Fairness rather than fear
From KJ. Marsh Sir: Rod Liddle's article (`Thought for the Day', 25 October) was inaccurate. He writes — in connection with my decision not to broadcast part of an interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury — that the BBC put out a statement saying that 'the Today programme had agreed in advance . . . that the war in Iraq would not be covered in the interview'. He calls that 'Lie Number One'. The lie — or inaccuracy — is one perpetrated by Mr Liddle, not by the BBC. Today made no agreement about subject matter. We have never said that we did. If he had read and understood the BBC statement — or, indeed, if he had spoken to me — Mr Liddle would know that I edited the interview with the Archbishop out of fair dealing, not some imagined 'terror'.
Lambeth Palace did want to restrict the interview to a single subject — the Lambeth meeting. We didn't agree to that — but we didn't state explicitly that the other subjects we intended to cover would include Iraq. I think we should have, given that we knew the Archbishop had declined previous invitations to be interviewed on the war. We did make one agreement, however; that the interview would be pre-recorded and that it would be ten minutes long. recorded 'as live'. In the event, the recorded interview substantially exceeded that — and all the questions on Iraq fell after the ten minutes agreed.
Some in my position would have neglected fair dealing and run the recorded interview in full. But Mr Liddle must know that BBC editors cannot always choose the easier option: and that the BBC cannot be like other news organisations — it must deal fairly and be seen to deal fairly with all contributors or forfeit licence-payers' trust.
K.J. Marsh Editor, Today BBC, London W12
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