Round-up: Assignment, Ethiopia and Bob Geldof

Correction 4 November 2010: This page has been amended following a complaint by the Band Aid Trust, which was upheld by the BBC's Editorial Complaints Unit. For more information please click here.

An Assignment documentary into the use of aid money in Ethiopia during the 1980s has provoked much debate across the world's media. We discussed the programme on this week's episode of Over To You - which you can listen to again here.

Below is a round-up of the key coverage surrounding the story so you can have the full picture:

• Article: Read Martin Plaut's feature about the programme on the BBC News website. [3 March]
• Audio: Listen again to BBC World Service Africa Editor Martin Plaut's original programme, Aid for Arms in Ethiopia, or download as a podcast (mp3, 11MB). [4 March]
• Article: The Independent newspaper (UK) carries a frontpage story in which Band Aid organiser Sir Bob Geldof says he has reported the BBC to media regulator Ofcom for "disgracefully poor reporting" which "relied on dubious sources and rumour". [6 March]
• Blog: BBC World Service News and Current Affairs editor Andrew Whitehead, introduced by Director of Global News Peter Horrocks, writes on the BBC News Editors Blog. [6 March]
• Video: Geldof also responds furiously to the story in an interview with the BBC's Andrew Marr. [7 March]
• Audio:Geldof then challenges Whitehead to provide proof that the claims in the report are correct. [7 March]
• Comment: Former BBC journalist Rageh Omaar writes about the story for the Guardian newspaper (UK), wondering "why the strong and blanket reaction without a hint of wanting to know more?". [8 March]
• Comment: Omaar's piece prompted Geldof to write his own column in the same newspaper, asking: "Where were all the dead people then? If no one was getting food, why was nobody dying? That would have been one of the first questions I'd have asked." [9 March]
• Article: In the Independent, Geldof calls for Peter Horrocks to be sacked over the story, as well Andrew Whitehead and Martin Plaut. [10 March]
• Audio: Whitehead appears on BBC Radio 4's Media Show to stress that the BBC is standing by its story. Listen again online, or download as a podcast (mp3, 14MB). [10 March]
• Comment: In an editorial, the Daily Mail (UK) describes Geldof's comments as "a typical, childishly choleric outburst" - adding that the BBC "deserves praise for this piece of journalism". [11 March]
• Comment: Alasdair Palmer writes in the Telegraph (UK) that: "The truth may not help aid organisations to maximise donations. But that isn't a reason for suppressing reports such as Martin Plaut's on the World Service." [13 March]
• Comment: Former editor of the BBC Radio 4's Today programme Rod Liddle writes in The Times, suggesting the "'Bono 'n' Bob' effect" presented a "simplistic vision of Third World poverty". [14 March]
• Comment: An opinion column in the Ethiopian Review accuses Geldof of "throwing temper tantrums on the talk show circuits". [15 March]
• Comment: In the Daily Mail (UK), Richard Dowden, author of Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles, writes that "the irony that escapes Geldof is that guns and getting rid of the Mengistu regime may have been Live Aid's greatest contribution to preventing a new famine". [15 March]

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