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Ms Patricia Hodgson
Chief Executive Designate
Independent Television Commission
Foley Street
London W1P 7LB
13 July 2000
Dear Ms. Hodgson,
I register a complaint against Granada Television with respect to Granada's reporting of (a) Mohamed Fayed's and the Guardian's allegations against the former Conservative MP, Neil Hamilton, and (b) all other related matters arising therefrom, under the following sections of the ITC Code:
3.2(i) Due impartiality
3.2(ii) Editorialising
3.3 Impartiality over time
3.4 Programme content: 'major matters'
3.5 News
- and also under Appendix 3 - Programmes at the time of elections:
5 (i) (a) Programmes about individual constituencies
I also request that the Commission treats this complaint separately as a submission under the ITC's current consultation processes regarding:
a) the future of public service broadcasting in multi-channel digital television, closing date: 14 July 2000
b) the future of regional programming on Independent Television Channel 3 (ITV), closing date:
31 August 2000
The Neil Hamilton affair serves as a case study of Granada Television's reporting of a political controversy, revealing Granada in the worst possible light. The weight of evidence proves that Granada's failure to discharge its obligations for impartial reporting of news is deliberate, showing it to be a politically-biased organisation unwilling to report news dispassionately. The transgression is so grave, and sustained, it warrants the ITC Commission considering the withdrawal of Granada Television's broadcasting licence at the first appropriate juncture.
Included with this letter are bound paginated documents to which I will refer from time to time. You will also find enclosed a VHS videotape containing broadcast and non-broadcast items, to which I will also refer occasionally. For ease of the Commission's adjudication process I have listed on separate sheets an attached summary of the events that underpin my complaint.
Overleaf is listed the background of my involvement in this affair. Between pages 3-14 I set out some of the findings of an investigation conducted by myself and a colleague into the allegations against Neil Hamilton. On page 15 begins a chronology of events that form the basis of my complaint. On page 26 are listed details of a new conflict of interest that would effect Granada's reporting Neil Hamilton's new legal action. My conclusion begins on page 29.
The background to my involvement
I worked as a freelance reporter on Granada Tonight, spanning the period bound by my first broadcast item TX 29.01.96 and my last TX 12.12.96. During this period I reported and co-directed a total of twenty-two broadcast items, the last of which resulted in my being short-listed by the NW Royal Television Society, to represent Granada for Best News Reporter of 1997.
All my broadcasts were commissioned and produced under the editorial control of Susan Woodward, my former Editor of Granada Tonight, now Granada's Director of Broadcasting.
Within the appendices there is a reproduction from the RTS awards brochure on page 1; an unsolicited letter from Granada's former Director of Programmes, Mr Peter Salmon, on page 2; and a reference from Granada Tonight's long-serving anchor, Mr Bob Greaves, on page 3.
Following the ousting of Neil Hamilton by Martin Bell during the General Election of May 1st 1997, out of journalistic curiosity at his protestations of innocence, I contacted Neil Hamilton and subsequently met him to discuss his side of the story.
During that first meeting, he pleaded his innocence to the Guardian's/Mohamed Fayed's allegations that had led to his demise as MP for Tatton. He also told me that not one national press or broadcast news reporter had interrogated him about the matter.
Though I did not take a view on his guilt or innocence one way or the other, this revelation only served to arouse my curiosity further in what the media had billed 'the political scandal of the decade.'
In the weeks that followed I spent many days interrogating Neil Hamilton about the allegations against him, using as a basis a list of thirteen charges published in the Guardian during the heat of the General Election campaign. These consisted of serious corruption charges, plus a plethora of supplementary 'wrongdoing' charges, which also appeared to be very serious. However, during my questioning, I formed the view that his answers had a plausibility that warranted investigating.
Believing the matter to be an important one, I joined forces with an ex-pat television producer-director named Malcolm Keith-Hill - a dispassionate left-wing journalist whose work had also been broadcast by Granada previously. We decided to undertake research prior to formulating proposals for a TV documentary on the whole 'cash for questions' affair.
Keith-Hill and I examined hundreds of documents purporting to be the Guardian's evidence of Hamilton taking 'cash for questions', plus other matter supporting the newspaper's 'wrongdoing' charges. As a starting point, we also digested Hamilton's 133-page submission to the parliamentary inquiry into the allegations conducted by Sir Gordon Downey, which was in abeyance at that time.
On June 11 1997, just six weeks into our investigation, Deborah Turness, producer of Channel 5 News at ITN, telephoned me at the office and told me that she and her fellow producer, Adrian Moncke, had enjoyed a showreel of my work at Granada, which I had sent Moncke a few months earlier. Turness then offered me an opportunity to work as a reporter for C5 News over the summer, as the first step to my being taken on as an ITN staff reporter.
To work in network television news was a tremendous opportunity. However, I had seen the destruction of Neil Hamilton, and our initial research tended to support his claims of innocence. Though we were working without pay, I thanked Deborah Turness for the offer, and asked her if she could keep it open until after our investigation was completed.
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