Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1
- 19)
WEDNESDAY 4 JULY 2007
Mr Mark Wood and Mr Jonathan Munro
Q1 Chairman:
I apologise to everyone for the slightly disrupted morning. As
you obviously all know Alan Johnston has been released which we
are all delighted about but it has had one disappointing effect
so far as we are concerned, that Helen Boaden, who would have
been giving evidence today for the BBC, is tied up with the effects
of the release, liaising with the family and things of that kind
and cannot be here. Although we are very disappointed we are obviously
delighted that Alan Johnston has been released. There is no question
that he is a very brave journalist and we are delighted that he
is safe. We now have ITN. Just to introduce what we are doing,
this is a new inquiry by the Communications Committee into media
ownership and the news. We are looking at issues like how and
why have the agendas of news providers changed; how is the way
the way that people access the news changing; how has the process
of news gathering changed and I suppose the link between this
part and the next part of our inquiry is what is the impact of
the concentration of media ownership on the balance and diversity
of opinion seen in the news. Those are the kinds of areas that
we are looking at. Mark Wood and Jonathan Munro, welcome. Perhaps
you could just start very briefly by saying what you both do.
Mr Wood: Thank you Chairman. Thank you also
for the time and attention this Committee is giving to this area
which is an important one for us too. Before I do start could
I also add our comments about the release of Alan Johnston because
we are delighted too and I would like to pay tribute to the BBC
for the way they have managed to keep his case in the spotlight
over this long period and I think that has helped enormously in
ensuring his freedom, so they really deserve credit for the attention
they have kept focussed on him. We are all very pleased, particularly
organisations like ours who send people into danger quite regularly.
I am Chairman and Chief Executive of ITN, in charge of the whole
business therefore. Jonathan Munro is Deputy Editor of ITV News
and is Head of News Gathering for ITV News, made by ITN.
Q2 Chairman:
You say you send journalists into danger as well, how do you assess
the danger? Obviously you want to have reports from these danger
spots, how do you assess the danger to the journalist?
Mr Wood: I will say a word and I am sure Jonathan
will. I think one of the things that we have done over many years—I
know the BBC have done so as well—is to develop a cadre
of journalists and camera people who are experienced, who build
up their own experience and can therefore make their own assessments
on the ground. That is a very important part of it but we constantly
have to balance between getting the story and not putting people
into unnecessary danger. ITN has a good track record over 50 years
of keeping people out of danger but we did lose three people at
the start of the Iraq war and that still pains us. We have examined
our own processes and procedures since then. We do have a lot
of procedures in place to monitor danger levels and to monitor
deployment. Jonathan, do you want to add to that?
Mr Munro: The first thing to say is that nobody
goes into a hostile environment against their will. Everybody
who is sent on the staff is there because they want to be there.
Everybody is trained to a very high level. There is quite an industry
now in training journalists for hostile environments and indeed
businessmen and interpreters as well who go into danger zones.
All of our staff are put through those courses. They are very
good courses; I was on one myself just a couple of weeks ago,
they are very well done. We use Foreign Office advice; we contact
embassies and high commissions in those parts of the world that
we are deploying to. We employ security advisers of our own in
some parts of the world. In Baghdad, for example, if we are going
in and out of the city (very often the most dangerous part of
any assignment is the journey into the place you are trying to
get to rather than the work once you get there) we use security
advisers for that purpose. In a sense the most important insurance
against things going wrong are the eyes and ears of our own people
out there. That is why we do tend to prioritise despatching experienced
people. Everybody at some stage has to do their first hostile
environment so by definition not everybody on every single assignment
is experienced but if somebody is going in for the first time
they will always go with members of the team who have been in
those circumstances before, are wise about the way to behave in
there and have an exit strategy which we agree beforehand should
they need to leave pretty promptly.
Q3 Chairman:
Do you have anyone in Gaza yourself?
Mr Munro: We do not have anyone based in Gaza.
Our correspondent in Jerusalem, Julian Manyon, went to the Gaza
border this morning and was actually in Gaza himself about two
weeks ago. It is an interesting case study because under the Fatah
regime we judged Gaza to be too dangerous to go to, prompted,
for obvious reasons, because Alan Johnston had just been abducted.
Under the Hamas regime things became rather more orderly for journalists
and we did go in to coincide with Mr Johnston's hundredth day
in captivity about two weeks ago. It was a successful assignment.
We categorise those as high risks assignments. We use a traffic
light system, so that was a red assignment. Every phone call in
and out of the zone is logged and minuted. Every GPS coordinate
position is minuted. All the information about where they are
moving and why they are moving is written down so that we know
exactly where people are. When shifts change, for example in the
newsroom in London, there is no danger of information falling
between the cracks. I have to report that they came out safely.
Q4 Chairman:
Do you operate what I gather is called a fireman's system, that
you actually have someone like Julian Manyon based in Jerusalem
and then you fly him into whatever danger spot is uppermost?
Mr Munro: Yes, we have five correspondents permanently
based overseas. The nature of news is that they tend to be based
in places which can be volatile, the Middle East being an obvious
example. We also have a number of experienced correspondents in
London who would go to all parts of the world at a moment's notice
if necessary, again taking into account all the safety precautions
we would ask beforehand. If, for example, we needed to go to Afghanistan
on a facility with the Ministry of Defence that would typically
be done from London rather than a foreign bureau.
Q5 Chairman:
It is a very dangerous business these days being a journalist
in some of these places. The prospect of kidnapping is not new
but it is much more prevalent than it ever has been in the recent
past at any rate.
Mr Wood: I would agree with that. I was editor
of Reuters for many years and responsible for deployments of a
large number of staff around the world and I would say that the
job has become much more dangerous in the last five or six years.
As you say, kidnapping is in many ways a bigger danger now than
the physical danger of being shot. However, there is also an element
of journalists and camera crews being targets in many areas in
a way that did not happen in the past.
Q6 Chairman:
In fact it was the opposite in a sense? You wanted the journalists
on your side.
Mr Wood: Yes, and that degree of respect for
the role of the journalist seems to have evaporated in a lot of
war zones.
Mr Munro: I would totally agree with that. The
issue of us being targets now is a very serious issue; it is a
very difficult problem to solve. Nobody wants to be in a position
where we are not reporting from the world's trouble spots. It
is important for the public interest that the public is informed
about what is happening in Gaza, in Afghanistan, in Zimbabwe or
wherever else in the world we feel the need to go from time to
time. Being targets is a very uncomfortable position to be in
and there is no denying that one of the effects of that is that
the number of people who wish to go to these places clearly has
diminished compared to the numbers five or six years ago who would
have gone more readily.
Q7 Chairman:
I am told that in places like Baghdad, for example, if you go
outside the green zone you do your interviews pretty rapidly—10
minutes—and then move on before hostile forces can gather.
Mr Munro: We do exactly that. We also use local
journalists and cameramen to operate outside the green zone for
us because the prospect of a western looking/European looking
journalist is a more valuable prize, so to speak, than a local
journalist who will know the back street and the tribal rivalries
in certain areas and is physically less of a prize anyway. There
is an industry in Baghdad that thrives on that sort of sub-contracting.
The issue of safety of sub-contractors is paramount as much as
if it were one of our staff, it is just the risk levels for them
are, by definition, a little lower.
Q8 Chairman:
What about the cost of security for the journalists? It must be
quite high I would have thought.
Mr Munro: It is huge. Probably the biggest single
component cost in going to Baghdad for a period of time is the
security but it is money you cannot afford not to spend so in
a sense it is a given that when we go we go with security and
they are with us throughout any of our news gather exercises.
Q9 Chairman:
How do you operate? One car in front and one car behind sort of
arrangement or is that too simplistic?
Mr Munro: It depends on the local security advice
at the time. These situations are quite dynamic and the airport
road from Baghdad, for example, is regarded as slightly less hazardous
and vulnerable now than it was perhaps a year ago because the
patrolling is better and the armaments on the road are better.
We would operate in conveys. We tend to let other broadcasters
and media organisations know when we are moving in and out of
hostile environments. There is a good exchange of information—there
is no rivalry about this sort of thing—therefore we can
make longer conveys with more significant security around. If
we are going to Baghdad we will let all other parties in the British
media know that we are doing that and make them aware of our movements
so that we can work together in that sort of hostile environment.
Q10 Chairman:
That is a fascinating description and, as I say, we are all delighted
that Alan Johnston has been released and one hopes for the best
for some of the other hostages, not necessarily journalists, who
are still unreleased like the ones in Baghdad. Let us now go to
ITN itself. Can we first have a description about who actually
owns ITN? How does this structure come about?
Mr Wood: You probably know us better from what
we do and the core businesses are producing ITV News and Channel
4 News, although we have a range of other businesses around that,
particularly developing new media businesses. Our ownership is
40% ITV, 20% Reuters, 20% Daily Mail Group and 20% United Business
Media. That structure has been in place for several years. The
ownership structure has changed. Under the Communications Act
1990 the ownership of ITN was regulated and there were ceilings
put on shareholdings and there was a requirement for non-broadcast
shareholders to become involved in the business. That was the
time when Reuters became involved. Then there have been changes
since, mostly thanks to the mergers of the ITV companies. In the
last Communications Act the restrictions on ownership of shareholdings
were lifted which had remained at 20% up until two years ago.
The background to it is regulatory change but now there is no
regulatory ceiling on our shareholdings, there is regulation around
the news we produce for ITV in that it is a regulated news service
in more than just the normal ways of balance and impartiality.
We could have any shareholders in other words.
Q11 Chairman:
What effect do the shareholders that you have got at the moment
actually have on the news?
Mr Wood: None. ITV is a major customer. ITV
is our biggest customer and is currently nearly 40% of our business
in turnover terms. Channel 4 is also a very big customer and is
not a shareholder. The shareholders behave like good shareholders.
They regard themselves as owners of the business; they require
the management to deliver good services to the customers but also
to develop the business as a commercial business generating higher
profits and better returns and value creation to the shareholders.
ITV, as a major shareholder and a major customer treats us entirely
properly with Chinese Walls within ITV between the shareholder
directors and the customer departments. ITV, like other shareholders,
has been very supportive of ITN developing as a commercial business
and treats us as an arm's length supplier in terms of providing
news. We have just signed a new long-term contract with ITV up
to the end of 2012 and that is on the basis of us being a supplier
of news to them.
Q12 Chairman:
There is no reason now, because of the Communications Act, why
someone should not take over ITV. There is no reason why, for
example, an American company should not take over ITV. If it did
take over ITV—Walt Disney or someone like that—would
it be able to exert influence on ITN and the kind of news that
it covers?
Mr Wood: No, is the short answer. The contract
we have with our customers is always very clear. There is a dual
relationship—I will let Jonathan say more about this in
a second—where we provide a service to our customers around
their requirements and we agree with them in quite intense coordination
of what kind of news service they want. We produce three major
programmes for ITV during the day—lunch time news, early
evening news and evening news—each of those is different
in that it is calibrated for a different target audience, a different
demographic. That is all agreed with ITV. In the same way we have
a relationship with Channel 4 in which we agree with Channel 4
what kind of news programme we want to develop at seven o'clock,
what kind of programme More4 News should be, what kind of subjects
we might cover. However, there is then a very clear dividing line,
on the other side of which is editorial control. Editorial control
is with the editorial management with ITN and is, if you like,
sacrosanct. Customers never try to cross that line; they are very
aware of it.
Q13 Chairman:
Did you say that there is an agreement on the kinds of subjects
that you might cover?
Mr Wood: There is a discussion around the kind
of news coverage and the kind of news programme but not on specifics.
Mr Munro: I think the line we tread here is
that they never know what is in our programmes until they see
them. They never know what the running order is; they never know
what the lead story is; they never know who is being interviewed
live or not live. That discussion never happens. They never ask;
we would not tell them if they did ask. It is a properly internal
ITN decision about what is in those programmes. They give us information
about the audience that their network is attracting at different
times of day. For example, the evening news at 6.30 is a more
female than male audience; it is a slightly older audience; it
is also a family skewed audience. The 10.30 is a more male audience,
a slightly younger audience. One makes an assumption as a news
programme maker that, for example, if you are running a sports
story it is going to sit more comfortably with the audience that
is available at 10.30 at night than on the evening news. All stories
can work in all programmes, it depends how you tell them. If Tim
Henman had made it through to a later stage at Wimbledon than
he has that would be a news story for all our programmes. The
fine tuning of what we call groin strain news—which premiership
footballer has made the back pages because of injury—is
not going to sit very comfortably on the evening news. Those are
the sorts of parameters that we would know ITV feels about the
way it wants its programmes to behave in the schedule. If we judge
that a groin strain was a particularly big new story because it
happened to be the England captain two days before a crucial World
Cup qualifying match then that would get on the evening news out
of news merits. The hurdle it has to cross would be higher than
it would be for the later programmes. Equally, with an older audience
in the day time, stories that are loosely bracketed as consumer
news, medical news, that sort of thing would sit very comfortably
in that programme and less comfortably on the later programmes.
Q14 Chairman:
No-one would pressure on you—ITV or any of these other shareholders—to
say, "Do this particular story" or that Big Brother
is the story of the day or Paris Hilton is an even better example.
Mr Munro: I was personally delighted that we
did not run Paris Hilton leaving jail on the evening news because
some other major story of more importance broke. The answer to
that is no.
Q15 Lord Maxton:
On breakfast television on the morning that Paris Hilton was released
you had a helicopter hovering above the dam that was about to
break and suddenly the anchor woman said, "We'll have to
break off there because Paris Hilton is coming out of prison"!
That is beside the point, what I really want to ask you is, going
back to the ownership, when you were set up ITV was a conglomerate
of large numbers of companies. It now is essentially one company
except for Scottish Television which is not part of the ITV Company.
Are they still a shareholder in ITN.
Mr Wood: Scottish Television are not, no; they
are just customers.
Q16 Lord Maxton:
Presumably it was one of the ITV shareholders.
Mr Wood: It would have been, yes, under the
old system.
Q17 Lord Maxton:
Therefore it has no board member or anything like that.
Mr Wood: No.
Q18 Lord Maxton:
It is simply a customer who purchases from you.
Mr Wood: Yes.
Q19 Lord Maxton:
Do you provide the regional news for them as well?
Mr Wood: No. We do not for ITV either except
for London. We do London regional news but the other regional
news operations in ITV are managed by ITV. We have a very close
relationship with them. Chairman, could I just respond to one
point about the pressure because it is quite important, the "if
an American took over ITV" scenario. We have never faced
any pressure from our customers on covering bad news about them,
whether it was bad results for ITV, bad figures for Celebrity
Love Island, the Jade Goody episode in Big Brother on Channel
4. They have always recognised that we cover those stories the
way we need to cover them. I have never yet had a phone call from
anybody asking me to lay off that one or could it be done differently.
The scenario that somebody else comes in and buys ITV—which
is of course quite plausible—the contract is very robust
in these areas. The dividing lines area very, very well structured
so any new owner coming in would have to deal with the same arrangements.
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