NUJ Benn Lecture
On Monday 26 November the celebrated investigative journalist Andrew Gilligan gave the second annual Bristol NUJ/Arnolfini Benn lecture on the media and politics in Bristol.
In 2003 it was Gilligan who made the famous statement on BBC radio’s Today programme that he had been told by a source that the Government “probably knew that the 45-minute figure [on Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction capability] was wrong even before it decided to put it in”.
This was the report which led to Dr David Kelly taking his own life, which led in turn to the Hutton Report in 2004. The report found against the BBC and Andrew. The NUJ, however, supports what Gilligan did, believes that the BBC acted in the public interest, and maintain that it’s vital for the right of journalists to protect the anonymity of confidential sources to be protected in law.
Gilligan, working these days at the Evening Standard and Channel 4’s Dispatches, spoke about the ongoing attack on journalism since Wapping in the mid-Eighties and the demise of the printers’ unions, the fact that it has since become possible to make real money out of the media and what media-as-marketable-commodity has meant for quality journalism.
He made a passionate argument for the need to stand up for true reporting and impartial analysis – for the dignity of journalism as the fourth estate of the realm.
Speaking about the institutions in Britain (“the most centralised and secretive large democracy in the world”) which have both failed, and have failed to acknowledge their failings, Gilligan pointed out that the forces of hostility to journalism are on the increase, with clampdowns on unofficial sources; new difficulties in publishing memoirs; and leaks – and those who report on them – being punished even with jail to no murmurs of protest from the media.
So it’s hard times, but important ones. Andrew pointed out that we still ARE a democracy; that it IS possible to roll back state power; and that journalists have the potential to produce an alternative narrative which will hold government to account, inform the public, and defend democratic freedoms. Although the economics are going to become more difficult, he said that in a world full of cacophony the power of focused information is still considerable – and that as journalists, we should aim to supply it.
Andrew Gillligans talk entitled "Caught in the Crossfire"
Introduction by Christina Zaba
Production Tony Gosling
http://www.arnolfini.org.uk/
Andrew Giligan
- Homepage: http://www.nuj.org.uk
Former BBC defence and diplomatic correspondent Andrew Gilligan delivers the second in a series of annual lectures which reflect critically on 21st Century news production and reporting. In May 2003 Gilligans report on an intelligence dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction led to a row between the government and the BBC that had far-reaching consequences. In his talk he argues that our freedoms are being subtly eroded as the media is blamed for crimes for which others are responsible.
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