ElKabong
04-24-2005, 04:36 AM
Credibility GONE
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;sessionid=4M4KYZ0WHU2CFQFIQMFSM5WAVCBQ0 JVC?xml=/news/2005/04/24/nhow24.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/04/24/ixportaltop.html&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=14627
Tory fury as BBC sends hecklers to bait Howard
By Patrick Hennessy, Political Editor
(Filed: 24/04/2005)
The BBC was last night plunged into a damaging general election row after it admitted equipping three hecklers with microphones and sending them into a campaign meeting addressed by Michael Howard, the Conservative leader.
The Tories have made an official protest after the hecklers, who were given the microphones by producers, were caught at a party event in the North West last week. Guy Black, the party's head of communications, wrote in a letter to Helen Boaden, the BBC's director of news, that the hecklers began shouting slogans that were "distracting and clearly hostile to the Conservative Party".
These included "Michael Howard is a liar", "You can't trust the Tories" and "You can only trust Tony Blair"......
Tory officials became suspicious at the meeting in Horwich, near Bolton, last Wednesday, when they saw BBC camera crew focusing on the hecklers rather than Mr Howard. They twice challenged the two men and a woman involved, and discovered they had been equipped with radio microphones.
Mr Black said that they described themselves as "shoppers". In fact, they were under direction from a BBC team making a programme called The History of Heckling for the BBC3 channel. The programme, whose producer is Paul Woolwich, is in the process of being edited.===snip
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;sessionid=4M4KYZ0WHU2CFQFIQMFSM5WAVCBQ0 JVC?xml=/news/2005/04/24/nhow24.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/04/24/ixportaltop.html&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=14627
Tory fury as BBC sends hecklers to bait Howard
By Patrick Hennessy, Political Editor
(Filed: 24/04/2005)
The BBC was last night plunged into a damaging general election row after it admitted equipping three hecklers with microphones and sending them into a campaign meeting addressed by Michael Howard, the Conservative leader.
The Tories have made an official protest after the hecklers, who were given the microphones by producers, were caught at a party event in the North West last week. Guy Black, the party's head of communications, wrote in a letter to Helen Boaden, the BBC's director of news, that the hecklers began shouting slogans that were "distracting and clearly hostile to the Conservative Party".
These included "Michael Howard is a liar", "You can't trust the Tories" and "You can only trust Tony Blair"......
Tory officials became suspicious at the meeting in Horwich, near Bolton, last Wednesday, when they saw BBC camera crew focusing on the hecklers rather than Mr Howard. They twice challenged the two men and a woman involved, and discovered they had been equipped with radio microphones.
Mr Black said that they described themselves as "shoppers". In fact, they were under direction from a BBC team making a programme called The History of Heckling for the BBC3 channel. The programme, whose producer is Paul Woolwich, is in the process of being edited.===snip