At the height of the controversy about Jeremy Thorpe and the conspiracy of silence that grew around his apparent involvement in a plot to kill his former lover Norman Scott, we began making a documentary film about the story for BBC television.
Little did I realise I, too, would soon become an unwitting figure in that conspiracy.
Our team had pitched the idea, in 1979, to an editor who later became the Corporation’s powerful Head of News. He agreed to our investigation but demanded to know absolutely everything we were doing. ‘Keep me in the picture, boys,’ he said, amicably, time and again.
Many years later, at his funeral, it emerged that this man had been a colonel in British Military Intelligence in the Territorial Army.
With the benefit of hindsight, it now becomes more than a mere suspicion that we investigative journalists at the cutting edge of the story were being gently manipulated by others in powerful positions — people who were anxious to know how much information there was about the developing scandal, how accessible it was, and what could be done to shut it down.
After all, how much easier to use unwitting real reporters than get spooks to pose as reporters to dig for information. (more...)
On social media:
Essential piece on Thorpe's court caae and the importance of press freedom in the UK. HT @MarkWatts_1 and @ExaroNews: http://t.co/ec4KkbCDJ9
— Scottish PEN (@ScottishPEN) December 13, 2014
No comments:
Post a Comment