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Not guilty — but who's to know?

Media rivals swooped when Channel 4 faced another fakery scandal. How come they vanished when Dispatches was exonerated by Ofcom? asks the deputy Head of News and Current Affairs at Channel Four. Sutcliffe traces the history of the Channel's Dispatches programme "Undercover Mosque", shortly after the transmission of which West Midlands Police announced it was to investigate the extreme views and comments made in the film. Sutcliffe recalls how the police then decided to focus on potential offences that may have been committed by the programme makers. He comments: "Nine months after "Undercover Mosque" was broadcast, four months since the programme was the subject of a police ambush, Ofcom threw out the case put by the country's second largest police force... [But] 'Undercover Mosque' may have been given a ringing endorsement from Ofcom, Channel 4 and the producers at Hardcash may no longer have stood accused of being fakers and twisters, but we were no longer news... There was some pick-up but nowhere near the intensity of the interest when it looked as if we were in trouble. I felt the lukewarm press response to our victory had failed to dissipate the stench of fakery. The allegations lingered just off stage."

British Journalism Review, Vol. 19, No. 1, 48-56 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0956474808090195


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