BBC and IRA
Sir: Paul Johnson's preference for abuse rather than rational argument (13 June) makes it difficult, and probably pointless, to respond to his criticism of the BBC's coverage of Northern Ireland, and my recent explanation in The Times of the problems involved.
He clearly has not bothered to find out about the BBC's close and continuous relationship with the public, which simply would never allow us to plunge into the errors he so extravagantly describes. Each day we get hundreds of letters and dozens of phone calls: each fortnight, on average, a group of senior programme executives faces a public meeting of several hundred people, always in a different part of the country: each week our audience research tells us not only how many people watched or heard a programme, but what they thought of it: we have our 50 advisory bodies, covering a wide range of geographical and subject interest: not least, there are the comments in the press.
The general reaction of the public was • perhaps expressed, appropriately, in the recent House of Commons debate on the new Charter, which produced a number of detailed criticisms and doubts (some of which we ourselves share) but recorded an underlying understanding and respect for which we were duly grateful.
Only one of the MPs who spoke seriously criticised the BBC's handling of Northern Ireland, and even he did so with a restraint far removed from the apparent paranoia of Paul Johnson. Of course Northern Ireland presents broadcasters with appalling difficulties, but one might have had a little more regard for Mr Johnson's strictures if he had addressed himself to some of the real issues — over Sands, for instance, how could one ignore the significance of the Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election, and the subsequent visits from various international bodies, including the Papacy? I don't really believe Mr Johnson wants to see legislative control on reporting. He knows, or should, how that road could only lead in one direction — towards the Gulag Archipelago. Ironically Mr Johnson himself would be in one of the first consignments.
Ian Tretho wan Director-General, BBC, Broadcasting House, London W1
Sir: How true is every word that Paul Johnson writes (13 June). The Spectator is to be congratulated on printing his article on how a determined and clever set of rogues can make rings round the once fabled and respected BBC.
Not all the protestations of Sir Ian Trethowan can hide the fact that at the moment the BBC has lost any shrewdness it once had, and the horde of new producers of the BBC news are still wet behind the ears. They don't seem to know when they are being used and manipulated. If the 'BBC really cared about Northern Ireland murders it could deal the IRA a mortal blow with the greatest of ease: it could bring in a period of cold disdainful silence. How the IRA would hate to be ignored! Nothing could be crueller. Oh for a self-denying ordinance for the young cowboys of the BBC news department.
Marjory Heath-Gracie Shorms, Stockland, Honiton, Devon
Sir: I have rarely read such a deluded, overdone article. Mr Johnson seems to set himself up as some 'Whitehousian demigod' in judgment on what we call news and he calls corrupt propaganda.
M.J. Anderson 1 Devitt Close, Shinfield Rise, Reading, Berkshire
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