Click on the links below to see press coverage of the following programmes in the spring and summer of 2004:

Fighting for care
Can condoms kill?

JULY 2004

Daily Mirror - July 20
"Families of Alzheimer's sufferers demanded a health minister's resignation yesterday after he claimed people could recover from the disease. When asked why thousands with Alzheimer's were being denied NHS treatment, Stephen Ladyman told BBC's Panorama on Sunday that they could get better. The degenerative brain disease, suffered by up to 500,000 people in Britain, is incurable. Drugs can only delay symptoms such as memory loss.

Kenneth Jackson of Carlisle said: "Stephen Ladyman should resign. I hope his parents will never be in a situation to require constant care.". A spokeswoman for Mr Ladyman said his remarks were badly edited.

Daily Mail - July 19
"In one of the most harrowing Panorama's I have ever sat through, another finger was pointed at another professional body that does not appear to be taking its duty of care as rigorously as it should. The body is, once again, the NHS, and the finger belonged to reporter Andy Davies, who uncovered a shocking catalogue of incompetence, obstruction, injustice, lack of imagination and sheer thoughtlessness when it comes to continuing care for those with long term illnesses."

Sunday Express - July 18
"Panorama has uncovered a system that remains riddled with delays, obstruction and injustices, despite a health ombudsman report last year that described the continuing care system as "opaque, unfair and at times unlawful".

Sunday Times - July 18
"A harrowing and timely film reveals the double struggle of carers who look after elderly spouses with problems such as advanced dementia at the same time as battling with a seemingly parsimonious health service to secure continuing nursing help in the home."

The People - July 18
"Along with a BBC1 Panorama report tonight, we can expose the shambles of the NHS's Continuous Care programme. The system was set up to help the victims of devastating illnesses such as Alzheimer's - but is simply failing to deliver. Cash would enable carers to pay for nursing support at home or in a hospital. Slammed by the Health Ombudsman as "unfair and unlawful", Continuous Care is now investigating over 11,000 cases and facing a pounds 180million compensation bill."

JUNE 2004

Independent - June 28
"Bradshaw conclusively made his case that the Catholic argument about condoms had more holes in it than an incense burner. At best it was wishful thinking, at worst a wickedly reckless attempt to reinforce existing dogma with half-truths. Knowing that its own preferred method of disease control, abstinence, had a terrible failure rate, the Church set out to badmouth the alternative.

The Ugandan woman who had been infected by her husband had the consolation of knowing that St Peter would be greeting her with open arms, even if he might be surprised that she'd turned up so early. The Church's attitude to those who had decided to trust in latex rather than the Lord was nicely summed up by the Brazilian cleric conducting an anti-condom rally during the Rio carnival. "Happiness belongs to us," he said, "not to that garbage cavorting out in the street."

The Times - June 28
"Panorama looked at an even more intractable debate, with far more serious immediate consequences for those involved. Can Condoms Kill? examined the claims of the Catholic Church that the use of condoms is actually causing the HIV virus to spread faster because they are dangerously unreliable, while encouraging promiscuity.

The scientific experts consulted about the accusation of unreliability were unambiguous. The Church's claims are nonsense. Nevada's legalised prostitutes, who use them by the truck-load, agreed. Preaching abstinence is one thing. Telling people who are not willing to be abstinent to risk death unnecessarily is another.

Some Third World Aids workers are so furious they want to indict the Church for "crimes against humanity". I would guess many British Catholics will have found this programme profoundly depressing."

Observer - June 27
"An eye-opener of a documentary which gauges the sense behind the science and the worth of the 20-page thesis assembled by extremist cardinal Lopez Trujillo."

FT - June 26
"The always terrific documentary series tackles another difficult isssue head-on: reporter Steve Bradshaw investigates the Vatican's somewhat outrageous claims that condoms can have holes that leak the Aids virus, as well as encourage promiscuity."

Guardian - June 26
"Can Condoms Kill? Only, one would suspect, if someone dropped a load on your head. A Vatican hardliner, however, strongly disagrees, and it's this view that's investigated here."

Sunday Express - June 13
"I hope Downing Street watched Panorama about boozed up Nottingham. With 386 bars in its city centre and 50,000 drinkers on some nights, what better way to curb drunken behaviour than to change the law and create the first "superpubs" next year, which can open 24 hours a day. Cheers Tony."

Daily Telegraph - June 12
"I have never seen so many bottoms on Panorama, which this week went to Nottingham by night to see how it's getting on with a pioneering attempt to introduce continental cafe culture to blighty in an effort to enliven the city centre. Apart from the fact that the streets are awash with urine, vomit and Nottingham's mooning 20somethings, there are two problems.

"First, for reasons of profit, they have built not pavement cafes but several hundred gastro pubs. Second, there are no elegant Europeans to drink in them with pastel pullovers hung nonchalantly around their neck, only binge boozing, 10 pint, leg over and a bag of chips British with their chins on the floor and 23,000 cases of alcohol related violence a week."

Daily Mail - June 9
"It hardly needed last Sunday's disturbing Panorama programme to reveal what unrestrained drinking has already done to our town and city centres. Millions of decent people already know to their cost that violence, loutishness and an atmosphere of menace are everywhere.

Now police who have always opposed the scheme are preparing for even worse. But this Government ignores all warnings. Indeed, its attitude was summed up by the text messages it sent to young people at the last election, telling them they could drink until they dropped if they voted Labour."

Daily Star - June 9
"BBC's Panorama highlighted the binge drinking problem this week, using Nottingham as a case study. It's led to one holiday firm, Brilliant Weekends, banning its stag and hen weekends in the city."

Libby Purves - The Times - June 8
"Analysis of the causes was assisted by a lucid edition of Panorama at the weekend, which laid out how this transformation of city centres came about. It is a perfect illustration of the law of unintended consequences...On Panorama one former bar manageress explained how she had trained staff to press ever larger drinks on her clientele; the drinks industry devised ever sweeter, more childish alcopops."

The Times - June 8
"Fears that the rise of binge drinking could prompt the Government to take action on the licensed sector dragged on JD Wetherspoon. Shares in the high street bars operator, which competes heavily on price, suffered the second biggest one-day fall among the mid-caps, closing off 10p at 287p, after a BBC Panorama documentary highlighted the undesirable consequences of heavy drinking. There are suggestions that the Government may have cooled on the notion of longer trading hours in its forthcoming shake-up of licensing."

Daily Express - June 7
"Back in the nasty real world of Panorama, it was Casualty all over again, highlighting the fact that 70 per cent of A&E weekend cases are alcohol-related. This disturbing but repetitive report on our binge drinking culture was hard to swallow. Did the statistics even add up? Some 80,000 arrests for drunkenness and disorder every year - but a whopping 23,000 incidents of alcohol-related violence every week? Blame was laid firmly at the door of tax-greedy politicians and the justplain-greedy drinks industry. Whether the risk was exaggerated or under-played, it was even more sobering than Charlie's miserable lemonade."

Observer - June 6
"As anyone who has been out in a major UK town centre recently knows, binge drinking has taken a firm grip on our society. It's hard to move in the pubs of Manchester, Liverpool or Birmingham without being offered a special, three-for-the-price-of-one deal on some disgusting blue drink or other, and equally hard to make your way home without tripping over half-naked comatose youths or stumbling into a traditional after-hours punch-up. What is less clear is how and when this all started. In this interesting - and queasy - documentary, Andy Davies looks at how much the drinks industry is to blame and investigates what effect the new lax licensing laws will have. The answer: not a good one."

Sunday Times - June 6
"The proliferation of bars in city centres means binge drinkers can throw up, fall down, urinate and get into fights any place they feel like. Nottingham, where this edition is filmed, is at the forefront of this unlovely trend, and the lawyer called to one drunken client after another seems to find the whole thing hilarious. But are successive governments and their friends in the drinks industry to blame?"

The Guardian - June 5
"After watching this graphically sobering doc, it's almost criminal to think that, three years ago, students were sent a vote-cultivating text message that read, "Cldnt Give A XXX 4 Lst Ordrs? Vote Labour 4 xtra time." The ongoing dismantling of Britain's, admittedly draconian, licensing laws (originally brought in during the first world war) has seen our city centres turn into an alcohol-fuelled nightmare, with 1.2m incidents of booze-related violence per year. So it's unlikely that next summer's opening of the UK's first 24-hour pub will usher-in "a more sober era of continental-style drinking".

Nottingham Evening Post - June 4
"Let's be absolutely frank. On weekend evenings central Nottingham IS at the mercy of such people. Their offensive behaviour is one of the reasons why the middle-aged and elderly feel the city centre is a no-go zone on Friday and Saturday nights. But public binge drinking is not a Nottingham problem.

It is a British problem, as TV crews will discover on Saturday nights if they visit any comparable city, any seaside resort, any market town. Panorama's visit to Nottingham is justifiable. Chief Constable Steve Green is a leading campaigner for more conservative licensing policies; if producers want to hear from him it is only natural that they would want to record some of the gross behaviour that places his officers under such strain.

Panorama tells us that Sunday night's programme is about licensing and policing problems in general. We trust that will be stressed during the transmission itself. This documentary comes just two years after another programme focused on crime in Nottingham. We don't want the city's problems swept under the carpet - we regularly report on these issues ourselves - but let's make sure the local situation is placed in a national context.

MAY 2004

Independent on Sunday - May 10
"The Home Secretary, David Blunkett, intervened to get the BBC to tone down a Panorama programme about a terror attack on London, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. He withdrew his support from the docu-drama, to be broadcast next Sunday, because the corporation refused to bow to his requests.

Last night the Home Office branded the programme, which it still hasn't seen, as "irresponsible and alarmist". In response, the BBC said it had a public duty to highlight potential flaws in Britain's ability to deal with a major terrorist atrocity.

The Panorama programme, "London Under Attack", depicts a fictional day of terror in which thousands of people are blown up or poisoned. It is harshly critical of the lack of preparedness of government, police and security services.

The Home Office said in a statement: "Although we have not seen the programme we are disappointed to learn that the BBC appears to have adopted an irresponsible and alarmist approach to what is understandably an emotional and frightening subject."

The BBC said: "Our view is that it would be irresponsible not to explore the subject given that the Government and everyone else in civil defence is warning that an attack is imminent."

Evening Standard - May 5
"The fictional scenario is depicted in a BBC Panorama documentary, which focuses on how the emergency services would cope with a multiple terrorist bomb attack on London. The "docu-drama" depicts three bombs exploding on the London Underground and a chemical tanker containing deadly chlorine gas exploding in the City.

Police and the Home Office refused to take part in the documentary, in which hundreds are killed on the Tube and more than 2,000 die from the effects of a green cloud of dense chlorine gas. Police sources described the scenario as "alarmist". But the BBC says the programme, called London Under Attack, reveals gaps in preparations to deal with a massive terror strike. "

Express - May 6
"The horror of a toxic gas cloud drifting through London is to be shown by the BBC in a new docu-drama. The Panorama film will analyse how the capital would cope in a large-scale terror attack. Called London Under Attack and presented by Newsnight's Gavin Esler, it is "set in the future - but only just", a BBC spokesman said. It features special effects sequences showing poisonous chlorine gas drifting through the Square Mile and killing 2,000 people. Hundreds more die in explosions on the Tube. As events unfold a team of experts reveals gaps in preparations for such an emergency."

The Scotsman - May 10
"Panorama entered the proxy world of drug abuse - that of the children of rug -hooked parents. Up to 350,000 such children survive in Britain today in a twilight world of which little is known. Panorama, in a harrowing but thorough investigation, helped alert us to the price we are signing up to by such neglect."

The Sunday Times - May 9
"There are more than 800 agencies throughout the country offering help and treatment for drug-addicted adults, but only 12 make substantial efforts to address the needs of their children. This worthwhile investigation features testimony from kids aged between 10 and 15, who talk of the chaos and hardship of a family life dominated by drug abuse. These children, who, for the purposes of the programme, are depicted by thankfully unstarry actors, might be remarkably brave about their experiences, but without sensitive intervention from the authorities it is unlikely that they will make it to adulthood unharmed."

Sunday Mirror - May 9
Health chiefs yesterday admitted they've failed the 60,000 children in Scotland being raised by junkies. NHS drugs expert and government adviser Dr Lawrence Gruer said: "It is only in the last five years that health professionals have realised that these children must be dealt with.

"Nobody who works in this sector would say that enough is being done. It is no secret that there is not enough provision for these children."

APRIL 2004

The Observer - April 11
"It was 10 years since the genocide in Rwanda and Fergal Keane returned with Panorama to interview the survivors and, still more disturbingly, the killers. You are either moved by Keane's sincere manner and 'under a salmon sky' descriptions or you find them off-putting. In normal circumstances, I'm in the latter group. But these were the most abnormal circumstances the world has seen in the past 20 years and Keane, to give him his due, dealt with them without fuss or invasive sentiment."

The Independent - April 8
"It has not been a good week for the bonds of friendship and human community. On Sunday night, Fergal Keane's memorably sombre Panorama film about the genocide in Rwanda reminded you just how many get-out clauses the social contract has. Give people a good enough excuse - "the government was responsible for their death" or "we'd been attacked by the Devil" - and they can not only murder their neighbours, but also live with it."

The Herald - April 5
"Fergal Keane is not often my kind of journalist. For my money he tends to be both sanctimonious and sentimental, forever putting a moral gloss on stories that are better understood as unvarnished truth. After last night's Panorama, however, I am prepared to forgive him a lot.

Ten years on from the Rwanda genocide, Keane returned to the scenes of unspeakable carnage on which he had first reported. In April of 1994 there began 100 days of calculated slaughter in which at least half a million died and thousands more became killers. It was a death rate, the correspondent later remarked, almost five times faster than anything achieved by the Nazis.

The dead Tutsis of Rwanda had something in common, nevertheless, with Hitler's victims: the world failed to give a damn. Even when a contingent of United Nations troops was in the country, when knowledge of the massacres was certain, Britain, America and the rest averted their eyes, fearing to be drawn into a quagmire. People who tell you now that Iraq was invaded for humanitarian reasons may some day explain why Rwanda was different.

Philippe Gaillard, head of the International Red Cross mission when the Hutu elite were unleashing peasants on the Tutsis, was one of Keane's most effective witnesses. In 1994 he was desperately giving media interviews in an attempt to catch the world's attention. Last night he said: "Some people in the so-called international community in Europe decided not to give a sh*t about this, about what was happening in Rwanda."

Later, Gaillard added: "They cannot tell me they didn't know. They were told. They were told every day." While the west turned a deaf ear, Hutu mobs were hacking and clubbing thousands of their neighbours to death in a Catholic church, once attended by both ethnic groups, where Keane later found mounds of rotting corpses.

And why the hatred? Perhaps it would have arisen no matter what, but colonialism played its part. When the Belgians controlled what is now Rwanda they used the Tutsis as what Keane called "enforcers". Given absolute power over the Hutus, the minority group had behaved brutally and the memory was never erased. When Tutsi exiles invaded the country in 1990, the Hutu elite began to plan for genocide and used the "journalists'' of Radio Milles Collines to condition the peasantry.

Such, at least, was the claim made by some of the killers in interviews with Keane. Could you believe them? Could propaganda and fear of a rebel victory explain why the father of a 10-year-old boy could later bury another 10-year -old alive? For all the tears of the perpetrator, I doubted it. He and those like him killed because they could, because extermination was their desire. And at the church they came wearing rubber boots, such was the bloodshed they planned.

This was a hugely powerful and troubling film. It did not actually require the musical soundtrack it was given. Nor was it enough to leave the indictment of western governments to a single, embittered Red Cross man whose eyes, even 10 years on, told their own story.

Former foreign secretaries and US secretaries of state should have been pursued. Retired prime ministers and presidents should have been named. Then again, culpable as they may have been, western politicians did not hack children to death with machetes. When Michael Grade, the chairman-designate, talks of the importance of BBC journalism, a film such as this is precisely what he means.

Guardian - April 5
"Just when it looked as if human decency in 2004 was headed for an all-time low, along came Sunday's Panorama (BBC1) to remind us that, when it comes to creating hell on earth, there's nothing new under the sun. Fergal Keane went back to Rwanda to remember the 10th anniversary of the 1994 genocide, when the majority Hutus murdered the minority Tutsis five times faster than the Nazis wiped out the Jews. One million people died in 100 days, which has to be some kind of record.

The detailed build-up to the massacre was an exercise in allowing the facts to speak for themselves. Government radio broadcasts disseminated lies to a dangerously wired-up civilian militia; they took to the streets with machetes, axes and bits of wood with nails sticking out of them, and killed their neighbours. Those who perpetrated these appalling crimes recounted their actions with dead-eyed composure. It was a gruesome, distressing reminder of just how foul the world really is - and as such, this was Panorama at its best and most meaningful. Usually I'd rather stick my own hand in a meat-grinder than watch this kind of show, and it was a very much sadder, wearier man who rose to press the "off" button when the credits had rolled."

Radio Times online - April 4
"This is a dreadful story of one of the bloodiest stains on recent history - the genocide in Rwanda. Ten years ago Fergal Keane reported on the horrors taking place within this tiny African country, where the majority Hutu tribe, at the behest of the Rwandan government, was systematically and savagely attempting to wipe out the minority Tutsis. Keane returns to the village of Nyarubuye, scene of one of the most appalling massacres. Viewers will find some of the images disturbing, but this is a powerful programme that demands to be watched."

Sunday Times - April 4
Ten years after Rwanda's bloody civil war claimed the lives of more than 800,000 Tutsis, the reporter Fergal Keane journeys to the village of Nyarubuye in an effort to discover what it was that galvanised the Hutus to turn on the people that they once considered to be their neighbours.

The Herald - April 1
"It's 10 years since the mass killings in Rwanda and to remember the black anniversary, Fergal Keane returns to the country he reported from at the time and talks to survivors, including some who escaped only by hiding under piles of dead bodies. Keane also talks to some of those who carried out the killings and discovers that some have moved on. Yet others can't forget: "It was like I'd killed a relative" says one."

MARCH 2004

Guardian - March 29
"If Passer By didn't depress you enough, then after the news BBC1 fielded a splendid but brutalising Panorama in which Jane Corbin went fearlessly in pursuit of the men who pursued Saddam Hussein. This was not an uplifting tale. After his last public appearance in Baghdad last April, Saddam fled from one sordid bolthole to another, stashing money and jewellery wherever he went, finally to be tugged out of a makeshift bunker by gleeful American squaddies.

"We repeatedly saw a shot of the beardy old tyrant being dragged into the light, looking like one of the lost souls that haunt London's mainline stations. Apparently he remained "uncooperative and delusional" in captivity, and still appeared to believe he was the president.

"The stony-faced US army spokesmen tried hard to keep from unseemly crowing, but just occasionally a flicker in the eyes suggested that the barrack-room version of events may be considerably saltier. The whole sorry tale of blood money, betrayal and degradation was without dignity or moral. Someone suggested at the end that there was something Shakespearean about Saddam in captivity, but where some see tragedy I can see nothing but utter, universal wickedness."

Sunday Mirror - March 28
"The bodyguard who betrayed Saddam Hussein to the Americans has not been paid any of the 25 million dollar reward offered for his capture. Mohammed Ibrahim al Musslit - a key figure in Saddam's Special Security Organisation - was yesterday named as the man who led US soldiers to his secret hiding place. Musslit, once one of the Saddam's top lieutenants, accompanied the ousted dictator as he fled Baghdad when the city fell to coalition forces last April.

US troops tracked down his close-knit group of presidential bodyguards one-by-one in the hunt for Saddam. Musslit - nicknamed the Fat Man by US soldiers - gave away the hiding place of the former Iraqi leader just hours after being arrested last December. He was immediately flown to Saddam's home town of Tikrit and pointed out a remote farm where the dishevelled dictator, with a long grey beard, was found in an underground bunker.

But Musslit will not benefit from the huge Washington bounty for Saddam because he did not give the information willingly. US officials have refused to reveal their source but say he remains Page pageunrepentant about his role in Saddam's regime. The revelations - featured in BBC1's Panorama programme tonight - came as as a roadside bomb and a rocket attack killed two people and wounded at least 18 in Iraq yesterday."

Washington Post - March 28
"A BBC documentary reported that it had identified the former presidential bodyguard who led U.S. forces to the property where Hussein was found in December, hiding in a hole in the ground. Mohammad Ibrahim Omar Musslit, a portly figure with glasses and a mustache like his patron's, led U.S. troops to the area hours after he was arrested in Baghdad, the BBC reported on its Web site, citing a Panorama documentary scheduled to be broadcast Sunday night. Musslit was described as the only person who knew all of Hussein's movements at the time of his capture."

Sunday Times - March 21
!It is hard to know which is the more disturbing sight: that miserable footage of the exhausted tyrant Saddam Hussein having his teeth checked by an American army medic, or the repellently triumphant response of the American journalistic corps as they are told "we got him". Panorama talks to the soldiers who were involved in tracking down the former Iraqi leader (surprisingly, none of them knows anything about allegations that Ba'athist prisoners were being tortured for information on his whereabouts) and one senior army figure confirms that "$ 30m was very motivating" to the man who finally gave Saddam up."

Independent on Sunday - March 21
"Charting the search for Saddam Hussein and his family, Panorama shows how a family blood feud resulted in the killing of his sons, Uday and Qusay, and reveals who eventually gave Saddam up. Jane Corbin talks to the Iraqi politician who has visited Saddam in prison. Saddam talks, apparently, as though he's still in charge."

Weekend FT - March 20
"It's a shame you have to wait until bedtime for one of the only decent things on tonight. Here, the usually spendid Panorama rather scarily investigates al-Qaeda's presence in Europe and wonders if the UK is next for an attack."

Mail on Sunday - March 14
"A senior Downing Street aide has launched a blistering attack on Gordon Brown's spending plans just three days before the Budget. Derek Scott, until recently a key economic adviser at No 10, says the Chancellor's strategy could have a 'damaging effect' on the economy if it continues unchecked. Mr Scott, who is still very close to the Prime Minister and has been tipped for a peerage, questions whether Mr Brown's strategy is sustainable.

And he warns of problems ahead unless the rate of growth in public spending is curtailed and the tax burden reduced. In an interview with Panorama to be aired tonight, he says: 'If you have a rate of increase in public spending that is faster than sustainable rates of growth, then over a period it will have a damaging effect."

Mail on Sunday editorial - March 14
"Former Downing Street number cruncher Derek Scott tells Panorama that public spending cannot rise as it has done during the Chancellor's watch without damaging the economy. His candid assessment is that Gordon Brown needs to exercise much greater prudence in doling out billions to the public sector where, all too often, cash goes to boost the numbers and salaries of dubiously titled managers and target chasers. Only this, and not higher taxes, will stave off a slump."

Indepdendent on Sunday - March 14
"In June last year, drug regulators did move to ban prescription of Seroxat to people under 18 following evidence that it can cause young people to become suicidal. This followed a BBC Panorama report which revealed that 16 cases of suicides that bereaved families said were linked to the drugs, 47 attempted suicides and 92 cases of patients who had thought of harming themselves or others. GlaxoSmithKline, which makes Seroxat, has denied any connection between the drug and an increased risk of suicide. Dr Alastair Benbow, the European medical director at Glaxo, said: "There are many reasons for suicide, and there is no compelling evidence that Seroxat causes suicide in adults. In fact, clinical trials have shown that Seroxat reduces the occurrence of suicide, particularly in adults who are prone to it."

Indepdendent on Sunday - March 14
"In general, this was an excellent tour round the questions facing the corporation in the run up to next year's charter renewal, and it's hard to imagine a non-licence fee outfit being as open and honest as it was in this show. The panel - Byford, Peter Bazalgette, Heather Rabbatts, David Elstein, Emily Bell and David Attenborough - all made their points cogently, but it was a shame that a Hamlet-without-the prince feeling was left by the lack of any political input. Surely, at least, Gerald Kaufman could have bothered. David Elstein - the corporation's hate figure since he came up with the plan to ditch the licence fee - was sensibly measured in his arguments. Mark Byford was depressingly timid in his defence of the licence fee, so it was left to Attenborough to defend cogently the corporation's current mix. But even he, rightly, implied that they haven't got it quite right at the moment. Every week the live Lottery draw reminds us of that."

Daily Telegraph - March 13
!Panorama (BBC1, Sun) held a bold studio discussion entitled "What's the point of the BBC?" It was very polite and went nowhere. Sir David Attenborough and others objected that the BBC will show three makeover programmes in a row without batting an eyelid, but rarely bothers with serious music, great swathes of drama, including "all classical drama of any sort", religion or indeed programmes such as Panorama at an hour that suggests they are being taken seriously. "Science has one programme on BBC2," Sir David complained.

Confronted with these allegations, the acting director-general of the BBC was so impregnable in his certainty that it was pointless talking to him. "The BBC provides a rich range of high-quality programmes for everyone," he said. Was he even listening?"

Financial Times - March 12
"Actually there was another form of disaster TV earlier this week - though perhaps that was not the intention. Panorama's Sunday-night special also demonstrated how a single chance event - Andrew Gilligan being allowed to use the bar of the Charing Cross Hotel - could send a major institution into meltdown.

But actually it inadvertently set up another terrifying disaster scenario which one might term If Blofeld Took Over The Beeb. The programme was ostensibly yet another round of post-Hutton report breast-beating with a debate enticingly entitled "What is the point of the BBC?". This was a brave decision, for there are few more cast-iron signs of an organisation in turmoil than a decision to start asking self-searching questions like what is the point of us? In fact it's right up there as a sign of looming disaster with agreeing to participate in a fly-on-the-wall documentary.

Anyway, Panorama had gathered a hatful of media types to discuss Auntie's future. As with all such BBC discussions the panel had been nicely loaded to ensure that things never got too hairy. Only David Elstein, late of five, could be said to be seriously hostile to the corporation's perceived interests because he wants the licence fee scrapped.

Facing them all was Mark Byford, the acting director-general and leading candidate to take over from Greg Dyke. According to the profiles Byford is a clever, bluff, funny chap. In private he may be all these things. On television, however, he exuded all the bonhomie of a Bond villain. Just to be clear here - I'm not talking about one of those flamboyant, charming but demonically evil Bond villains. Alas, Byford is the sidekick second-tier Bond villain - the silent humourless killer, the one who is smiles menacingly and dies unimaginatively 20 minutes from the end. Perhaps with practice he could work his way up to the moggie-stroking deadpan type, but on Sunday's performance he remains firmly in the Oddjob class.

His intention clearly was to show that the BBC was now in the hands of a hugely responsible chap still humble enough to take on criticism. But with his pudding-bowl haircut and gritted-teeth "no, no I'm enjoying this really" smile, he appeared halfway between Jaws and a jobsworthy railway safety officer explaining away a terrible train crash by reminding commuters that 99 per cent of journeys were completed safely. No matter what the criticism, he insisted that he accepted the point before going on to prove that he did not.

Most of the panelists' doubts over the Beeb were distinctly muted, but then again maybe they feared that they were sitting over a shark tank. No wonder so many BBC staffers view a Byford era with trepidation.

The most biting attack came from Sir David Attenborough, who lamented the preponderance of lifestyle shows and the lack of serious coverage of science, arts and the like. Byford, of course, agreed, adding only that the lifestyle shows were very popular and should continue. Byford's byword, it turned out is "quality". It doesn't matter how many facile, flaccid, derivative, pulp trashy pop-culture shows the Beeb airs, as long as they are programmes of "quality".

Daily Record - March 1
"Panorama (BBC1, Sunday) -What's the point of the BBC asked Panorama? After Mad About Alice, we're all wondering that."

Media Guardian - March 8
"Acting BBC director general Mark Byford looked pretty nervous last night as he sat down in a TV studio to defend the corporation on one of its own programmes. And well he might - the stoical northerner was on to a loser from the start. Forced by Endemol chief Peter Bazalgette to admit that some reform of the regulation of the BBC was inevitable, you could see him thinking he was being forced to criticise the very people who would later this month be interviewing him for his dream job atop the BBC.

Appointed for his safe hands in the wake of Lord Hutton's savage criticism of the corporation, Mr Byford's appearance on Panorama was part of the carefully constructed charter review process that is already well under way. The irony being, of course, that Panorama itself is one of the programmes dragged out as a totem by the BBC bashers who claim it has abandoned its public service remit.

It wasn't an opportunity that David Elstein, the former Channel Five chief executive who last month published a report recommending the abolition of the licence fee, was going to pass up. "Even Panorama, which used to be on 48 weeks a year in the heart of peak time, is now tucked away on the edge of Sunday for barely half the year," he said."

Independent on Sunday - March 7
"Sir David Attenborough will tonight accuse the BBC, already reeling from its rough treatment in the Hutton report, of concentrating on lifestyle shows rather than public service commitments...Sir David - a former controller of BBC2, who has made award-winning landmark natural history programmes such as Life on Earth - says classical drama and science are being neglected. His attack comes in an edition of Panorama, "What's the Point of the BBC?", which is the latest act of self-flagellation by the BBC in the wake of the Hutton report."

Independent on Sunday - March 7
"Tonight's Panorama asks what the point of the BBC is. If its makers are looking for a straightforward answer, they could simply watch Your Life in their Hands, from tomorrow on BBC2. This insightful three-part series which follows a trio of the country's top surgeons as they take their patients from pre-op preparation through to rehabilitation, does all the BBC does best. The series is, in fact, one of the channel's classics - the title was first used in 1958, which makes it among the corporation's longest-running television series (alongside The Sky at Night and Panorama)."

Sunday Times - March 7
"Once one of our most respected institutions, the BBC is now often seen as just another big business broadcaster embroiled in the ratings war. Following the recent rumpus over the Hutton report, the government is inviting us, the licence-fee payers, to submit our opinions of the service the BBC provides. In the interests of transparency, Gavin Esler presents a special studio based discussion in which guests - including acting DG Mark Byford - seek to address the issues."

Daily Express - March 6
"The BBC received damning criticism from viewers in a poll the corporation commissioned. Two thirds said the licence fee should be scrapped with more than half believing programmes are "dumbed down" and "no longer distinctive". A third said they no longer see the BBC as trustworthy and nearly half believe it should be subject to greater external control. Acting director general Mark Byford will have his say on Sunday in a Panorama special."

Daily Telegraph - March 6
"Most people believe the BBC has dumbed down, does not make distinctive programmes and should no longer be funded by a universal licence fee, according to a poll for Panorama. A majority of those questioned for the BBC1 programme also think the corporation is too concerned with ratings. Mark Byford, the acting director-general, told a studio debate on the programme, which airs tomorrow, that "evolutionary change" may be necessary over the role of the corporation's governors.

The veteran BBC broadcaster Sir David Attenborough also stressed the need for change, telling the debate that the broadcaster's range of programmes was no longer wide enough. He cited the absence of classical drama, science, arts and music programmes at the expense of a proliferation of cooking, gardening, makeover and celebrity gossip shows."

FEBRUARY 2004

Zimbabwe Independent - April 8
The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Youth, Gender and Employment Creation has slammed living conditions at national youth training centres which they describe as a health hazard.

Presenting its report to parliament last week, the committee said it found the living conditions of the trainees deplorable, especially at Guyu Training Centre near Gwanda. The committee visited three training centres - Border Gezi in Mt Darwin, Mushagashe in Masvingo, and Guyu.

The tour was prompted by allegations made by the Panorama documentary made by Britain's BBC. The report revealed that the trainees at all government-run youth training centres were living in squalor....

The committee could not find enough information to dismiss allegations made by the BBC Panorama documentary of sexual abuse of girls and the high prevalence of STD and HIV in the centres.

"I would like to inform the august House that it was difficult for us as a committee to get the truth because by the time we got to the training centres it was only a month after enrolment of the students, so it was difficult to ascertain the allegations," Masaiti said.

Zimbabwe Herald - March 11
"Last week, the newly appointed Minister of Youth Development, Gender and Employment Creation Cde Ambrose Mutinhiri dismissed as 'unfounded rubbish' allegations of a BBC's Panorama Programme that the Youth Service was being implemented by way of abductions, kidnapping and violence when in actual fact recruitment of students was done on a voluntary basis.

As part of efforts to place Zimbabwe on the agenda of the March 15 United Nations Human Rights Commission meeting to be held in Geneva, Switzerland, the BBC last week recycled discredited claims that the Zimbabwean Government has set up secret camps across the country, in which thousands of youths are taught how to rape, torture and kill.

It claimed in its Panorama documentary programme that youths were taught to kill, rape and beat up opponents of the Government and Zanu-PF. However, in an apparent U-turn, BBC correspondent Hilary Anderson who produced the documentary admitted that the stories were inconsistent and could not be substantiated.

She said "some of the spin-off stories" written by other media organisations had misquoted "our findings in their hunt for a snazzy headline".

"We have no evidence that 12-year-olds are taught to torture, nor that anyone in the camps is taught to rape. Our evidence is based on cataloguing the testimonies, gathered by ourselves and human rights groups of almost 100 youths who had been in the camps, and building up a picture of what happens inside.

"We chose not to broadcast interviews with many individuals who claimed they had killed and raped but whose stories were inconsistent. Mugabe is not a Hitler. He may not be involved in genocidal activities at the moment", she said in an article entitled 'Secrets of Zimbabwe camps exposed'.

Zimbabwe Herald - March 11
"Cde Mudenge (Zimbabwean Foreign Minister) also took the opportunity to explain the national youth training programme to the diplomats and expressed displeasure at the manner the BBC had reported about it in its Panorama programme last week. He said there was need for the media to report truthfully. He said it was known Zimbabwe had a dispute with Britain but the media in that country should not abuse that dispute to churn out blatant lies.

"First we must agree with the truth. The recent Panorama programme was unworthy of the BBC," he said. He invited the diplomats to visit the national training centres and prove for themselves that they were educational institutions similar to the ones found in countries like the US."

Kate Hoey, Sunday Mirror - March 7
"Just last Sunday, BBC Panorama showed frightening film of his Green Bombers, a so-called youth training programme that is in fact a militia similar to the Hitler Youth. It is part of the apparatus Mugabe uses to terrify and subdue Zimbabweans and cling to power after 23 years. The policy of the Home Office in dealing with those who seek refuge in the United Kingdom from this terror seems to be at complete odds with the official line taken on that country by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office."

Zimbabwe Indepdenent - March 5
"ZANU PF has dismissed as "blatant lies" BBC reports that it has set up training camps to drill youths on how to torture and kill its opponents ahead of next year's general election. Zanu PF spokesman Nathan Shamuyarira said there was "no truth whatsoever" in the BBC documentary shown on Sunday saying President Robert Mugabe's party was training youths as terror gangsters. "Those are blatant lies by imperialist agents who peddle falsehoods about our country and government," Shamuyarira said. "There is no truth whatsoever in that."

Zimbabwe Herald - March 4
The British government has already unleashed the BBC on Zimbabwe with fictitious stories of rape, torture and murder, which they hope will create untoward pressure against the Zimbabwean Government.

The BBC documentary was meant to support a high profile American state department human rights report, released in February, which alleged that Zimbabwe*s government continued to oversee "a concerted campaign of violence, repression and intimidation".

Zimbabwe Herald - March 3
"The BBC has revived its propaganda blitz against the Government ahead of next year*s parliamentary elections, claiming the Government has set up secret camps across the country in which thousands of youths are taught how to rape, torture and kill.

The camps being referred to by the BBC are national youth service training centres and it claims that those who have escaped from the camps "say they are part of a brutal plan to keep (President) Mugabe in power".

In its story the BBC claimed that it spoke to some recruits on its Panorama programme "about a horrific training programme that breaks young teenagers down before encouraging them to commit atrocities". It claimed that Panorama also learnt that some of the recruits are taught to torture Government opponents.

During covert filming inside Zimbabwe, Panorama claimed it spoke to a camp commander who told the programme that youths in his camp had been sent to kill opponents of President Mugabe.

He said: "In the area I am covering I heard of two. My superiors instructed that the people must be eliminated."

The BBC also falsely claimed President Mugabe now wants every Zimbabwean youth to undergo training.

"We have been told they will be used to intimidate political opponents in next year's elections. These guys are going to be used by the ruling party to keep the opposition out of power," the said commander was quoted saying.

In the past the BBC has heightened its propaganda against the Government each time elections draw near. There have been false reports in the Western media in the past of youths claiming to have escaped from the training centres and confessing to committing rape, torture and murder in the country.