Complaint
The programme included an interview with Chris Phillips about the UK government's designation of Palestine Action as a terrorist organization. A listener complained that the programme failed to disclose a relevant conflict of interest, namely that a company of which Mr Phillips was founder and Managing Director had commercial relationships with the Police and the Military; that it did not include an appropriate range of viewpoints; and that it allowed Mr Phillips to make the unsubstantiated claim (denied by the organisation itself) that Palestine Action had been in receipt of funding from Iran. The ECU considered the complaint in the light of the 麻豆社鈥檚 editorial standards of impartiality.
Outcome
Mr Phillips was interviewed as a former head of the UK's National Counter Terrorism Security Unit and was asked to provide insight into a political decision to proscribe Palestine Action. In the ECU鈥檚 view his subsequent commercial interests created no conflict of interest relevant to listeners鈥 assessment of what he said. It is not a requirement of impartiality to present a range of viewpoints on every occasion, and on this occasion points made by critics of the Government鈥檚 decision were appropriately reflected in the interviewer鈥檚 questions. In answer to a question about what intelligence the Government might have about the funding of Palestine Action, Mr Phillips said Iran was 鈥渃learly one of the suspects in this鈥; and, while it might have been preferable to mention Palestine Action鈥檚 denial of having received Iranian funding, Mr Phillips鈥 comment did not amount to a statement of fact, and the audience in general would have been likely to understand it as a statement of his own suspicions.
Not upheld