The International Press Institute (IPI), the global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists, condemns recent attempts by UK cabinet ministers to undermine the reporting of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on the war in Iraq.

According to information provided to IPI, there have been a number of instances of ministers criticising the BBC for providing 24-hour coverage which is allegedly distorting the public’s perspective of the Iraqi war. Moreover, ministers are apparently alleging that the BBC is failing to properly distinguish between the Iraqi regime and the allied forces.

Such accusations have led to claims that the BBC is behaving as if there were a “moral equivalence” between the two sides in the war. A claim that led a 30 March article in the Guardian to quote a “senior” government figure as saying, “On the one side is a dictatorship that allows no scrutiny of what it does; on the other are democracies which have a policy of openness and allow themselves to be questioned.”

Responding to the question of the 24-hour news cycle, IPI Director Johann P. Fritz said, “The BBC has a both a right and an absolute duty to report on this war. It is vital to the viewing public that they receive a plurality of views in order to understand what is happening in Iraq.”

“Politicians have assiduously cultivated the news cycle for their own benefit in peace time and it would seem to me to be both wrong and irresponsible for politicians to criticise the media during a time of war purely because they do not like what they are seeing on their television screens.”

On the subject of news reporting Fritz commented, “The UK government must accept the fact that the best people to decide news are not politicians, but the broadcasters themselves.”