Because The Times doesn’t seem to have reproduced James Clark’s email in full from their print edition, here it is:
AllI’ve just watched two bulletins on hospital care tonight on ITV News.
As bad a hatchet-job as I’ve seen in years. Cheap shots all over the place, no context, no reasonable explanation. Like the Daily Star [a British tabloid] in moving pictures.
If this is ITN’s way of managing a relationship, so be it. It bears little resemblance to the string of emails I have from ITN executives asking me to sort out trips and embeds in Iraq and Afghanistan, or the help I have tried to give to your political coverage of defence matters.
One of my staff who has worked herself into the ground to provide everything she could for this piece and those which follow it this week just asked me: “Explain to me again what the point is in speaking to them?”
Why on earth would we spend time, resources and valuable places wanted by Sky, the BBC and others to facilitate journalism like this?
Answer – we’d have to be mad, and we’re not.
If giving ITN detailed exposure to our people, lengthy briefing and open access results in this, then I dread to think how your editors and producers would look to exploit access to our people in theatres, or our chiefs and ministers.
J
Frank or clumsy? You decide. It reminds me of an email sent by Clark’s predecessor, Simon Wren, which began simply “Dear Hacks…” Wren’s style with the media was famously blunt, but was perceived by “hacks” to be effective. Personally I didn’t like it, because it played favourites. But perhaps playing favourites is what it’s all about…
Incidentally to find out more, you can watch the original packages by following this link at itv.com, and click on ‘Betrayed? An investigation.’
2 responses to “MoD Dir of News email to ITV News execs”
It seems awfully arrogant to me. I managed to see the news report. From what I can tell, their primary complaint of substance was about a “violation of privacy” of a wounded soldier, who was filmed — at a great, unrecognizable distance — leaving a plane on a stretcher. There was literally only about half a second where the facial region of the soldier was visible, and even then, it was only visible as a dark silhouette, due to great distance and grainy low-light conditions. All other complaints are basically related to the tone of the report itself, which was to be expected under the circumstances.
“Why on earth would we spend time, resources and valuable places wanted by Sky, the BBC and others to facilitate journalism like this?”
This, to me, is a bit like saying why should The Guardian be allowed to attend press conferences or be granted interviews, when they’re prone to write pieces critical of the government.
It’s a two-sided, divisive threat, intended to draw a distinction between “responsible, credible journalists” who go easy on the MoD, and those who do not, who will be blocked from covering the conflict. If that isn’t bad enough, ITV will now face attacks upon their credibility — in some cases, from competing news broadcasts — and will basically have no court they can appeal to defend their reputation against some extremely troubling, yet (intentionally?) vague allegations.
If the MoD feels so strongly about this issue, they should do the right thing and file a complaint. Why isn’t their credibility under attack here? Certainly, they’ve been found to not only be distorting the facts at times, but in some cases essentially lying to the public.
As for the rest of the British press, maybe they should all refuse to be embedded until this dispute is settled, pursuing alternate channels to get news directly from Afghanis, soldiers, etc. It certainly would make the MoD rethink the wisdom of their policy if several other major news sources followed suit.
An MP has raised the issue in Parliament – I think Mr Clark is going to have to put his pen back in its holster…