Wapping attacks

Andrew Gilligan is unlikely to ever be offered a contract from Models 1, in spite of the frenzy of attention he received last week in giving evidence to the Hutton inquiry. But even rivals of the BBC correspondent thought the photograph published across four columns of the front page of The Times last Wednesday, was less than flattering to the Today programme reporter.

The image of Gilligan, with his eyes half-closed and looking shifty in front of the Royal Courts of Justice, was used to illustrate a splash that was headlined "BBC admits Iraq scoop was flawed". Beneath the picture was a cruel, if funny, attack on Gilligan's journalistic standards, his delivery of evidence in a "lifeless monotone" and his "sober" attire. The aggressive coverage by The Times of Day Two of the inquiry was matched in its hostility to the BBC only by a News International stable-mate.

Across two pages, The Sun accused Gilligan of "The Big Lie", switching up in later editions to a splash of "Lies, Lies, Lies". An editorial suggested that Gilligan's journalism was so tainted that the inquiry itself was pointless.

What was striking about the stances taken by the two papers was the contrast with the headlines from the rest of the press that same morning. Whereas the Murdoch papers went for the neck of the BBC, the rest of Fleet Street picked on the Government. The Financial Times highlighted evidence from Susan Watts, Newsnight's science editor, that Dr David Kelly had linked Alastair Campbell with changes to the Iraqi weapons dossier. The Independent's version was similar: "Two reporters, one story: Campbell sexed up the dossier". The Daily Telegraph ran with "Campbell is accused over dossier" and the Daily Mirror pictured Tony Blair's official spokesman alongside the headline: "Spin Deep Trouble".

The following day, after Watts had criticised the behaviour of her bosses, The Guardian, The Independent and the FT led on the BBC rift, while the Telegraph and Mirror kept up their attacks on Downing Street. The Sun said Watts had been "Bullied by the Beeb", called on the corporation to apologise to Campbell and asked for the inquiry to be halted. The Times attacked other papers for taking a soft line on the BBC the day before.

The ferocity of Wapping's assault caused surprise in the corporation's news rooms. One senior BBC journalist said: "The dispute is over one unguarded sentence. I don't think it matters as much as The Times thinks it does."

The hostility was ascribed by some observers to a vendetta between Times journalists and Gilligan, a former Sunday Telegraph reporter. Others claimed to detect a Murdoch-driven agenda.

Robert Thomson, the editor of The Times, says it was "completely wrong" to suggest the paper was trying to "pursue or persecute the BBC". Thomson mocks "the idea that the BBC is a defenceless Chihuahua", saying it is "one of the most powerful institutions in this country". He describes some of the reporting by his rivals as "not journalism" and claimed that some papers "have come to this inquiry with fully-loaded agendas, which in some respects have almost nothing to do with the inquiry".

Some papers, he said, were still trying to justify the war, while others were still fighting a campaign against it. He said the BBC had been "in the dock" on Tuesday and Wednesday last week.

"That was the most compelling photo [of Gilligan] that was around. There are some people who suggest it was an unflattering photo but it was a compelling photo. Quite honestly it wasn't intended to be unflattering."

Mr Thomson promises that the following day's newspaper will be "very tough" on Mr Hoon, the Defence Secretary, who has just given evidence to the inquiry.

"If we kept banging on about the BBC tomorrow that would be unfair and we are not going to do that. Geoff Hoon is in the firing line, there's no doubt about it," he says.

But in the event, the attack on the Government is limited to a single column story. The Defence Secretary's name does not appear in any headline. Nor is he the subject of an unflattering photograph.