A tale of two commissions

During the past two weeks, two commissions of inquiry, one in Britain and one in SA, released findings that have strong lessons for the information society and the use of the Internet.

The Hefer Commission in SA was charged with investigating whether the director of the National Prosecution Authority was an apartheid spy and if he abused his position of power. In Britain, the Hutton Inquiry was charged to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of weapons scientist Dr David Kelly, who committed suicide last June.

An encouraging sign was that both commissions piqued public interest and debate.

Paul Vecchiatto, Bureau Chief, ITWeb Cape Town

There were striking similarities between the two commissions. Respected and retired judges headed both commissions and both inquiries involved high-ranking government personalities and prominent media personalities. Both commissions investigated events that were linked to the armaments industry in one way or another.

Both commissions unleashed damming criticism of journalists who used unnamed sources as the basis of articles that could potentially ruin at least one person`s career.

In Britain, BBC reporter Andre Gilligan, also known as "Gullible Gilligan", used Kelly as the basis for his story that said prime minister Tony Blair`s government had "sexed-up" an intelligence dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Gilligan claimed Kelly used the term, although the scientist`s family said it was highly unlikely.

Former Sunday Times journalist Ranjeni Munusamy leaked an article to her former employee`s opposition, the City Press, that was one step short of accusing Bulelani Ngcuka of being apartheid spy RS142.

This story appeared following the decision by Ngcuka`s directorate not to prosecute former transport minister Mac Maharajah, government consultant Mo Shaik and deputy president Jacob Zuma on charges of corruption in the highly criticised R40 billion arms deal.

An encouraging sign was that both commissions piqued public interest and debate, and while the Hefer Commission`s findings were pretty much as expected, the Hutton Inquiry`s were slightly more surprising as they let the Blair government off the hook, while damning the BBC.

Media access to both commissions was good and the South African public was enthralled to see the equivalent of a real life TV drama played out in the cross-questioning.

One difference between the commissions is that the Hutton Inquiry had its own Web site, but the Hefer Commission did not.

The various sections of the British media, including the maligned BBC, had links that gave a lot of background to the Hutton Inquiry. This included copies of Gilligan`s notes of his interview with Kelly. Unfortunately, Gilligan`s lost notes were not there - a cardinal sin for a reporter.

South African journalist Munusamy offered no such peek into her claims that she had interviewed 15 sources for her story on Ngcuka. Maharaj admitted during his evidence that he was the source of her story.

The Hutton report is published in its entirety on its Web site and includes various bits of correspondence Hutton had concerning its publication.

Blair`s press secretary Allistar Campbell`s diary extracts were also published on the BBC site, rude words and all, making for, as one commentator said," the most open of all British commissions".

Unfortunately, the Hefer Commission has no such electronic paper trail, which makes it harder to follow the commission`s rulings on various points of order.

While the Hefer Commission`s proceedings were broadcast live, the Hutton`s were not, but the availability of the transcripts on the Internet everyday made following the proceedings quite easy. In some way, the transcripts were better to read as they removed the delays that happen in a real-time broadcast that can skew the presentation of the evidence.

Both commissions will have a profound impact on how the media is perceived in southern Africa. The BBC has tarnished its own reputation and this episode will give ammunition to less scrupulous governments to keep BBC journalists on a tighter rein.

Transparency in government and justice is an absolute necessity in a democracy, justifying the public hearings of court cases and such like. However, another aspect is a clear and easy to follow paper trail that is easily accessible to the public and that is where the Hutton Inquiry makes good use of the opportunities offered by the Internet.

The Internet allows media organisations to receive direct comment from their audiences on the stories they carry. Unfortunately, this is where the BBC, and many other large news corporations, fall flat on their face.