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This News Release announces Jonathan Boyd Hunt’s complaint of 13 July 2000 to the Independent Television Commission (ITC), regarding Granada Television’s news blackout of the investigation conducted by Hunt and Malcolm Keith-Hill into the Guardian’s ‘cash for questions’ allegations.  Hunt contends that Granada’s news blackout is in contravention of the Broadcasting Act as set down in the ITC Code.  The Code requires that, with regard to the reporting of major political controversies, commercial broadcasters must report a “full range” of “significant views and perspectives” with “all due weight”. 
    The release was disseminated by independent PR company Airtime Communications to ninety-two broadcast news organisations across Britain.  They included BBC Five Live; BBC Newsgathering; BBC Radio 4 Today; BBC Radio One Newsbeat; BBC Radio Two (Jimmy Young Programme); BBC Newsnight; BBC Breakfast News; Independent Radio News; BBC World News TV and Radio; ITN; Sky News; plus a further eighty local radio stations across the UK.
    The person in charge of the campaign, Airtime’s Jeannie Wyness, believed that there would be much interest, given: a) the controversy attached to a TV reporter making a complaint to the ITC over political bias within a broadcaster for whom the reporter formerly worked; b) the ‘new’ angle of a journalist supporting Neil Hamilton’s claims of innocence; and c) the high profile of the Neil Hamilton ‘cash for questions’ affair.  In the event only two local radio stations opted to record interviews with Hunt, neither of which broadcast them. 
    That such an important story could be so comprehensively buried is a testament to the British media’s bias and censorial ways - and it gives a stark insight into why the British media’s reporting of the Guardian’s ‘cash for questions’ allegations damaged the Conservative Party as much as it did.
    A few days later Hunt telephoned Jeannie Wyness and asked her to provide a list of the news organisations that she had lobbied, and to give some explanation as to why the result fell so short of her expectation.  In her letter to Hunt of 11 August 2000, Jeannie Wyness wrote:
    

Dear Jonathan,

Please find enclosed a list of the stations that I contacted in order to secure coverage for your campaign. Having looked back through my notes, the most common reason for not using the story was that it was too political.  Many were not keen to accuse another member of the media.  As I have said, the fact that Granada has wide business interests [in ITN and IRN News] could have been a contributing factor. The other thing to consider is that small regional stations (excepting those in your own area) would not take a story which did not have a local angle.  I hope this answers any questions you might have had.

With best wishes,


Jeannie Wyness
Airtime Communications Ltd.

Embargoed until 9.00 am 19/07/00

News Release

Granada TV reporter calls on ITC to investigate Granada's media bias during the Hamilton 'cash for questions' affair.

A day before former Conservative MP Neil Hamilton's new legal hearing on 19^th July, former 'Granada Tonight' reporter Jonathan Boyd Hunt takes a stance against Granada Television's media bias and its alliance with The Guardian newspaper over the Hamilton affair.

In a 30 page letter of complaint to the Independent Television Commission, Hunt describes 'a sustained and deliberate news blackout' by Granada TV on his 3-year investigation into the allegations against Neil Hamilton.

Hunt stresses that his move is to prevent Granada's and the media's continuing bias prejudicing any further legal hearing later this year, which might take place if Neil Hamilton's hearing on the 19^th is successful. Hunt contends that the Guardian-led reporting by the media during Neil Hamilton's libel action against Mohamed Al Fayed contributed to that action failing.

Hamilton's new action has been provoked by revelations in the Mail on Sunday published in February. The story carried evidence that a former Granada staff journalist, Mark Hollingsworth, sold confidential legal papers to Fayed for £10,000 cash, which had been stolen from the chambers of Hamilton's barristers by Benjamin 'the binman' Pell prior to Hamilton's libel action of November 1999.

In separate letters Hunt demands the resignations of Granada's Directors of Broadcasting, Susan Woodward, and Granada's Director of Factual Programmes, Charles Tremayne, as a first step to eradicate bias in Granada's reporting of political issues.  Hunt believes the Hamilton affair is merely one example of such political bias.

Hunt contends that Granada's documented behaviour so far - plus Charles Tremayne's close personal association with Hollingsworth and other Guardian journalists whom Hunt alleges were involved in a criminal conspiracy against the former MP - indicates that Granada's biased reporting would continue unless 'draconian action is taken by the ITC.'

Hunt states that Granada's censorship is in clear breach of it's obligations under the Broadcasting Act, as laid down by the ITC, for fair and impartial reporting of news. Hunt gives an account of The Guardian's intimidation of him and his colleague to try and deter them from publishing their findings; and The Guardian's various attempts to discredit him and his colleague with smear articles.

Jonathan Boyd Hunt is the author of Trial by Conspiracy. Described by the Daily Mail's Paul Johnson as the 'Bravest book of the year', in the book Hunt exposes the truth behind the 'cash for questions affair'.  Jonathan Boyd Hunt is available for ISDN interview only on Tuesday 18^th July.  For more information or to book an interview call Jeannie on 020 7463 2016 or 020 7463 2007.

News Release 19 October 1998

News Release 1 March 2001

This web page is situated in Guardianlies.com/Section One: The British media's censorship of Hunt & Keith-Hill's investigation

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