BBC’s Cliff Richard raid coverage driven by pressure for exclusives The BBC’s controversial coverage of the police raid on Sir Cliff Richard’s home was approved by the deputy news director and came amid increased pressure in its news operation to beat rivals to exclusive stories. The decision by BBC News to film and broadcast the search of the singer’s home live from a helicopter flying above his £3.5m Berkshire residence prompted accusations of a “witch-hunt” and comparisons with the worst tabloid excesses. James Harding, the former Times editor who is the BBC’s director of news and current affairs, was on holiday last week. Harding’s deputy, Fran Unsworth, and members of the BBC’s legal department contacted news teams to give the reports about the star the all-clear 10 minutes before its coverage broke across TV, radio and online at 1pm last Thursday. The reports prompted criticism from politicians and public figures including former BBC broadcaster Michael Parkinson, and its legality was questioned by human rights lawyer, Geoffrey Robertson. Labour MP Keith Vaz, chairman of the Commons home select committee, said on Monday that he had written to BBC director general Tony Hall and the South Yorkshire police about its reporting, “concerned by the methods or process that may be followed to garner this information”. Insiders said the BBC’s coverage reflected a drive by senior management to break more stories after BBC News found itself outgunned by ITV News, with its award-winning coverage of the Woolwich attack, and Channel 4 News, which won acclaim for its Plebgate scoop. Harding has made clear since taking charge of BBC News that it should be breaking more stories, setting the pace and “driving the daily agenda”. BBC insiders said there was pressure on the corporation’s domestic newsgathering to up its game, while its foreign operations were generally regarded as doing a good job. There was praise for BBC reporter Dan Johnson, who covers the north-east and Cumbria, who got the scoop, but also reservations among some that the live helicopter footage had been over the top. “If one of the country’s most famous recording artists has his property searched, then that has to be a story, but when you look at the level of detail of the coverage, it can look a bit insensitive,” said one critic. A BBC spokeswoman said the BBC had “followed normal journalistic practice and agreed not to publish a story that might jeopardise a police inquiry. “We have also confirmed that South Yorkshire police were not the original source for the story. The BBC has now received a letter from South Yorkshire Police regarding the situation and will respond in due course.” South Yorkshire police complained to the BBC, accusing it of breaking its own editorial guidelines after it found out about the police raid. Neither the BBC, which received the police complaint on Sunday, nor South Yorkshire police would comment on its content, but it is believed a focus of the complaint is the amount of time it took the corporation to confirm that details about the raid were not leaked by the force. Jonathan Munro, the former ITV executive hired by Harding as the BBC’s head of newsgathering, said on Twitter on Friday that there had been “lots of [questions] re: original source of BBC News story on Cliff Richard. We won’t say who, but can confirm it was not South Yorks Police”. Munro later retweeted Lord Sugar: “Can’t see why police complaining about BBC over Cliff Richards. If The Sun tumbled on the story of the investigation, they would have run it.” Harding, who has taken a hands-on approach to the job he took on a year ago, has struck a very different tone to the BBC’s former head of journalism Mark Byford in encouraging his journalists to be more aggressive in breaking stories. As its acting director general in the wake of the Hutton report in early 2004, Byford said the corporation should not be in the business of “creating” news or competing with newspapers on exclusives.
Posted on: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 23:27:21 +0000