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BBC turns its vengeful fire on Murdoch

Shoot to Kill director turns his sights on the Sunday Times in a new £1m drama

MediaGuardian.co.uk

• John Arlidge, media correspondent
• The Observer,
• Sunday February 18 2001
• Article history ·
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The newspaper has bitterly criticised the BBC, accusing it of waste, mismanagement and dull programming, and calling for the abolition of the licence fee. It cost the corporation's director-general, Greg Dyke, hundreds of thousands of pounds when an investigation into his share-holdings forced him to sell his £6 million stake in a rival broadcaster.

But now the BBC is poised to take revenge on the Sunday Times . Peter Kosminsky, the director behind the acclaimed BBC film Warriors and the Shoot to Kill drama-documentary which was banned in Northern Ireland, is turning his sights on the title. A £1m drama about the life of journalists on the paper is due to be screened on BBC1.

News of the programme has sparked paranoia at the Sunday Times , which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, whose global media empire also includes the digital satellite broadcaster Sky. Staff risk losing their jobs if they talk to BBC researchers.

One insider told The Observer : 'Everyone is wondering whether anyone has said anything. It is not just people who work here. There are lots of people who have left to go to other papers who might be willing to talk.'

News of the film comes just weeks after it emerged that former Sunday Times literary editor Harry Ritchie is writing a thinly veiled portrait of life on the paper. His novel, The Friday Night Club , fea tures an editor called Jonathan Witherington. The editor of the Sunday Times is John Witherow.

In an operation worthy of a Sunday Times Insight investigation, BBC researchers began tracking down hundreds of present and former journalists on the paper three weeks ago. One writer who met a researcher says the film will focus on allegations of unethical practices on the paper.

'They kept asking how stories got into the paper,' he said. 'Did people bend facts? Were reporters told to go out and make stories work, whatever it took? Were people put under intolerable pressure to deliver? Was the Sunday Times simply a tabloid in broadsheet clothing? They were looking for conspiracies, an exposé.'

Another former reporter, who was contacted by the BBC last month, said: 'They are being very thorough. They were interested to find out how Michael Foot was falsely accused of being a KGB agent and how a male trainee reporter was asked to infiltrate a lesbian pressure group. They wanted to know whether the paper ever employed people to break in to places to steal sensitive material.'

Kosminsky, who is currently in Los Angeles filming a movie starring Michelle Pfeiffer, said he could not discuss the project, but BBC insiders say the film could be screened as early as next year. One said: 'Although he is in the media himself, Peter has very strong opinions about the press. The drama will absolutely not be an exercise in muck-raking. It will present a well-researched accurate picture.'

The Sunday Times is enormously successful, making millions of pounds in profit each year. But many media figures took against the paper when Murdoch successfully smashed the print unions by moving all his newspaper titles to a new headquarters in Wapping, east London, 15 years ago. Journalists at the paper believe its critics are simply jealous of its success.

Friends of Kosminsky say he came up with the idea for the film when newspapers wrote a series of misleading stories about his forthcoming £2m BBC drama The Project , which exposes the lives and loves of Tony Blair's shadowy clique of fanatical young advisers in the run-up to the 1997 General Election. 'Peter was incandescent with rage about what some of the newspapers said about his film. He could not believe they could get away with - as he saw it - telling lies.'

BBC researchers are understood to have consid ered making a film about the Daily Mail , but believe the Sunday Times would make a more 'colourful' story.

Jane Tranter, controller of drama commissioning at the BBC, confirmed the corporation was planning a newspaper drama which she described as 'spikey'. 'We are working with Peter Kosminsky. We have several ideas in varied stages of development. There is one about the press.

'We are looking at what it is like to be a modern journalist. What the temperature of a newspaper office is like. What does it mean when you are working on the treadmill of a paper? What does it mean if you have been there for 20 years and feel you are thrown on the scrapheap? What happens when you trip up as a bright young thing?'

She 'categorically denied' that the film would focus on a single title that had criticised the BBC. 'We are not stupid enough to think the nation is interested in watching a drama about the BBC scoring points. We will make prats of ourselves if that is all we are going to do. Peter will take an analytical look and home in on the human areas.'

But one senior BBC insider said: 'If you speak to anyone in the BBC about Rupert Murdoch you will hear strong views. No one would like to put one over on the Sunday Times more than the BBC.'

A spokesman for the Sunday Times said: 'We know about the film and look forward to seeing it - if it ever sees the light of day.'

john.arlidge@observer.co.uk

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