|
UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 165-ii House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE HOME AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
Terrorism and Community Relations
Tuesday 11 January 2005 MR BOB SATCHWELL, MR ROBIN ESSER, MR MARK EASTON and MS CLAIRE POWELL Evidence heard in Public Questions 264 - 330
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Home Affairs Committee on Tuesday 11 January 2005 Members present Mr John Denham, in the Chair Mrs Janet Dean Mr Damian Green Mr John Taylor David Winnick ________________ Memorandum submitted by The Society of Editors, the Daily Mail and the BBC
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Mr Bob Satchwell, Executive Director, Society of Editors, Mr Robin Esser, Executive Managing Editor, Daily Mail, Mr Mark Easton, Home Editor, and Ms Claire Powell, Chief Advisor, Editorial Policy, BBC, examined. Q264 Chairman: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much indeed for joining us for this session which, as you know, is very largely in relation to our inquiry into terrorism and community relations. I think you well understand we just have a couple of questions at the end we would like to throw in which relates to our other inquiry on anti-social behaviour, which would be helpful. Perhaps I can say at the outset that we have a number of apologies from Members of the Committee who are actually engaged in other Standing Committees and debates in the House - like Gwyn Prosser, for example. Perhaps we could start, for the record, with you introducing yourselves and then I will get under way. Mr Esser? Mr Esser: I am Robin Esser, I am the Executive Managing Editor of the Daily Mail and, as such, responsible, among other things, for editorial policy and I sit on a number of committees where I represent national newspapers, including the Media Emergency Forum and what used to be known as the Deno Committee (?) in the Ministry of Defence. Mr Satchwell: I am Bob Satchwell, Executive Director of the Society of Editors, which has members in all sections of the local, regional and national newspapers and some in broadcasting. Obviously, because of there are more of them there are more members who are regional newspaper editors. Mr Easton: I am Mark Easton, I am Home Editor of the BBC, I am a correspondent primarily but I am also, effectively, head of our social affairs unit which includes within it the home affairs unit, which covers a lot of the stories we will be talking about today. Ms Powell: I am Claire Powell, I am one of the Chief Advisors to the BBC's Editorial Policy team. I am here in place of the Controller of Editorial Policy, Stephen Whittle, who unfortunately has got rather severe flu. I tend to deal with issues of common offence (?). Q265 Chairman: Thank you very much. If I can start with general questions to each of you, most of the evidence that we have received as a Committee into this inquiry on the impact of terrorism on community relations suggests that community relations have worsened over the past few years, and particularly since the events of 9/11. I wonder, from your perspective in the media, whether you would agree with that assessment. Mr Esser? Mr Esser: I would doubt whether Islamaphobia and similar sorts of things have increased that much since 9/11, but what 9./11 did, obviously, was put it in the forefront of people's minds to up it in the agenda. If you compare the treatment of Muslims in this country during the 1970s and 1980s, where Home Office statistics show that assaults on those people were much more frequent than they are today, when you had members of the National Front roaming the streets looking for targets to beat up and, indeed, to an extent where you had an attitude on the part of the police which was aggressive towards Muslims and other Asian and black people, I think the situation has actually improved. I think one of the reasons for that was the one identified by Paul Dacre in his written evidence to you, the result of the Stephen Lawrence case and the amount of attention the media gave to that (particularly of course the Daily Mail) and the resultant MacPherson inquiry which, I believe, has improved the attitude of the police in all communities beyond all measure. Mr Satchwell: Having read some of the evidence you have heard, obviously that seems to be the perception of certain groups within the community. Certainly from talking to our members I do not detect that. After the disturbances which happened a couple of years ago, there were editors of local papers who, in fact, said that it was not a racial issue or a faith issue but they were issues to do with deprivation in those communities, rather than racial issues. In fact, there were some instances of national papers, including the Daily Mail, which looked behind those disturbances. I think the other thing which has been, perhaps, good since 9/11 is that it has made the media, certainly, think about some of these issues more carefully. I think there are many cases now of editors having better and closer relationships with minority communities in the areas of their circulation and, also, in terms of things which happen on a national level. I think that can only be good. Also, the issues which are still frequently raised by minority groups, particularly Muslim groups, have been put to a much wider audience than ever before, partly because of 9/11 - the idea that, maybe, Muslim groups might be blamed. There were papers - certainly those papers in areas with high Muslim populations and indeed in certain national papers, The Sun and The Daily Mail, again, were two examples - where they immediately rushed in to investigate the position and to write very detailed pieces explaining more about Islam and suggesting very clearly that 9/11 should not be blamed on all Muslims. So to that extent I think there were some good things which came out of those events. Mr Easton: I think that community relations in its widest sense are under strain in this country. I think Britain is quite an atomised country, at the moment. I think social cohesion is a very real issue for many people who do feel very isolated within their communities. In respect of what we are talking about here in relation to the Muslim community, I think there is, as my colleagues have said, a perception among many that community relations have worsened or, at least, that Islamaphobia is an increasing problem, and there has been some data - and I am sure you are aware of it - that suggests that the number of attacks and racial incidents involving Muslims has gone up, although there is counter evidence as well. What is undoubtedly true is that the British public or the electorate at large does have significant concerns, at the moment, about "foreigners"; effectively, in relation to asylum, immigration and international terrorism. I think it is a genuinely salient issue for many, and I think that obviously has had a big impact on political processes as well - indeed, flowing on from that, in the way that we cover the world round us. So, in brief, yes, I think Britain is a relatively atomised society and I think community relations are not as bad as they once were but I think there is a specific problem with regard to the Muslim community, for reasons which are self-evident since 9/11, and I do think there is a wider concern about the way that our multicultural nation is developing; people do feel that they need reassurance in some respects. Q266 Mr Taylor: Chairman, could I just ask Mr Easton if he could clarify what he means by "atomised"? Could you help me with that? Mr Easton: It is about whether people are part of a community, whether they are linked in: they know the name of their next-door neighbour, they know the name of the man who they buy their paper from; it is all about that kind of stuff. There is quite a lot of evidence that that social capital - another jargon phrase - has actually fallen away over the last 20, 30 or 40 years and, as a result, we have become rather more individualistic and tend to lock ourselves away watching our own television in our own house or sitting at a computer screen rather than engaging with the wider community. Q267 Chairman: Do you think, Mr Easton, the way the media as a whole has covered issues like asylum and illegal immigration has contributed to that concern about foreigners that you talk about? If not, where has it come from? Mr Easton: I can talk about broadcasting in respect of that. Or do you want a general point about the media generally? Q268 Chairman: I would be interested in your views about broadcasting and the media as a whole. I will come to television in a moment. Mr Easton: Undoubtedly, people's opinions and views on asylum and immigration, and indeed on international terrorism, are a consequence of what they see and hear in their newspapers, on the radio and on the television. Yes, of course, we play a massive part in that. Whether we lead or follow, in terms of what we cover, how we cover it and the responsibilities (I am sure you will want to talk further about this) we have in respect of that coverage, I would argue that I think there is a real issue about asylum in this country. The numbers of people who have been seeking asylum in Britain, until very recently, had been rising very dramatically. I think many people in the public, and indeed many politicians, were concerned about that and it has become a very real issue and one which, obviously, we have been reflecting in our coverage. I am sure - and we can talk more about this later, perhaps - that sometimes in the tone of our coverage we have contributed to a sense that the problem is greater than it is. But I think we have come a long way, actually, over the last few years. I am happy to talk more about that later. Q269 Chairman: What is striking about this is that when we were planning this inquiry we did not initially plan to have a session on the media (it was not part of our diary and that is why our invitation was so late), but we decided to have a session because in every single evidence session those giving evidence - not just the Muslim community but Christian churches, other organisations and other faith groups - all said that part of the problem is the media coverage of terrorism and related issues. What we have heard this afternoon is a remarkably complacent statement from each of you about the situation there. We have had a lot of evidence saying the media, locally, nationally and broadcast as well as print, has a direct influence. You must be aware of that. Can you explain to the Committee why there should be such a difference of view between the witnesses we have had, the evidence we have received and your own views as, really, quite senior and important media executives? Mr Satchwell: I am sorry if you get the impression of complacency. Far from it - and I do not think that is anywhere in the media the case. What I think I said was that having read some of the evidence you have had there is this difference between perception and what I would see as the reality. That does not mean to say that you have not got to deal with the perception, which of course you have. I think what appears to be there does not seem to mix with the fact that each day in this country something like 35 million people read newspapers still, both regional and national daily newspapers, and of course there are a lot more which read the weekly press. It just occurs to me that if these papers have been so bad in their reporting, when it is going to so many people, there would be a much clearer breakdown in community relations - there would be riots every day, almost, if the impression that the papers were creating was that bad. That is what worries me. I certainly would not want you to think that the industry is in any way complacent, and there are many things which are going on to deal with those perceptions. There are two reasons for that: one is, obviously, there is a clear ethical reason why anyone in the media has got to get it right and to make sure the message gets over in a correct manner, and, secondly, there is a clear commercial reason why anybody in the media, and that includes broadcasting as well as print, cannot afford to lose credibility with an increasing population of minority communities. That is particularly the case in regional papers where there is a very high percentage of minority ethnic communities. Mr Esser: I would echo Bob's remarks. I certainly did not intend to sound complacent; we are not complacent. We are, as Paul Dacre said in his evidence, conscious every single day of our responsibilities here. We also, incidentally, depend very, very heavily indeed on the Muslim population for the distribution of our newspapers; a very high proportion of newsagent shops are run by Muslim people. So there is a very sound commercial reason for being balanced. It is a human frailty, as we all know, from time immemorial, to blame the messenger for the bad news. There was a great Latin phrase ne nuntium necare, (?) in which when arriving with bad news the unfortunate messenger suggested that he did not have his head chopped off; that it was not his responsibility. This is quite a natural human thing; it is easy to blame the messenger for the bad news. Q270 Chairman: Can we go into one of the issues that arises? It is, of course, the case that not all but much of the terrorism that has been preoccupying the world in the last few years has been carried out by people who claim a theological Islamic or Muslim justification for what they are doing, even though we all recognise, as you have all said in your evidence, that that is not representative of the Muslim community as a whole in this country or worldwide. Yet a number of parts of the media regularly use phrases like "Islamic terrorist", "Islamic militant" or "Islamic activist". It has been put to us in evidence that the use of language in that form actually has the effect, for the majority of the community, of creating the view that all Muslims belong to some religion where terrorism is integral to the religion. Can I ask each of you again: is it justified to use that sort of linkage of language if the effect of it is to make the wider population and Muslims to feel they are all being tarred with the same brush? Mr Easton: The short answer is no, it is not. The first thing I have to say is I think that language is actually extremely problematic. It is very difficult to find phrases and words which adequately define what you have just been talking about that do not offend somebody. For instance, there was a time when we would have used the phrase "Muslim terrorist", not even "Islamic terrorist". I think it is a long time since we have done that. I would hesitate to say we have not done it - we may have done - but certainly I think people would be very concerned if a phrase like that was used now, and it was regarded as inappropriate. However, in finding a phrase that adequately explains the religious and cultural motivation of al-Qaeda - indeed the use of strict interpretation of Koranic text to justify attacks and so on - I think it is important in how we describe those things that we give people an understanding of that. We have not yet, I think, found the right phrase to do that, and we work very hard with groups within the Muslim community to find phrases that are both explanatory and acceptable, and cause offence as little as possible. The rule of thumb that we have tried to use is not to label when we can, so that we would say "individuals commit terrorist acts" but we will try not to say that they are a terrorist, or that people can be linked to al-Qaeda and that al-Qaeda is an extreme or radical Islamic group, or Islamist group. The very word "terrorist", I think, is unhelpful and we have tried - and indeed Claire can talk more about this in terms of our guidelines - to help journalists find ways round it. For instance, we come in for quite a lot of stick for not describing ETA as a terrorist group or, indeed, the PLO. We prefer to find things that are factual and neutral to describe those things. I have to say I think we really have worked incredibly hard over the last three or four years (and I hope this does not sound complacent either) and I do not think we have come to any great conclusions but to try and find phrases which can define what we are talking about. Ms Powell: As Mark rightly says, terminology and language are, perhaps, the most difficult things that we struggle with at the moment. We want to inform our audiences, we want to talk in terms that they understand, but nobody wants to fall back on lazy terminology or clichéd terminology. It is an on-going effort to try and find the correct terms for each different group that appears. Some acts we could attribute to al-Qaeda, some not. In the past, a terrorist group would usually claim responsibility and say what their purpose was. We are now dealing with a terrorist landscape, if you like, which is very, very different from that in which I was brought up during the 70s and 80s. This is a wholly different grouping of terrorist cells, which I think the security services themselves struggle with at times on how to define, how to actually clarify what each individual group has as a purpose. Q271 Chairman: You would be fairly confident, would you, that the BBC - not in 'phone-ins and things like that - itself would not be using the sort of loose expressions like "Islamic terrorists" which have been criticised in evidence to us? Ms Powell: Again, I think it would be impossible to say I would be very confident that we would never use that. As editorial policy for the whole of the BBC we have very regular meetings to discuss this very issue, in which we consult with Muslim groups - of which, obviously, there are many different voices in the Muslim community. No one has yet come up with that one succinct phrase which could not only lessen offence to the Muslim audiences but, also, explain to a wider audience what we are actually talking about. It is something that I think we have to keep working towards. Q272 Chairman: You do not talk about "Catholic terrorism" in Northern Ireland. Ms Powell: In a way we do not have to because the IRA were very, very self-descriptive and we knew what the IRA were about. On the other hand, we might at times talk about "Christian extremist" or "Christian fundamentalist" if that were appropriate, and in our own guidelines we actually say that we should only use a term such as "Islamic fundamentalism" if we would also use "Christian" or, say, "Hindu fundamentalism". Q273 Chairman: The Mail does quite regularly use phrases like "Islamic militant" or "Islamic terrorist", or whatever, so you are obviously quite comfortable with that description. Is that because you believe it to be factually correct or do you believe it does not really matter if that has a labelling effect on the Muslim community as a whole? Mr Esser: No. I think it is, as the BBC has said, an on-going educative programme. I am not happy with any loose term which appears in the Daily Mail, and we try wherever possible not to use that. We do use "al-Qaeda", for obvious reasons, we do use "fundamentalist" but we were among the first to point out that many religions, including Christianity, have been manipulated by the unscrupulous, and that the extremists of the Muslim world show little respect for the traditions of Islam. We are not complacent and we work constantly to make sure that the distinction between followers of Islam and the terrorists is plain. I think we have a long way to go before we achieve the ideal. Q274 Chairman: You do not have to look far in the Daily Mail to find an article that will link terrorism, asylum seekers and Muslims all in the same article. Mr Esser: I have not come across one for sometime, but doubtless you will have some examples. Q275 Chairman: Friday 23 April 04, a front page story springs to mind, which talks about "Now we free terrorists. Court agrees al-Qaeda asylum seeker is threat to Britain" and goes on to accuse supporters and members of al-Qaeda with providing false documents to young British Muslims. That is a pretty direct hit on every one of the Daily Mail's key targets. You made the point in your evidence, which I think is a reasonable point to make, that there is a distinction between labelling an entire community and being concerned, for example, about the management of the asylum system. Our own Committee has produced some pretty hard-hitting reports about the management of the asylum system; it is a legitimate area of discussion. Is there not a problem in linking together terror, asylum and Muslim in one story, in that the wider public may just simply say, "Well, that is the Muslim population; that is all foreigners; we should be right to be afraid of foreigners", as Mr Easton was suggesting people are? Mr Esser: I think there is a tendency to underestimate the intelligence of the audience. This is an audience which has today reached the eight million mark of funds to relieve the largely Muslim orphans of the tsunami disaster. That is the biggest response from any newspaper's audience. I think it shows that the Daily Mail's audience and that of many other newspapers are compassionate, do not regard all Muslims as being beyond the pale and are prepared to dig deep into their pockets to help them. You will probably recall that our front page which began the appeal showed a picture of a clearly Asian child, who I believe was also from a Muslim family. I do not think that on a day-to-day basis our audience is confused between those various groups of people, but, again, I am not complacent. I speak with Muslim leaders about articles and stories in the Daily Mail most weeks, sometimes two or three times a week, and we have a very productive conversation. If they believe we have stepped over the mark I make absolutely sure that our people know that that is their view; I send notes round to our reporters, to our sub-editors and to our executives to increase our awareness of these problems. Q276 Chairman: Thank you very much. Mr Easton, a final question, if I may, to you, in this section. One of the things that came up again in evidence to us has been the number of references to television as provoking responses against the broader Muslim community. One might expect, if you are a Labour MP, as I am, to have a good pop at the Daily Mail as a traditional target, but actually when we had evidence from young people, when we had evidence from a Catholic priest working on the front line in one of the more divided communities it was television that was regularly referred to as the source of stories and reporting which left Muslims feeling isolated rather than the tabloid newspapers or the broadsheet newspapers. Are you aware, as the BBC, of the power, even in what you would regard as straightforward reporting of a terrorist incident, to have that impact on community relations? If so, have you ways of dealing with it or doing something about it? Should you try and do something about it? Mr Easton: Absolutely we should and we do, and we take that responsibility very seriously. Yes, of course, we in television know the enormous power that the box has in people's lives. Clearly, moving pictures with commentary behind them is one of the most powerful forms of media. We are acutely aware. Indeed there are things I have already mentioned, but there will be many more, I am sure, in this session, about the attempts that we make to ensure that we are responsible in the way that we cover these stories. That is absolutely part and parcel of what we are and what we do. Again, Claire, I think you could probably add some more on this. We spend an awful lot of time and, indeed, licence-payers' money trying to ensure that we have a dialogue with all sections of the community in Britain and around the world to ensure that we do not create an impression which is unfair. I think it is important to say that in everything that we do do we are attempting to bring truth and understanding to people's perceptions of the world around them. Sometimes those truths are uncomfortable, sometimes the understanding is complicated and treads on some toes and we try and simplify it for a wide audience. We do our best. Q277 Mrs Dean: Could I turn to Mr Esser, first of all. In the written submission from the Daily Mail you note that the media's attention is often deliberately drawn by the Government and police to arrests of terrorist suspects. Do you mean central Government? Mr Esser: Information comes to us from a wide spectrum of sources, sometimes yes, through central Government, sometimes from the police and sometimes from politicians who believe that the news would be good for either the community or sometimes the party. Q278 Mrs Dean: Are there particular departments of government that you get information from? Mr Esser: Where terrorism is concerned, obviously, one's attention would probably be more directed towards the Home Office as, in a sense, the department which deals with terrorism. However, as I say, the sources are considerable and widespread. Obviously, if a so-called tip-off is politically motivated it could come from anywhere. Q279 Mrs Dean: You say they come from a variety of sources. Do you think police tip-offs are centrally co-ordinated? Mr Esser: The sort of information we get comes sometimes from chief constables or their press officers, sometimes from the Metropolitan and sometimes from individual policemen. Q280 Mrs Dean: So it is difficult to say. Mr Esser: It is both official and unofficial. Q281 Mrs Dean: When you are reporting stories, do you always report arrests which have been drawn to your attention in the way you have just mentioned? Mr Esser: Not necessarily, it depends on the strength of the story, obviously, but it would be a strange newspaper which did not, at least, investigate or follow-up a tip-off from whatever source it came. Q282 Mrs Dean: If you do report it, do you make it clear that you were tipped off about the arrest? Mr Esser: No, we do not discuss our sources in public. Q283 Mrs Dean: So you neither discuss your sources, nor actually say that there was a tip-off? Mr Esser: If there is some sort of reaction from the official source which says that this was nothing to do with terrorism or something we would report that, but the source of the information is not and should not, indeed, be revealed. Q284 Chairman: Can I pursue one point? You made the comment a moment ago that politicians, ie not officials, are involved in tipping off newspapers about terrorist suspects and terrorist news. Can you say a little more about that and whether it is your belief that politicians - presumably ministers - are directly contacting media to alert them, or whether to your knowledge they are directly instructing ---- Mr Esser: I use the term "politicians" in a rather loose sense, obviously. There are advisers and people who are close to politicians and they, like any human being, talk about things, yes. Q285 Chairman: So you would be fairly certain that some of your information comes, as it were, from those working directly for, say, ministers and acting on their behalf? Mr Esser: That can be so. Q286 Chairman: And has been so, to your knowledge, in the case of terrorist arrests? It is a very important point because lots of allegations have been made to this Committee about the extent to which government lies behind some of the stories that appear. Mr Esser: Yes. I remember one particular story which arose as a result of a briefing from a civil servant, and the suggestions - I cannot prove them or disprove them - were that the civil servant was acting with half a mind on the political advantage of this story going out and half a mind on the advantage to the public and the community in reassuring them that the security services were on top of the situation. As you know, there have been various suggestions that some of the anti-terrorist activity was politically motivated. I cannot, hand-on-heart, say it was but you know particularly that the story of the Heathrow turnout it was suggested was politically motivated. It was never proved and I cannot tell you either way. Q287 Mrs Dean: Do you ever pay for tip-offs? Mr Esser: It depends very much upon the circumstances. Yes, we would pay a journalist on a local newspaper or a local agency for tipping us off; no, we would not pay a politician or a civil servant or anything of that sort, because that is not within our ---- Q288 David Winnick: Would you pay the police? If a police officer gave you an exclusive story? Mr Esser: No, we do not pay the police. Q289 David Winnick: Under no circumstances? Mr Esser: I do not recall a circumstance in which we have paid a policeman any moneys for information. Q290 Mr Taylor: Would you make a contribution to the Police Widows and Orphans Society? Mr Esser: If we were asked, yes. If we were asked by a senior policeman we would certainly do that, and I probably have done in the past, but that is a very different set of circumstances. Q291 Mrs Dean: Mr Satchwell, could I ask have you had a similar experience? Mr Satchwell: I think the main thing to bear in mind is that in most cases to do with terrorism, because it has been such a high priority, it does not require anyone in an unusual position to tip off the media because the signs of a series of arrests, for example, will be obvious to the public and everyone will know very quickly anyway. It is obviously quite reasonable for the police or even someone in government to make the point that arrests have been made, partly in order to reduce any real fear in the situation. So I do not think there is necessarily in the case of a terrorism arrest a great conspiracy around; the media gets to know what is happening very quickly without anyone having to come down and set up another route into the media. Q292 Mrs Dean: Could I ask Mark Easton the same question, really? Have you had similar experiences to the ones the Daily Mail have referred to? Mr Easton: I do not think we have a relationship quite the same as the Daily Mail, to be honest. If we are talking about a series of arrests under terrorism legislation, the normal way that we would learn about it is that obviously a number of our journalists would be on Scotland Yard's e-mail list, the first we would probably know is when an e-mail drops into their box saying "Eight people have been arrested in a series of raids in Berkshire and Buckinghamshire today". That would be the normal way. There was an occasion, I think, when a cameraman was driving by, but it is very, very unusual that that would happen. What will normally happen after that is that the police, very occasionally, will hold some kind of news conference. Normally that is only on very major operations or where they have particular concerns about reassuring the public or are looking for more information. It is very unusual to get an interview with a senior police officer on the basis of arrests under the Terrorism Act. In terms of comment, the former Home Secretary has, I know, been door-stepped a few times after a major series of arrests and has been asked to comment, and has indeed commented on that, but for the most part it is, I would say, a pretty straight system. As far as I am aware, there have not been many stories that have come our way from tip-offs from either government officials, ministers or police officers. Q293 Mrs Dean: In your view, is there a co-ordinated government policy of managing media coverage of terrorism-related issues? Mr Easton: I do not think so. Mr Satchwell: We do have an organisation called The Media Emergencies Forum which was set up in the 1990s, really, to deal with incidents such as flooding, or rail crashes, or whatever. It was a very useful organisation which brought editors and senior journalists together with people from the blue light services, people from government and people from emergency planning organisations, and we would discuss the way, say, for instance, the Paddington rail crash was covered. As a result, that was in place when 9/11 happened and, clearly, 9/11 became part of our discussions: what would happen if something similar happened in this country? In fact, indeed, a very detailed report was produced and we got involved in exercises and so on. We met more regularly after that happened, and there was a flow of information between government and the media - and the police, and so on - and there was an exchange of views, not least about issues such as how do you keep people alert to the possibility of a terrorism attack without alarming them? Part of it was trying to develop a glossary, if you like, so that you could find the right kind of language that politicians or government officials could use and which the media could safely report so that people were not unduly alarmed. To that extent, I suppose, you could say that that was government doing something in a carefully orchestrated way, and there would be political connotations to it. I can remember very particularly there was one incident that we were involved in which was to do with where there had been several white powder incidents and threats of biological attacks, and obviously those are incidents where, if there was a suspected attack of that kind, it could not be kept under wraps because people would see scientists in moon suits and they would cause terrible traffic problems, so it was going to be reported anyway. What we arranged and helped to arrange was a briefing by very senior government officials which helped explain the level of risk and what the possibilities were. In my view, that was very, very useful and, in fact, the evening afterwards I was listening to the BBC and, the morning after, reading the national papers, and the way it was expressed could only be described as a way which would reduce fear but try and explain why we should be alert. So it was very, very valuable. Q294 Mr Taylor: The first question I would like to put is actually directed to any, or all, of you on these lines: do you accept that, in general, arrests under the Terrorism Act get far more coverage than subsequent releases of suspects without charge, and should not, in that sense, the coverage be more balanced? Mr Easton: It is obviously a very difficult problem that terrorist arrests in themselves are more newsworthy than somebody who is subsequently released. However, I think that there is a real responsibility here because we are aware that there is a sense within many parts of the Muslim community that it is unfair then that a number of people of Muslim background are arrested and the assumption is they are being held and we never actually explain - or the accusation is that we do not adequately explain - the wider context. What we try and do is this: let us imagine there were 12 arrests on a Wednesday and on the following Monday six people are charged. What we would endeavour to do on the Monday is say, "Twelve people were arrested last Wednesday, six have been charged and six have been released." That, in some senses, is quite an easy way of dealing with it. What is more problematic, and I do not think we have got an answer to this, is where you have one person who is held under the Terrorism Act, whose arrest, perhaps, you had covered, who is released sometime later and, actually, the event itself is really very difficult to justify in terms of its place within the rest of the news. One thing we have started to do, and this has come from the highest levels within BBC news, when we do have a number of arrests under terrorist legislation, is try to give people a sense of context. In fact, if I could just quote from a broadcast which was made this summer, it will give you an idea of the way that we deal with this. There were, I think, 13 people arrested in a series of raids in the South East, I think it was in August. It came quite late in the day; I think the 10 o'clock news ran a live interview with the correspondent, Daniel Sandford. He was obviously asked about the arrests and, in fact, interestingly, he described them as being of "Asian origin" - I do not know whether that gets round any of the concerns but it certainly led to some discussion within the Corporation. However, the second question he was asked was about the number of people who are arrested and subsequently released under the Terrorism Act. If I can quote, for the record, his reply, because I think it is quite a good example: "Since September 11 more than 500 people have been arrested under the various terrorism acts; only some 98 have been charged, so far only two convictions and those were only loosely related to terrorism charges. That is causing a lot of unrest in the Muslim community as many of those arrested are from that community, but there are a number of trials still coming up." I think that kind of statement, within that broadcast, within all the excitement of a series of what were very significant arrests, and were described as such, is an important way of giving some context to that, and it is something that we do try and do more generally now. Q295 Mr Taylor: I suppose the next question is, really, aimed at the Society of Editors and the BBC, the question being: do you have guidelines on how to report arrests and releases under the terrorism acts? Mr Satchwell: There are guidelines, certainly, and there are legal restrictions on reporting arrests, of course, as you get into the area of contempt. That in itself, because we have very strict laws about contempt, can cause problems when you get people released, because it is very difficult to go back to the story if there have been ten people arrested one day and now you get a couple who are released you cannot explain the context so easily because of the contempt problem. It is a problem that the police have as well. So there are certainly legal restrictions on how it could be reported. I think that is probably sufficient in terms of the press and print journalism, because the editors' code does not try to replicate what is already there in law. Ms Powell: Can I just add that, yes, we do have guidelines covering all our news bulletins and how we report things. We are also very careful with attribution. If, for example, the police describe suspects in a certain way, or people who have been arrested in a certain way, we will usually attribute that to the police, so that it is all about making our audiences understand where the information has come from and place it in a proper context. We are also very, very aware of the Terrorism Act and what we can and cannot do under that, and that is something on which we hold lots of seminars and master classes, etc. We realise we have to be very up to the mark, particularly in the current climate. Q296 Mr Taylor: Do you make a distinction between guidelines for terrorism suspects, on the one hand, and arrests for other areas of the general principles of law? Is there a distinction? Ms Powell: I am probably not best qualified to answer, but certainly there will be provisions within the Terrorism Act that will prevent, perhaps, the freedom of reporting that we would have with, say, a common criminal arrest. But I am probably not best equipped to answer on that. However, I think with all arrests our guidelines will always stress accuracy and attribution. Q297 Mr Taylor: I thank you for your answer. I think the Chairman will allow me to say that if you want to, after this session is over, develop that point very slightly in a paragraph or two to the Chairman, I am sure it would be appreciated. My final question, I think, is to the Daily Mail: given the complaints we have heard from witnesses about coverage of arrests under the Terrorism Acts, is the Press Complaints Commission Code of Practice adequate? Mr Esser: I believe the Code goes as far as you can go without limiting the important democratic principle of freedom of speech. I think that the national papers and the local papers, generally, strive to obey the code, and if individuals have complaints about the coverage the PCC will deal with those complaints very quickly and will certainly, if they believe the complainant has a case, force the newspaper to run either details of their release or details of whatever they believe has been left out. I think it is an effective way of self-regulation and I believe that in a democracy it is impossible to contemplate anything more rigorous or government-inspired. Q298 David Winnick: To the BBC - one or the other: you have made mention that your guidelines are such that you need to work harder at getting the right spokespeople for minority communities. Do you feel you have got it wrong, at some stage, in the past? Ms Powell: What I do feel is that since 9/11 the BBC has looked carefully at its own understanding of the Muslim community and at the many different voices within it. I know that in my own role I was, perhaps, surprised to realise that there were many, many different shades of opinion within the Muslim community, and perhaps in the past they have been perceived by all of the media as one, solid block, and they are not. Certainly in the whole range of programming, not just in news and current affairs but in drama, comedy and entertainment - even in sport - these are areas which people from a Muslim background tend not to enter as readily as some other ethnic minorities, for example. It is quite difficult for us to find Muslim actors for our dramas. There are many, many parts at the moment for Muslim actors and not just in plots about terrorism, and what we find is that we actively have to go out and look for people. It is the same with Any Questions? or Question Time. What I found over the last couple of years in talking to various Muslim groups is that there is a lack of confidence within what I will call normal, middle-of-the-road Muslims who do have a point of view but they are not as confident in coming forward and giving their point of view in a public arena. Quite a few of them feel that it is the extreme sections of their community who are actually good at presenting their viewpoint, but for people who simply want to portray what I would call the normal Muslim it is more difficult. I think that is why we do have to work particularly hard within the BBC to find people not just in news and current affairs but in all our programming. Q299 David Winnick: I was going to follow up on this point. You see, it has sometimes been said that black people, Muslim people and Hindus, appear - when it comes to television - in relation to problems relating to immigration, illegal asylum seekers, as the case may be, but they are not part of storylines. Perhaps I am not the best person to mention this because I do not watch much soap - for various reasons. Do you feel that, when it comes to Eastenders and other such programmes, people are shown, who do not happen to be white, as just part of a general story and not relating to their colour as such? Ms Powell: I think there are two points there. First of all, obviously, we work tremendously hard to introduce people from different ethnic and religious backgrounds into our programming. I quite appreciate that you cannot watch everything but I think if you look particularly at things like Holby, Casualty, Doctors, and Grease Monkeys - a whole range of programming - there is a tremendous amount of ethnic actors there. To be absolutely honest, we actually get frequent complaints that there are too many actors of colour within these programmes, which are amongst the most popular of our programming. I also think that you, again, have to allow actors to be normal; a Muslim actor does not always have to be in a storyline which is to do with Islam. Q300 David Winnick: That is the very point I am making. Ms Powell: For our drama producers it is very important that the beautiful woman who walks into a room could be Hindu, could be Muslim, as long as they are acting in a way which is not offensive to their religion. We had a complaint, for example, that a woman who was featured in Casualty this weekend was wearing the traditional headscarf, and the complainant said "Not all Muslim women wear the headscarf". They do not, but most of them do, and I think it is absolutely fair that we portrayed the woman in that way. So I think, yes, we do make great efforts to bring characters of different ethnic backgrounds and different religions into our dramas, and I think we have been hugely successful. Certainly the research that we have done reflects that Muslim, Hindu and Sikh audiences, in particular, are avid followers of our soap operas, and I think we have worked very, very well there. It is difficult. We have looked long and hard to get a Muslim family in Eastenders, for example. There is a tiny, tiny pool of Muslim actors; it is very, very difficult, and we have to carry on working at it. Q301 David Winnick: During the next Parliamentary recess I will look up the titles of the soaps that you have mentioned and see if I shall watch; it might be quite educational. Coming to the print side of it - perhaps Mr Esser because your paper seems to be at the forefront of some criticism - would you take the view that this coverage on extremists, such as one person in particular, who has obviously been much featured, just makes better copy, but the danger is that such people, individuals, who may well be dangerous to the community (and certainly their remarks, to say the least, are extreme) can be taken as representative of the whole community because of the way in which your paper, in particular, prints the stuff? We have quite a lot of coverage here, which I will not show you, but is the constant focus on one or two well-known extremists (who may or may not have broken the law, for all we know, but, as I say, their views are extreme, to say the least) really necessary? Does it serve much purpose to give headlines to these individuals on so many occasions? Mr Esser: I think that extremists deserve their exposure. We may not always succeed but we always try to include comment from Muslim leaders showing that this is not typical of all the imams, this is not typical of all the mosques. In one particular case we have written several pieces explaining that the mosque in North London is not typical of all the peaceable ones up and down the countryside. I think it is certainly a part of any newspaper's job to expose the rantings and ravings of extremists. Q302 David Winnick: What about the BNP? I would be the last person to suggest coverage on an extensive scale of our homemade national fascists - if that is the way to describe such people. Your paper would not dream of giving such coverage to these people, as you make clear. Look at this sort of stuff (Indicating). Mr Esser: I do not think there is any point in sweeping it under the carpet. The BNP is a vile organisation. The Daily Mail says so on a regular basis. Q303 David Winnick: Yes, but what I am saying is that you would not dream fortunately of giving such coverage to such extremists, as ----- Mr Esser: We have. Q304 David Winnick: Yes, but nowhere near on this scale - and, as I say, I am very pleased that your paper does not, to say the least, unlike, say, in the 1930s. Why give such extensive coverage to one or two extremists who happen to claim they speak in the name of Islam? - which we know is totally repudiated by mainstream Islam opinion. Do you really not feel that by doing it - and I do not mean you personally but your paper - it does provide a sort of feeling amongst your readers that these are not just isolated individuals but they are representative of a large body of opinion of Muslims in this country? Mr Esser: Well, you pick out, I do not know, half a dozen stories which feature this particular individual. You should look at the whole picture. There are 350 issues each year of the Daily Mail and I do not think anyone would suggest that we figure this person every day. One must look at the balance of these things. It is terribly easy, as Mr Dacre said in his written evidence, to pick little things, but one must look at the broader picture. One must look at the analysis which the Daily Mail runs; the explanations of this person's extremism; the contrast between the moderates and the non-moderates; the features that we run by Muslim leaders saying that this man is not representative of the Muslim community. There are certainly as many of those as there are pictures of the imam in question. Q305 David Winnick: May I say, in passing, since my remarks are clearly critical, that many of us, and certainly myself, were extremely pleased by the way your paper covered the Stephen Lawrence story. I think that was a very proud moment for your newspaper. Your editor refers to it in the memorandum, and rightly so. I think that should be said as well. Mr Satchwell, when complaints are made - some of which you have just heard from me - regarding coverage of minority groups by newspapers, how are they dealt with? Does your organisation have a policy apart from the general policy of dealing with complaints from readers? Mr Satchwell: As an organisation, we do not have a policy, but I can tell you that editors of regional papers would generally deal with complaints themselves; national papers, bigger organisations, will have senior executives who are set aside to do that job of dealing with complaints; and of course the BBC and other TV organisations have their procedures and they are dealt with very, very carefully. Within the context of what has been happening over the last few years, since 9/11 particularly, I would say that editors take particular concern over complaints which come from minority communities. Q306 David Winnick: Mr Esser, do you carry articles by representatives of minority communities, particularly those who find themselves under large attack: Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs? Do you carry those articles? Mr Esser: Yes, we do. We have a very broad church as far as the features side of the newspaper is concerned. We have carried a great many articles from leaders of minority groups, many of which I believe Mr Dacre specified in his written evidence. We are always ready to open our pages to argument and counter-argument. Q307 David Winnick: Would you say that is the same with other newspapers, Mr Satchwell: The Daily Express, The Sun? Mr Satchwell: Without picking on any one particular newspaper, I think that generally, throughout the national and regional press over the last few years, there has been a much wider investigation, explanation and reporting of Muslim issues and other minority issues and I think that leads to a greater understanding. Certainly editors who are in our membership have said to us that they have reacted much more vociferously over the last few years in trying to make sure that they are dealing with these kinds of community issues properly. Q308 David Winnick: Finally in this section of questions, could I ask the two press representatives about the proposed offence of incitement to religious hatred. Mr Esser, does your paper oppose that? Mr Esser: I do not think I can answer for the editor of the Daily Mail on that one, but my own view would be that anything which threatens the important democratic principle of freedom of speech ought to be treated very, very carefully indeed. Q309 David Winnick: Do you consider that would be a threat to the freedom of speech? Mr Esser: I think it could be because, whatever the Government may say about what the legislation will mean, that does not bind future governments. The other point is I would make is that I doubt the effectiveness of trying to ban in law human emotions and human feelings. Q310 David Winnick: You do not take the view that, since other groups' views are protected by incitement to race hatred, it does not cover Muslims or Sikhs and therefore the Government is trying to achieve an even balance between the minority communities. Mr Esser: I see that but I would have thought that the situation is covered by the law and the attitudes to race. Q311 David Winnick: The argument is not covered by race, but be that as it may. Mr Satchwell? Mr Satchwell: I agree with what has been said about the dangers which are inherent there. I do see the genuine attempt to deal with this issue. Editors may have very differing views and I think some of them out in the regions will be looking at it in terms of the context of their local communities. But I think the main point is: if you are trying to deal with this specific problem, do not create another bigger problem. Part of that could be created by perhaps creating a greater expectation amongst Muslims, for example, about where the law might go. Q312 David Winnick: Could I ask the BBC, if there had been such a law at the time, do you feel the programme featuring Alf Garnet would have been subject to charges against the BBC or attempts by minority communities to bring the BBC to court? Ms Powell: I could plead that it is a little before my time! Q313 David Winnick: I would understand that. Ms Powell: All I can say is that certainly now, when we repeat - although some of you may think we repeat endlessly - classic comedy, we do take care with the content of comedy from the past. There are phrases, scenes, sometimes characters which were acceptable in the past which are simply not acceptable in today's society. I do not feel able to comment on Alf Garnet but I do know that it is an issue at which we look very, very carefully today. Society changes very, very quickly. Attitude, and, in particular, terminology, changes so quickly and really can give offence, and we are very, very, careful about that. What was funny back in 1975 may not be funny to a modern-day audience. David Winnick: Thank you very much. Q314 Chairman: Just to pursue that point, in Mr Dacre's evidence he made the point that he thought some minorities were too sensitive to criticism - and he puts himself on the side of the people rather than on the side of "self-aggrandising quangos, self-appointed media critics and even parti-pris politicians" which I presume is directed at this Committee - but we have had a Sikh play banned, we have had 30,000 people campaigning against the BBC's choice of programme for Saturday night. Should this Committee in our report be coming out and saying, "Look, everybody just has to be more tolerant of stuff they don't like"? Mr Esser: Chairman, I would like to quote to you a paragraph from this morning's Daily Mail, in which the leader of the Muslim Association of Britain said, "It is immensely important that we demonstrate a high level of common sense and tolerance towards one another. Otherwise we will turn into a society where every utterance is skewed to fit the political agenda." I think that demonstrates exactly what Mr Dacre was saying. There is not any doubt that some of the Muslim leaders have moved towards a situation of more reasonable comment and do not take every slight as a major insult to the whole of their community and religion. We have, as I said earlier, an ongoing dialogue with them, particularly Inayat Bunglawala, who, again, you quoted this morning. He has been in to visit us. We have a dialogue. We understand more of the sensitivities of the Muslim communities. Q315 Chairman: Mr Esser, I have the gist of your response. Mr Esser, should we as a Committee be saying to everybody: "Look, just be more tolerant"? Mr Esser: I do believe so and I think Mr Dacre believes so. Q316 Chairman: Mr Satchwell? Mr Satchwell: Yes. I think that paragraph which has just been read out does sum up the situation. I think most editors at some point become concerned, either locally or nationally, wherever it is coming from, about the spread of political correctness. The message that I get so often is that political correctness in itself can be damaging to community relations. You have to have some common sense if you are going to have really cohesive communities. Q317 Chairman: The final question, if I may, to either of you from the BBC: If the programme on Saturday night had been deemed offensive to a similar number of a minority faith group, would the BBC have taken such a robust position and shown the programme? Ms Powell: We both look at each other! I think it is very difficult for either Mr Easton or me to speak on behalf of the BBC in such a way ----- Chairman: That is a fair answer. We may pursue it separately. Thank you very much. Q318 Mr Green: Could I pick up with the BBC one of the points David Winnick made in relation to newspapers, which is access to the airwaves, your airwaves specifically, of white racists, essentially. It has been a long debate in the BBC. In my misspent youth, when I was a trainee journalist in the BBC, there was some active debate about the National Front: Should they be given air time? In a sense, it is even more acute in current circumstances and with the BNP. They get elected in a few places; they have a few councillors somewhere. What rights do they have to express their vile and repellent views on the BBC airwaves? Mr Easton: I think that is one for you, Claire! Ms Powell: We are governed by the same laws as every other broadcaster, which talk about representation and which I can send to you in detail. I know that when the BNP had a party-political film, which they were entitled to show, we looked at it very carefully. I speak at third-hand, but the film went backwards and forwards until it was acceptable both to the BBC and to the legal department. We took programme legal advice on it. We do not encourage racial hatred and there is a balance to be struck between people expressing their views and going beyond what is acceptable. For example, on radio phone-ins we take tremendous care over whom we put on air and over how we brief our presenters, particularly on subjects such as asylum and terrorism. We want a constructive debate. I think that is what is always aimed for on the BBC, whether it is on radio or on television - and also on-line. That plays a very big part in BBC output now and that is something that we look at carefully when contentious issues are actually being discussed. Mr Easton: Could I add something to that which relates perhaps to the Muslim community and the way that our efforts to try to aid understanding of where al-Qa'eda come from and the philosophies which drive them. I think actually it would be very dangerous for us to censor anything that was said that might actually aid understanding. In other words, you need to know what these people are saying. You need to offer them some form of platform, if you like, to explain it. You need always to be aware of the context. I think it would be dangerous for any part of the media to self-censor beyond the law of the land in respect of inciting racial or, in the future, perhaps, religious hatred. That act of self-censorship ultimately leads to ignorance about what people are really on about. Certainly in the current climate people are very anxious to try to reflect why it is that a young man from Derby or Bradford or Oldham might decide to head off to an al-Qa'eda training camp in Afghanistan or in Georgia. If we were to censor in that way, people would not be able to understand that quite so well. Q319 Mr Green: Sure, but exactly the same thing applies to what I was asking. I was asking why respectable housewives in Burnley vote for the BNP. Mr Easton: I think we do cover that. Q320 Mr Green: Do you cover that by giving them a voice, as it were? Mr Easton: Yes, I think we do. I think sometimes we have not been as good as we might have been in reflecting a strand of public opinion in Britain, belonging to a white minority which does have strong views about this kind of thing, that reflects some of the concerns we mentioned right at the beginning of this session about asylum, immigration and so on, and that actually - and I know this has been discussed at senor editorial level - we should perhaps be looking more to find ways, not so much to give a platform to people of racist views but to try to understand why those views exist, and to talk to people about the kinds of things that exist that lead them to that assumption. Ms Powell: Last year we actually broadcast an entire day on asylum which ended with a large and very lengthy studio debate on BBC1. There, whole different shades of opinion were represented. I think our main aim was to keep the debate exactly that: an articulate debate, and not to degenerate into abuse or a slanging match. I think that was quite successful. We certainly did show that there are many, many shades of opinion within Britain. Q321 Mr Green: May I turn to the newspapers. One of the things we have heard fairly consistently from witnesses is a distinction between local and national newspapers in their coverage of community relations and tensions - in the broadest sense, broadly speaking, saying what one might expect: that the national press appears a bit broad-brush, a bit insensitive, whereas the local press always is going to be back there next week and so has more sensitivity essentially and is more balanced. Does that reflect what you perceive? Mr Satchwell: It is obvious that local and regional papers are much closer to their communities. There is something in that: they have to be there the next day, the next week, the next month, the next year. Of course that is true, and you would hope that they all do become close to their communities - as I say, they have both the ethical and the commercial reasons for doing that. But I think sometimes the criticism of national papers can be exaggerated. There may well be a story which flares up and it becomes a story worthy of national coverage and comment. You cannot necessarily expect that you would get the same sort of in-depth coverage about that story on a national level as you would get from the local and regional papers, or, indeed, with what might happen with local and regional broadcasting from the BBC or commercial radio. They will keep going at it. The real world is that some stories are very short lived on a national stage but will be going on for a long time at a local or regional level. Q322 Mr Green: Is it likely in practical terms to be a constraint, if you like, on getting the story or, indeed, on the way you write the story? Do you think, "Well, this is a good story but we may be leaving behind a very bruised community"? Does that occur? Mr Esser: I think those thoughts always do occur, but there is of course one huge difference between the national press and the local press and that is that in any one community there is only one local newspaper and if the local minority community has failed to get a voice in that one newspaper it could go no further. There are at least ten national newspapers, and that voice, though it may not be heard in one newspaper, very likely will get into another one. While of course I do not expect everybody to read every national newspaper, the fact is that you have a fantastic choice and a wide-ranging choice, both in terms of politics and approach. If a local community wants to find a voice, it is more likely to find it among ten than one. Q323 Mr Green: It is a good point. At the BBC obviously you have both sides of this coin. Do you detect a difference? Mr Easton: I think it is exactly the same. I think that local news/local radio has a much closer and a different relationship with people locally. I think the point Bob makes is a very good one: a story which bubbles up on the national news and disappears very quickly is around a lot longer locally. Part of what local radio and local television is about is reflecting what is going on in their communities, those issues which matter enormously to local people. There might be, let us say, a really very positive story about a Muslim community doing something locally which might well make its way onto local radio and local television that would be much harder to justify in a national news context, and therefore that is going to mean that you do get a different relationship at local level, yes. Q324 Mr Green: One final point is how the technology affects things. Particularly, I suppose, with television, stories have to be picture-led. This must make this area particularly difficult. Three people chucking a few stones, if you have a camera there, can become a much bigger story than 1,000 people feeling deeply resentful about something but doing it peacefully. How do you cope with that? Mr Easton: It is undoubtedly true that when Abu Hamza preached in the street rather than in the mosque he was on television a lot more, but I think that was, perhaps, in part, because there was a real event going on and also, undoubtedly, because he is a very colourful character. To that extent, yes, perhaps picture made those stories more attractive to national news than they might otherwise have been. I think you have put your finger on this whole issue: the fact is that pictures are very difficult to come by, and actually I do not think our coverage of terrorism and the problems of international terrorism and al-Qa'eda are driven by pictures. In fact, it is the other way around. There is a huge issue here, a huge subject which requires our coverage, and often all that is going on within it is outside and away from the cameras. That is a real difficulty for us in covering this often very complex story, where a lot of the information is quite difficult to nail down. You are dealing with briefings with people who are certainly not going to go on television about events which you do not see. I mean, these arrests that we were talking about earlier, we very rarely see those happening, of course - we might see a bit of the aftermath. The real difficulty in covering terrorism properly on television is finding clever ways to be both there and objective and reflective of what is really happening, and, at the same time, without the picture, dealing with these very complex issues. Q325 Chairman: Could I ask you a couple more questions about the broader coverage of terrorism. I am assuming, for the moment at least, that, wherever they come from, issues of community sensitivity are more significant if people are very worried about terrorism. I want to pursue two issues from earlier sessions. There was a recent BBC deliberately provocative and polemical series suggesting that there was quite a deliberate attempt by politicians to heighten the fear of international terrorism for political motives. I would like to be clear from each of you: in the jobs you have, receiving information from a variety of sources, is your real sense that you are at the receiving end of a political strategy for heightening the fear of terrorism? Or is it simply that there is a certain amount of terrorism, various things might happen - you might get a statement by the Commissioner for the Metropolitan Police who legitimately wants to report about the likelihood of a terrorist attack - and that is actually, taken together, creating a fear of terrorism? It is very important for our report to have a sense of what you think is happening. Mr Easton: The question was put earlier and I think I said no in pretty short answer. To expand: I certainly do not believe that there is some kind of co-ordinated office somewhere in Whitehall trying to change our coverage of terrorism matters. I have no doubt that there will be occasions when ministers, politicians, lobby groups, whether those be within the Muslim community or elsewhere, will want to alert us in the normal way or privately to make their point. That is part of the way we work. It is the way that politicians work and, indeed, the way that lobby groups work. Is it co-ordinated? Is it about a government which is trying to scare the pants off Britain and using us in a very deliberate way? I have to say I do not see that. I genuinely have no experience of it myself. Talking to colleagues, I do not think we have experienced that. I would say this: if we had, I think we would probably report it. Mr Satchwell: My feeling is that there is an attempt to create this atmosphere of being alert but not alarmed. That can of course be a political message but it is not to say that it is not a political message which is valuable to the public. Mr Esser: I agree with what Mark has said. There is of course a co-ordinated organisation called the Media Emergencies Forum which meets at the Cabinet Office. The freedom with which we all exchange information there is extremely valuable. I think that if this happened on a wider scale it would be a great improvement. But we always debate that fine line between scaring the public and informing the public; keeping the public alert and reassuring them. I can assure you that the conclusions of those debates shutter down to the newspapers and to the broadcasting organisations - all of which are represented on that Committee - and discussions there with the police and with the anti-terrorist security people and all the rest of it are extremely valuable. I would say, once again, we are not complacent. We do listen and there is a gradual improvement in the sense of responsibility that we all bear in covering terrorism. Q326 Chairman: That is very helpful. I will now switch to the last few questions on anti-social behaviour. We know that one-third of the public say in things like crime surveys that they have a significant fear of anti-social behaviour, however that is defined. That has apparently grown over the last five to ten years. Do you each feel that media reporting of anti-social behaviour - one survey said there were 945 uses of the word "yobs" in headlines in the tabloid press last year - has helped to contribute to that fear of anti-social behaviour? Mr Esser: I hope the media have explained the situation to those communities who suffer from it. After all, it is not that it appears in the newspaper, it is the fact that it appears on the community streets and houses that really creates the fear. People see it. In some cases they do not need the newspapers or television to tell them about it. I think the naming of various young men or young youths - they are not necessarily, unfortunately, boys - who receive ASBOs is a valuable contribution to justice. It normally happens following a direction from a judge who says that he believes they should be named, because, as you know, there are strict laws in terms of naming young people. Recently you saw the case of the 13-year old drunk driver who was pictured both on television and in newspapers. I think that probably has a dual effect of alerting the public and hopefully bringing the parents to realise their responsibilities towards such children. Mr Easton: Does our coverage of anti-social behaviour contribute to people's fear of anti-social behaviour? Obviously it does. People's perception of the world around them comes from their experiences on the doorstep and what they see on television and read in the papers and listen to on the radio. We are conscious, though, of the responsibility we have in this area. I think we have come a long way. When I joined the BBC in 1985, I think you would look at the television bulletins at that time and find it was absolutely chock-a-block full of court cases, rapes and murders and dreadful other stories and arrests and so on. I think there was a feeling that that really was out of proportion and we have moved away from that and certainly do not have that same philosophy now. So far as anti-social behaviour is concerned, I would say that in a way the media have woken up to this and perhaps the politicians have woken up to this rather late. This has been an issue, I would say, of huge concern to many of your constituents for a long time. It probably worries them far more than al-Qa'eda and possibly more than asylum and immigration put together. The fact that we talk about it so much at the moment is probably reflective of the fact that politicians .... indeed, hardly a week went by when David Blunkett was Home Secretary without a speech on this very subject. I am sure he was trying to reflect what he felt to be true and, indeed, it seems to be borne out by all the evidence that the public are indeed very concerned about it. We were talking earlier about atomised societies and my view would be that this is all part of that, in a sense, and people's sense of fear of the world around them is because they feel quite isolated and a bunch of youths hanging around on a street corner feels threatening. Q327 Chairman: Mr Satchwell, you were nodding. Do I take it that you broadly agree with your colleagues? Mr Satchwell: Absolutely. I have been involved in debating these kinds of issues about fear of crime for an awful lot of years and it became obvious a long time ago that the main fear that people have of crime is not about gunmen going and raiding the local bank or murder and mayhem - because they do not very often see it, it is relatively rare. People are worried about not being able to walk down the street without being yelled at or bumping into young people with cans of lager or whatever. It is that low level of crime which is the problem. It is about anti-social behaviour in the sense that communities have broken down. Anti-social behaviour orders are seen, I think by most editors, as being very, very useful in terms of letting the community see that something is being done about the kind of crime which causes the most heartache and fear, and it also gives an opportunity for the local papers particularly to name those people, to let the rest of the community help police the streets, if you like. As one editor said to me only yesterday, "What's the point of having an ASBO made out if you cannot name the people involved in it? How can you explain something that is antisocial unless you make it a very public thing? It has to be out in the public domain." Ms Powell: May I add that, when it comes to commissioning documentaries on anti-social behaviour, particularly when it concerns young people, we always take care to understand whether this is a recurring problem or simply a one-off. Is it something which the police know about and that the authorities have been told about repeatedly? Or is it perhaps a passing occurrence? Particularly when very young people are concerned and those young people have not been issued with anti-social behaviour orders, you have to take great care in exposing, say, the child of 11, 12, 13 to the national public whole when they may just be having a silly one-off incident. I think we have to take great care on what we commission and what the background evidence for that commission is. Q328 Mr Green: That is a very interesting and relevant point to the ASBO issue and, in a sense, it answers one of the questions we were thinking of, which is: Do you think it is always right to name and shame in the case of ASBOs? Is it an implicit assumption that if a young child or an adolescent has an ASBO against them, then there is enough recurrent behaviour there that you will say that this is an individual that needs naming and shaming? Mr Satchwell: That is perhaps a matter for the courts. It takes a long before it gets to that ASBO. I guess you are saying that if a young person of 11 or 12 has committed some kind of misdemeanour as a one-off, should it be put on the front page of the local paper? Well, I can see obviously that there may be a good case for that not happening. If ASBOs are going to work as part of public policy, there should be a general assumption, if they are orders which are applied after a long period of anti-social behaviour, that there will be publicity following it unless there is a good reason for not having that publicity. That is the opposite of the case now, where you have to fight to get the publicity almost. Q329 Mr Green: Do you agree with that, Mr Esser? Mr Esser: I do. The Daily Mail coverage of the drunk driver you have mentioned has a list of the charge sheets against the boy - six offences. Obviously that material came from court, obviously the judge wanted it published, and obviously the newspaper did so because that is the responsible way of dealing with this matter. But, as I say, you cannot name a youth unless the judge specifically says that he believes you should. By and large I think the judiciary balance pretty well the needs of young offenders with those of the public good. Q330 Mr Green: Do you think it is sensible that you can name and shame in relation to ASBOs but not in relation to youths of other offences? We seem to have landed ourselves with a slightly incoherent set of policies there. Mr Esser: Yes. Very often journalists and court reporters challenge the decision not to allow publicity and from time to time they succeed when the judge decides that the public good be served by naming. I do not think the situation is ideal but I do think that young people by and large should be given every chance to reform without publicity. Chairman: Are there any further questions? In which case, may I thank you very much indeed for your evidence this afternoon. It has been very helpful. |