Stumbling Over Truth

The Hutton Report in 2004 created today's BBC. It cost the corporation its Chairman and Director General and ushered in an age of self-doubt and caution. It was also the end of the most extraordinary experiment in news management Britain has ever seen, the decade of Alastair Campbell - the Blair courtier who delivered new Labour's mission to 'create the truth'. But Lord Hutton condemned the BBC and its journalism without hearing a single word from the man who put the 'sexed-up dossier' story on air - Today editor Kevin Marsh. Had he done so his conclusions would have been very different. Now outside the BBC, Marsh can tell for the first time the inside story of Andrew Gilligan's infamous 0607 broadcast on the Today programme. He explains how he was certain the story was true, but also how Gilligan's 'flawed reporting' fatally damaged the BBC's case. And he tells of his growing disillusion with the British media's ability and appetite for holding power to account - or even telling the truth.
This is an important book for anyone who wants to understand the toe-to-toe confrontations between Tony Blair's government and the BBC, and the fight to keep BBC journalism independent in the face of unprecedented government pressure.