BBC journalism in the spotlight

By Nick Higham BBC media correspondent

BBC media correspondent Nick Higham analyses the performance at the Hutton inquiry of his colleagues Andrew Gilligan and Richard Sambrook.

Facing detailed cross-examination by Jonathan Sumption, QC for the government, Mr Gilligan and Mr Sambrook had a strategy.

Knowing they would be in for a much rougher ride than during the first phase of the Hutton Inquiry, both men returned to Court 73 in The Strand apparently determined to admit their errors and apologise copiously.

But they wanted to defend the broad thrust of both Gilligan's original report and the BBC's editorial and managerial processes.

To a large extent it worked.

Gilligan admitted to a "slip of the tongue"

Mr Sambrook's was an especially good performance, impressively well-briefed - well enough briefed, indeed, to correct several errors by Mr Sumption - and crisp and concise in his answers.

Nevertheless the BBC remains open to criticism at several points.

During the questioning both Mr Sumption and Lord Hutton himself succeeded in exposing the BBC's vulnerability.

There were some damaging admissions.

Mr Gilligan admitted to a "slip of the tongue" in his first broadcast at 0607 BST, when he claimed the government had inserted the 45-minute claim "knowing it was wrong". Dr Kelly had not said that, Mr Gilligan had simply inferred it - but said he had sought to correct it at the start of his next broadcast.

He also admitted it had been wrong to send an e-mail to a member of the foreign affairs committee apparently identifying Dr Kelly as the source for Susan Watts of Newsnight.

Dr Kelly was not a man into whose mouth you could put word Andrew Gilligan

He did not know for sure that was the case - he had been under a great deal of pressure and was not thinking straight.

But he insisted he had not meant to accuse the government of lying.

Despite a denial by the Ministry of Defence, he said he had spent seven-and-a-half minutes on the phone - his mobile phone bill had recorded the time - telling the MoD press office in broad terms what he was planning to run the next day.

He was pressed hard on his description of Dr Kelly as an official "in charge" of drawing up last September's dossier - a description he had put to the weapons expert at the end of their discussion and which Dr Kelly had not challenged.

"Dr Kelly was not a man into whose mouth you could put words," Mr Gilligan said.

Sambrook defended Mr Gilligan to the BBC governors

But a few minutes later he admitted doing just that, in cross-examination by Jeremy Gompertz QC for the Kelly family.

The phrase "to make it sexier" was one Dr Kelly had used only after Gilligan had suggested it to him.

But when Mr Gompertz suggested he had done something similar with Alastair Campbell's name he insisted it had been brought up spontaneously by Dr Kelly.

Much of the questioning of both witnesses focused on why Dr Kelly had been described in one live broadcast by Mr Gilligan, by other BBC programmes and by the BBC's governors as a source in the intelligence service or the security services.

Mr Sumption suggested it was because people would find his report more exciting and more credible.

No, it had been another slip of the tongue, Mr Gilligan said.

It is regrettable Richard Sambrook

He had not attempted to correct the foreign affairs committee's misapprehension that his source worked in the intelligence services because he was trying to protect him and did not want to narrow down the focus.

Mr Sambrook too faced tough questions about the way Dr Kelly was described.

The description very quickly "got into the bloodstream of the way this issue was discussed", he said.

Even the BBC governors had assumed Dr Kelly was an intelligence source.

Mr Sambrook had not corrected them, partly because he was not asked about it directly, partly because - like Mr Gilligan - he did not want to say anything that might help identify the source.

Loose language

Mr Sumption was not impressed.

He asked if it was not a serious matter that the governors of the BBC should have endorsed the journalistic standards of the broadcast on the basis that the source was a senior member of the intelligence services without appreciating that description was wrong.

"It is regrettable," said Mr Sambrook.

He played down the significance of an e-mail from the editor of BBC Radio 4's Today programme criticising Mr Gilligan's "flawed reporting" and "loose language" - an e-mail that Mr Sambrook had not seen when he defended Mr Gilligan to the BBC governors.

Telling interventions

If Today's editor had had real concerns, he would have raised them with Mr Sambrook, and he had not.

He had told the governors Mr Gilligan was "in some respects" a good reporter.

He was very good at finding information out, he had said, but sometimes there were questions about nuances and subtleties in how he presented it.

But as so often during this inquiry one of the most telling interventions came from Lord Hutton himself.

Preferred corroboration

He asked about the letter which Mr Sambrook had sent to Mr Campbell, defending the broadcast.

He had written it, he told the inquiry, without having looked at Mr Gilligan's notes.

Was it enough for the BBC just to rely on what Mr Gilligan told it, Lord Hutton asked.

Ideally, said Mr Sambrook, he would have preferred corroboration.

But corroboration had not been available.