Session 3: HYPOTHETICAL: BREAKING NEWS STORIES AND 24 HOUR NEWS

The first News Xchange in 2002 forced broadcast executives to grapple with a dirty bomb scenario. News Xchange 2004 posed a series of journalistic and ethical dilemmas for broadcast executives, cameramen, and reporters. This news reality conference programme covered all the agonising 24 Hour TV News decisions that confront chief journalists and their newsrooms.

Session Chair: Jon Snow, Anchor, Channel 4 News, UK

Featured Contributors: Ingrid Andersgaard, Deputy Head of News, NRK, Norway; Nigel Baker, Managing Director, APTN, UK; Nart Bouran, Director of News, Abu Dhabi TV, UAE; Tony Burman, Editor-in-Chief, CBC News, Canada; Gerard Dielessen, Editor in Chief, NOS News, Netherlands; Gillian Findlay, Reporter, CBC News, Canada; Paul Eedle, Editor, www.outtherenews.com, UK; Gerri Eikhof, Reporter, NOS News, Netherlands; Ahmad Fawzi, Director News and Media, Dept. of Public Information, United Nations; Bill Freear, Managing Director, Pilgrims Group, UK; Mohamed Gohar, CEO, Video Cairo Sat, Egypt; Andy Kain, Managing Director, AKE Ltd, UK; Suzette Knittl, Deputy Bureau Chief, NBC, UK;Tony Maddox, Senior Vice President - Newsgathering, CNN International, USA; Jose Rodrigues dos Santos, Head of News, RTP, Portugal; Richard Sambrook, Director & Head of Global News, BBC World, UK; Arnim Stauth, Reporter, WRD, Germany; Juan Pedro Valentín, Head of News, Telecinco, Spain

Produced by Simon Bucks, Sky News and News Xchange

TRANSCRIPT:

Jon Snow: Good afternoon everyone, it's November 18^th 2004, President Bush is back in the White House, examining his unenviable options in Iraq. 140,000 US troops are mired in the continuing operation in Iraq, many have been killed, 39 in Fallujah alone. The assault on Fallujah is rated more or less complete. Over 150 hostages are being held in Iraq, at least 20 have been murdered. The 2004 worldwide death toll from acts of terrorism worldwide including in Iraq, Beslan, Madrid, Turkey and Egypt stands at more than 1000. Global international terrorism and the battle against it has become the new political mantra. In Iraq, the crucible of international terrorism according to Tony Blair, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, leader of Tawid and Jihad group has established himself a reputation as the most ruthless fundamental Muslim terrorist, linked to Al Qaeda, and is thought to have escaped Fallujah. It is believed Al-Zarqawi has personally beheaded ten hostages, including the Briton Kenneth Bigley and the Americans Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hemsley. The Americans have put a $25 million price tag on his head. Al-Zarqawi, a 37 year old Jordanian dutifully determined to establish himself as the next leader of Al Qaeda. His pledge of allegiance to Bin Laden is, it is said, part of a wider strategy to position himself clearly as Bin Laden's successor. However, Bin Laden's reappearance shortly before the US election serves as a sharp reminder to Al-Zarqawi that there is currently no vacancy. Against this background, Paul Eedle, freelance TV journalist and Arabic speaker, noticed an intriguing story which the western media has so far failed to pick up on. Paul, what is the story?

Paul Eedle: I specialise in websites, monitoring websites, that groups such as Al-Zarqawi's use to get their message out to the world, and out of Fallujah I see some interesting signals coming out. They've lost Fallujah, it's been a propaganda victory but the insurgents have lost several hundred dead, they've lost their main base of operation, and what I'm seeing is signs that Al-Zarqawi might be shifting strategy. He's established his brand by being just utterly ruthless and uncompromising in the war against America but there are signs now that with Bush back in the White House and Fallujah lost, that he wants to consolidate his power in central Iraq so there are signs he might even be ready to agree to a ceasefire. It's all expressed in very roundabout language, which is why I think the rest of the media has not taken the story very seriously.

Jon Snow: So what do you do about it?

Paul Eedle: I check it out as far as I can with some contacts in Jordan and produce a story for CNN.

Jon Snow: Let's have a look at it

(sound of VT...)

A year and a half ago, death destruction and terror. If one man can claim credit for smashing America's plans for Iraq, it's Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. His suicide bombs and executions have broken Iraq's new security forces and reduced the centre of the country to a terrorised wasteland. Foreigners move only in armoured convoys, Iraqis have no protection and die every day. But now, Al-Zarqawi suddenly seems to be hinting at peace, at a price. An Islamic website, which I've been monitoring for several months, has published a statement offering to end the violence, provided US troops withdraw from central Iraq and allow a centralised Islamic state to be set up there. 'The prophet himself allowed his enemies to live in peace after their defeat at the hands of God' the statement says. It's puzzling. I know this website well and the statement looks genuine but this is a complete break with Al-Zarqawi's previous promises to fight the Americans until the day of judgment.

There is someone who might know the answer to the puzzle. He lives here, in Amman, Jordan, Al-Zarqawi's homeland. Amman is the new Middle East spook central. Everyone with an interest in the war in Iraq is here, the Americans, the UN, the British, the Israelis and, not far underground, the Islamists. I'm taken to see a contact who says he doesn't belong to Al-Zarqawi's group, but he's proved in the past that he knows how to get in touch with them. We meet at a friend's apartment in a quiet middle class suburb. I ask him, is the peace offer genuine?

(Sound of Arabic speaking and translation) 'If the Americans want to learn their lessons, if they want to end the affair, recognise that the battle is over, that the battle has become a massacre for the American army. If they want to learn their lesson, this is the time.'

The most feared man in Iraq, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, wants to cut a deal. His demands are sky high, nothing less than a Taliban style Islamic state in the heart of Iraq, but after 18 months of increasingly bloody guerrilla war this may be an opening that the US administration cannot ignore.

Jon Snow: Well, a very interesting story Tony Maddox, you've been offered the story by Paul Eedle, are you happy to run it?

Tony Maddox: In the form that we see there, no. There's more that we need by way of background. We'd need to know more about the contact and where they were going to meet, we need to agree to someone being shot in silhouette who we've teed up as not being involved in any sort of terrorist activity. In terms of the story itself, I might with those caveats, I might be interested in running a version of it.

Jon Snow: Anyone else happy to run it at this stage? Who's going to give it a whirl? Richard, what's your response? (BBC, Richard Sambrook)

Richard Sambrook:I think not surprisingly, I have the same concerns as Tony has, I'd want more reassurance if a freelance brought me that story about the quality of the contact and the basis upon which contact was made, and the website and so on but if we had our own reassurance about the quality of the sources, and the integrity with which they've been reported then we'd consider it, yes.

Jon Snow: I think there's a general consensus that you'd be prepared to do more on it. What about you?

Nart Bouran: No I wouldn't run it as it stands, I think there's too much speculation. It's a website, I know Paul and he's not credible... no I'm(laughter)...

Jon Snow: Well actually that is a serious consideration, he's one of the few fluent Arab speaking hacks operating in Iraq on a regular basis and monitoring these websites so that's a lot in his favour isn't it? This is Nart Bouran of Abu Dhabi Television.

Nart Bouran: The answer is I wouldn't run it.

Jon Snow: But would you like to ask more questions about it?

Nart Bouran: I would like to ask a lot more questions though, there is a lot more that is needed.

Jon Snow: So Paul it's a bit sticky - what happens next?

Paul Eedle: What happens is I get a call in my hotel room in Amman from a guy who wants to come and see me. He says, when he turns up that the Zarqawi group has seen my piece. One of you has run it.

Jon Snow: But you put it out on the internet I understood?

Paul Eedle: That would be a back up position, but we've run the piece, Zarqawi has seen it. It's an Arab guy, completely anonymous Jordanian type figure dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. He says that he is a representative or speaks for the group, he has seen the piece and under certain circumstances, the leadership, maybe even Zarqawi himself would be prepared to give me an interview. Would I be interested?

Jon Snow: What do you say?

Paul Eedle: I am pretty seriously sceptical, Zarqawi after all has been on the run since Fallujah, this is a man who's never given an interview, he's never even allowed a photograph of himself to be published without a mask on. So I ask where the interview would take place and the message comes back that Zarqawi's now moving around in the countryside between Fallujah and Baghdad and so the meeting will be in Skandariya which is about 20, 30 kilometres south west of Baghdad.

Jon Snow: What's your reaction?

Paul Eedle: Well, I'm pretty sceptical still that it's some kind of financial con or maybe an ambush but this would be a seriously huge story and the message is coming to me that I will get safe passage from Zarqawi and I do know there are journalists who have had safe passage from Zahid and Jarwad, some Arab journalists went into Fallujah and did get safe passage so I check it out, I try to talk to everyone I know in Iraq who has any contact with the insurgents, people like Nick Wear at Time Magazine, people at Reuters who've had some contacts with the Zarqawi group.

Jon Snow: But this is a guy with $25m on his head, do you have a quick word in the ear of your friendly spook at the embassy?

Paul Eedle: Absolutely not. I think my first phone call is to Tony to see whether he'll go for it.

Jon Snow: What's your reaction Tony?

Tony Maddox: Why do you keep asking me?!

Paul Eedle: Because of your unstinting support Tony. (laughter)

Jon Snow: Well if you could get it would you run an interview with Zarqawi?

Tony Maddox: I would be terrified at the thought of you taking this up. This sounds so much like the Danny Pearl situation as to be absolutely chilling to me. Even if you were a correspondent that I'd known for years, I would be deeply unhappy about the circumstances that have been presented to us to go off and do this interview, deeply unhappy. The best outcome of this is that it could be a waste of time and the worst, that we don't get to see you again, and I would strongly urge you not to go

Jon Snow: The last time an organisation kept quiet about news in Iraq to protect its staff was when Eason Jordan admitted keeping quiet about US military atrocities in Iraq - is that company policy?

Tony Maddox: No it's not company policy at all and that's why Eason's speech was much more complicated and involved, in fact that's an unfair way of summarising it. As far as we're concerned with regard to this one is first and foremost to be candid, it's a safety issue. It's clearly a mission of the most utmost danger where it's next to impossible for us to take anything resembling reasonable safety precautions. So frankly Jon, the editorial whys and wherefores of this aren't even going to get into the discussion at this stage.

Jon Snow: Tony Burman, any chance of you and Richard having a conversation about this? Are you remotely interested in the BBC running an interview by Zarqawi or is it simply against state broadcasting policy?

Tony Burman: No I think we'd find the airtime for that, it would be quite easy but the issue would be the credibility of the contact. I guess it would depend on our relationship between in our own case our own organisation and Paul and then, I think there really would be a necessity on our part for it to become our story collectively as opposed to simply clearing the airtime for whatever Paul delivers. So I think we would pursue it, the plausibility in the world and a story that is so incredible on so many levels that I don't think anyone would really shut it down, but the chance that this is either total manipulation or a waste of time is real

Jon Snow: Paul Eedle, your problem is that your prime contact at CNN doesn't really want to go with it at this stage and I don't imagine that Zarqawi is going to want to go with any small operative. You've got to try and persuade somebody else, what do you do?

Paul Eedle: I think that I know the way commissioning works is that even if people are nervous in advance, as indeed Phil Cox was saying this morning, if I bring back this tape it's going to sell so I'm going to go for this and if the worst comes to the worst, I might have to whack seven minutes up on my website to get people interested. But I know the story will sell if I come back with it

Jon Snow: Well let's distil the situation. We have an offer of an interview with Zarqawi, we think, and we think we have possible safe passage. There's lots of ifs and buts, but somebody somewhere needs to be prepared to invest in this project. Is there anybody here who is prepared to - Naj, this suits you down to the ground, doesn't it?

Nart Bouran: No it doesn't actually

Jon Snow: Why not?

Nart Bouran: Well it doesn't actually. I agree with Tony, I would be very very worried about pursuing this with Paul but again though if Paul was to show up a week later and say 'I have a tape', then it is a completely different story. But if it's going through the process and being involved in it and eventually it's him being my responsibility along the line, I would urge him not to do it and I would certainly not be into it

Jon Snow: Spectacular kind of globalisation answer. That's exactly how the BBC would have answered isn't it Richard?

Richard Sambrook: I wouldn't touch it.

Jon Snow: OK, let's get down to the idea in the peninsula. What about you Juan Pedro? (From Telecinco)

Juan Pedro Valentín: Telecinco is only a little network in Spain...

Jon Snow: Big chance to make a big splash?

Juan Pedro Valentín: Yes but we wait to watch it on CNN!

Jon Snow: Jose Rodrigues?

Jose Rodrigues dos Santos: Mr Zarqawi is a big story but not that big in Portugal. I'd certainly be interested in the interview after it was done but I wouldn't sponsor someone going there in these conditions.

Jon Snow: There's your problem, nobody wants to get their hands dirty. You go and risk your life at your own judgment, what do you do?

Paul Eedle: Well, I minimise my risk as much as possible. I'm going to go with some mates and the first person I turn to is Mohamed Gohar, who has had crews in and around Iraq. He really knows the ground; obviously it's an Arab organisation

Jon Snow: There may be somebody prepared to go through the back door. I'm going to try APTN. You're an agency, because you are one step behind, you don't have such a PR problem that these have. Are you prepared to tackle this one?

Nigel Baker: No. I don't think in any circumstances, would we commission anybody knowingly to go into that sort of situation, where their life was at risk. We don't ask staff to go into that sort of situation where potentially the risks of them being kidnapped is very high

Jon Snow: Right, well it does seem to be a blank and I think you're going to go ahead with it by the look on your face, I think you're going to go for it. And supposing you do get it, what happens then? Are you happy that these people are going to go for it? Are you going to say 'look, I'm not looking for any commitment'?

Mohamed Gohar: I didn't say I was going to go with him!

Jon Snow: Your cameraman has pulled the rug!

Paul Eedle: The way of the world is that this story will sell, and it will probably sell to some of the people who have advised me not to go. But I'm not going to go totally alone.

Jon Snow: Ok Mohamed Gohar, what are your conditions for going?

Mohamed Gohar: I think I'll go but I'll take some precautions. I would contact my Jazeera friends and make sure that they would not take a beheading tape of an Arab cameraman from Zarqawi, and if this happened they would not air it! Secondly I may call Chuck at ABC and let him get in touch with his Pentagon friends and make sure that they are not going to blow up the whole town while we are there!

Jon Snow: If you get in touch with them, you've had it! Let's just see, are the security boys prepared to play at all? Bill, could you and your company assist in this little endeavour?

Bill Freear: I don't think there's anything we can really do in this situation, it's just a gamble and a one way ticket if it goes wrong. You could think about things like tracking systems but that' going to be a spectacular own goal if they search you, which they undoubtedly will, so there's very little you can do in this situation.

Jon Snow: Andrew, is there anything you would do?

Andrew Kain: We would have advised against it, the prospect of it being realistic goes against the philosophy of all the al Qaeda type groups, so it's some ploy or other, that's our first analysis.

Jon Snow: Can either of you help him with somebody else who might help him? In other words, do you have contacts with Arab security organisations that could at least provide somebody from the Arab community?

Andrew Kain: You could only do it if you had people from the Arab community.

Jon Snow: Do you have people like that?

Andrew Kain: Yes!

Jon Snow: So if he leans on you and asks you for 2,000 a day,

Andrew Kain: I'm from Scotland!

Jon Snow: What's your price? Could he ask for 3,000 a day? This is not on the record by the way!

Andrew Kain: Three thousand a day for an Arab speaking and ethnic Arab security man? It would all depend on how Paul could get the conditions of the meet over and get them accepted and that would be that he has control of the meeting place which is unlikely for them to concede.

Jon Snow: So you could get an individual like this if it was required?

Andrew Kain: You could, but I don't think that once you'd gone through the process, it would be realistic at the end of it.

Paul Eedle: We would actually sit down and work out how we're going to minimise our risks here, we are in contact with the group and we're in a position to negotiate some of these terms. We have trusted intermediaries, the people that I've been dealing with in Oman are not people who've just knocked on the door, they're people I've been dealing with for eighteen months. I can give you a track record for them. The meeting is not in Fallujah or deep in the badlands, we're going just to the edge of the insurgent held area in Skandariya so let's say I'm making good progress in getting the terms of the meet.

Jon Snow: What would be the attitude of your contacts if you appeared with your own security?

Paul Eedle: I think that's part of what we're negotiating with them, we're absolutely up front and I'm saying I'm not up for being Daniel Pearled...

Jon Snow: With an armed man?

Paul Eedle: Yes he's going to bring armed men to the meeting, so I am too. If they want this badly enough, then that's the deal.

Jon Snow: So if he has safe passage and he can satisfy you that that is the case, and he's prepared to pay enough, could we get something moving?

Andrew Kain: At the end of the day, you would not be able to do it with any western security, that would be a recipe for disaster. I'm not sure how you come to the equation, you take six men and we'll take six and we have a stand off, there are too many ifs there, at the end of the day you can go through the process of eliminating the ifs, but it comes down to Paul's judgment of the people he knows, their loyalty to him and any safeguards he can put in place.

Jon Snow: Ok, well, risks it is and I think you're going to take them. But just a moment because you've arranged, I think, for an intermediary to meet you at a hotel in Baghdad but you're just going to have to hold up a moment because there is a newsflash coming in from Lisbon. The Government has just issued a new terrorism warning, intelligence says that terrorists could hit this country, Portugal, at any time, it's not a matter of if but when etc etc. the interior minister Daniel Sanchez makes a passionate speech saying they have intelligence information that says another Madrid type attack is on the cards, urging citizens here to be very alert and to keep an eye our for anybody looking suspicious. How do you treat this story Jose?

Jose Rodrigues dos Santos: Well, if the Minister is saying that, I'm sure it's a good, reliable source. So that's a story for sure.

Jon Snow: Richard, you get ten of these a week, how are you going to treat this one?

Richard Sambrook: The same way we report the other ten a week, if it's a speech made by a minister on the record then we report the comments.

Jon Snow: Well I can tell you that it is on the BBC World Service, just as you said it would be. One of the people that you bring in for an interview off the back of it is a terrorism expert booked by a 23 year old freelance guest booker (don't we know them so well!) who saw an article he wrote in a magazine and this is what the man says, live.

(runs clip)

Jon Snow: On this very same day in Iraq itself, insurgents directly linked to Zarqawi are filmed by an APTN stringer showing off the charred bodies of American contract workers who've been captured and killed.

(runs clip)

Jon Snow: Nigel Baker, APTN, your crew filmed this, are you going to put it out to your clients?

Nigel Baker: Yes.

Jon Snow: As it is?

Nigel Baker: I think obviously we would put it out, but certainly in a similar case we looked at the footage and we decided to run it in full to our clients with a health warning.

Jon Snow: So you'd alert the news desks that the pictures were coming and that would be it?

Nigel Baker: Yes that would be it. At the end of the day we are a provider to hundreds of news stations around the world and they all have views as to exactly how much they would use.

Jon Snow: Nart Bouran, Abu Dhabi TV, would you run it in full?

Nart Bouran: No, not in full, we would look at it and see what parts we can use. Again, these pictures have been used and we've seen them before but no, not in full, much cut and sanitised.

Jon Snow: Is the Iberian Peninsula getting a look in on these pictures?

Juan Pedro Valentín: No, we're the same.

Jon Snow: Ok, Tony Burman and Richard Sambrook, in your production gallery, a rather inexperienced editor sees the pictures start to come in and tells the also inexperienced director to cut them up on screen. The inexperienced presenter, told to ad lib, says 'these dreadful scenes played out by terrorists, Islamic fundamentalists this morning, will shock the US and UK governments'. They stay on for 15 seconds before a more senior editor gets them taken off. The switchboard is swamped with complaints from Muslims, they say that these two incidents, the anti-Islamic pundit and the decision to show unexpurgated the excesses of the Iraqi insurgents, with a colourful ad lib commentary show that your channel is positively anti Muslim in its policy. They claim that you are an Islamophobe. Would you like to have a meeting with your colleague Richard Sambrook, Tony Burman, and decide how you're going to deal with these complaints?

Richard Sambrook: I think I'm busy sorting out our recruitment policy! I think the response would be fairly intuitive, that it was a mistake, and contrary to our practice and approach to these things, we certainly would explain it and stop running the footage. We would explain what inadvertently ran, our approach as a network is to explain the context.

Jon Snow: Ok, while that conversation is going on, Paul Eedle has got into Baghdad under his own steam and met up with Mohamed Gohar, who is at the moment going with Paul. Also in Baghdad at the moment is Arnim Stauth, of WDR. He provides another security firm to provide armed escorts. His security people come from another company and they're going to do another story in Baghdad. Arnim, what are you doing in Baghdad?

Arnim Stauth: I have a very simple proposal to make to Paul. I would suggest that you get in contact with your contact again and suggest that I give you ten questions that I would like to put and please convey them to Zarqawi and if he's really interested then let him hire a cameraman and get the tape back, put it in my garbage bin sometime at midnight and I'll check whether it's genuine and see whether we'll air it.

Jon Snow: Ok, let me jump a few steps. You're out with your cameraman and two Pilgrim security men from Bill's company driving through a safe area when you get stopped at a roadblock by a group of armed men. There's a lot of argy-bargy and shouting in Arabic, and suddenly one of the men lifts his Kalashnikov and looses off over the top of the vehicles. One of the security men immediately fires back, hitting the gunman in the chest, your driver hits the accelerator and you drive off at high speed in a hail of gunfire. Your team reports the incident to the authorities, who accept your story. Next day however you are contacted by an Iraqi lawyer acting for the family of the gunman, and it seems he died after the shooting and they say that your security men acted precipitously, it was not self defence, the gunman was shouting vociferously in Arabic warning the team to get away from the area because it was dangerous, he fired the shots to get their attention, and never intended to hurt anyone. The lawyer explains that the dead man's family want compensation, the man had five children, and they want 150,000 blood money from the security organisation. Bill, you're the boss, what do you do? This is a bit of a sticky one. Do you give them the money?

Bill Freear: We just carry out a full investigation.

Jon Snow: But time is ticking...

Bill Freear: And hopefully not whitewash the answers

Jon Snow: He's your security man, are WDR going to pay up on him?

Arnim Stauth: We would have to check all the circumstances. At first sight it seems that it's utterly exaggerated, but hearing witnesses as we do in any case, when you report a story, you listen to witnesses and then decide how to do the story. So in this case we would need to know what has happened.

Jon Snow: But I'm afraid time is ticking. The lawyer has come back and he's banging on your door, the family are saying that if you don't pay, they will lodge an official complaint with the new Iraqi authority who will instruct the Iraqi police to have your team arrested. The coalition authorities will be powerless to interfere under the new arrangements because the Iraqi authorities are responsible for the legal process. In addition, the family, who are powerful people, say that they will ensure that your news organisation will never work in Iraq again, no visas, no assistance of any sort, but you come under considerable pressure from the coalition military not to pay security boss. Bill, Arnim, what do you do? He's hired you to protect him, this guy, and now they want money. What are you going to do?

Bill Freear: If the investigation proved that we hadn't acted wrongly, then we wouldn't pay.

Jon Snow: Right, the matter Tony, has come up the line to the executive offices there in Atlanta, if you just put yourself in the position of an executive, which you are anyway, let's just ask you what's your feeling in a similar kind of case. CNN could be thrown out of the country and denied all opportunity and the rest of it, do you pay up?

Tony Maddox: I don't think you'd let that be the first part of the consideration, I know you say the clock's ticking but realistically you're not going to make this decision in a hurry. You have to get the key people together and understand the circumstances as best you can identify them in the spirit of this exercise, if the situation unfolded exactly as described then clearly we have a liability here. The fact is we had an armed guard and he acted in a precipitous manner and there is a series of consequences to that. We're not going to get involved in cover up money or anything like that because that would be a disaster for us, it is absolutely the wrong way to act but we have to make contact with the lawyer and say look, we recognise we have a responsibility, we're not prepared to write you a cheque in a hurry but we're prepared to have a dialogue to establish the circumstances.

Jon Snow: Ok, at the same time, you remember we left Richard Sambrook after the interview by the terrorism analyst and the broadcast of those horrific images filmed in Iraq, the switchboard's swamped with complaints from viewers, shortly after a small crowd of Muslims has gathered outside your studios and started a demonstration, what do you do next?

Richard Sambrook: We've made a statement that the pictures were aired in error and we've taken the details of the analyst off our database but there's a protest outside our doors, not for the first time.

Jon Snow: From the ranks of the protest, a Muslim leader has emerged (Ahmad Fawzi is prepared to stand in on this role), and is leading a delegation which has come to see you. What do you say Ahmad, to Richard Sambrook?

Ahmad Fawzi: This is a very serious issue I'm afraid (laughter). You have shown pictures on your public broadcasting system that hurt my people and I demand equal time, we are in a civilised country, Islam is a civilised religion, it is a religion of tolerance and non-violence, I demand time to speak to your people on your television station.

Jon Snow: Well I imagine that you are going to try to put your point of view again Richard. Do you want to dissuade him?

Richard Sambrook: I could try but I'm not sure that I would succeed. The fact is that these pictures were widely distributed around the world; our editorial view is that they shouldn't all have been shown. By mistake, more of them were shown than our editorial policy would allow, however they are pictures that accurately portray an event.

Jon Snow: Are you going to let him speak?

Richard Sambrook: No.

Jon Snow: Why not?

Richard Sambrook: Because I point to the full range of our output and we do reflect the full range of the Islamic world...

Jon Snow: I'm sorry but somebody's banging on your door, I'm sorry there are now 3,000 people outside, the riot police are standing by and it's turning into a big story for rival channels and newspapers, what do you do now?

Richard Sambrook: We still don't let him speak, no.

Ahmad Fawzi: I think we have a right to put across our point of view as well.

Richard Sambrook: If it's a news story, we cover it as a news story and interview him in that context.

Jon Snow: Well hang on a minute, in Madrid, Juan Pedro plus representatives of 24 hour rolling news channels, which can be seen in his country, plus the news agencies, they're all called in for an off the record meeting with the Spanish interior Minister, Jose Antonio Alonso, and he has a proposition. He has become convinced that there is growing public support for the Spanish government to introduce a ban on TV stations showing any video filmed by terrorists. There is also a body of evidence that suggests that public fear of terrorism is inflamed by these videos and is disproportionate to the threat itself. In addition and much more importantly, the minister believes the coverage of the terrorism threat inflames the Islamophobia and that's the very thing that causes young Muslim fanatics to become Islamic terrorists. It is a vicious circle.

This interior Minister says that he would rather not legislate and instead proposes that the media should voluntarily massively scale down its coverage of terrorism. He stresses that he is not trying to tie their hands editorially, he just believes that if the heads of news co-operate, they can maintain security without spreading quite so much fear and despondency. He sites specifically the images from Beslan, and kidnappers' videos of hostages and pictures after the Madrid train bombings which he says you showed over and over again on your channels. What do you have to say? He says you, you collectively, 24 hour news people (you're not free of it either) have been showing endless footage that is simply stoking hysteria. What do you say Ingrid?

Ingrid Andersgaard: I would argue with him, besides, I've had a busy day at work. I wouldn't view what he says, maybe we would put on air his arguments and what he's demanding of us but we're not going to let him have his way.

Jon Snow: There's an interesting option, open up a debate on worldwide television, on BBC, on CNN and have the minister put his option forward. Would you like the viewers to vote?

Richard Sambrook: I'm not sure I care about the viewers voting but I don't mind covering it as an issue if there's space, having covered the protest on our doorstep and everything else that's happening at the moment! But we would cover it as a story, yes.

Jon Snow: The interior Minister is very disappointed to hear this, I must say. He thinks that in this case there might have to be a rethink on the level of facilities offered to you and to other media outlets in covering official news events. There may have to be a clampdown on the official relationship between the countries in which you function, and you. Effectively it's blackmail but since it's an off the record briefing in which you hear this, there's not a lot you can do is there? Or do you report that that's what he threatened you with?

Richard Sambrook: If it's an off the record briefing then you have to respect that. But if he proceeds to close us down for those reasons or to restrict our access in certain places for those reasons, then so be it, those are the consequences.

Jon Snow: But what's your problem? Because all he's asking is that you don't pander to the terrorists by giving them the oxygen of publicity?

Richard Sambrook: No he's asking that we don't fully report what's going on in the world because it doesn't suit him politically.

Jon Snow: But then what about the changing policy on showing kidnappers' videos of hostages, are you going to go on showing every hostage video?

Richard Sambrook: I don't think we're showing, the hostage videos are taken on a case by case merit, we don't show any of the real acts of violence, and we're very restricted in what we play in terms of audio and so on. We continue to report hostage videos but not necessarily to show them.

Jon Snow: Is that the same with you Tony Maddox from CNN?

Tony Maddox: Yes it is.

Jon Snow: So you do it case by case?

Tony Maddox: Yes.

Jon Snow: But more or less anything that has appeared on an Arab channel has ended up on your channels hasn't it?

Tony Maddox: No it hasn't, there's been a lot of stuff that's appeared on different channels that hasn't appeared on ours.

Jon Snow: But only the stuff that you couldn't transmit because it was beyond acceptable tastes?

Tony Maddox: Well to be honest, the acceptable taste argument kicks in with any of it. You could argue that I believe many people find the scenes of people in great distress and terror far more disturbing than scenes of gore and we have to show great care in showing people that are clearly in a state of the highest possible levels of duress before we broadcast them, so no, I'm in the same position as Richard on that.

Jon Snow: We cut back to Baghdad. Paul Eedle has tried to secure his interview with Zarqawi with or without a commission from CNN or anyone else, he and Mohamed Gohar set out with some AKE security men en route from Baghdad to Skandariya, they are stopped at a roadblock and guess what, they are ambushed. So much for the guarantee of safe passage. There's a shootout, the security men are killed trying to save the men they are protecting. Paul and the cameraman are kidnapped, the kidnappers are not connected with Zarqawi, issue a ransom demand specifically addressed to CNN, they call the pair enemies of Islam because they work for a western television channel. Paul Eedle has appeared regularly on CNN and they know he's your boy Tony Maddox so they want the ransom out of you.

Tony Maddox: I could see that one coming (laughter).

Jon Snow: They say they will behead them unless you, Tony Maddox, at CNN comply with two demands. One, that you pay a million dollar ransom and that you and seven major TV channels specified by them and including BBC world, and MSNBC must show the beheading of a Bulgarian man a week ago which has, up till now, been suppressed by all television stations in line with current policy on showing kidnappers' videos. Otherwise, they die. Channel heads, what do you do?

Tony Maddox: That's an unrealistic demand. One of the things I've been toying with ahead of this is what do we do if as, as broadcasters, someone says to us, if you don't show a certain piece of video, we're going to kill someone. That is a terrible dilemma to be faced with. I think this dilemma is not so clear cut. To get seven TV channels to show the beheading of another person in order to save these people who frankly are not going to walk away from this with all the evidence we have so far, it's highly unlikely that these people are going to be saved, and these are completely unrealistic demands here. A million dollars is neither here nor there frankly.

Jon Snow: But that's just an opening gambit - do you attempt to negotiate in any way?

Tony Maddox: Absolutely, the thing that we want in this kind of circumstance is to establish some kind of dialogue and some kind of contact.

Jon Snow: So you've accepted a moral responsibility for Paul?

Tony Maddox: At that point, yes, I don't think we can turn around and go back on it. We can't say he was a freelance and a silly bugger and I told him not to do it. The fact is he's there then and as decent human beings aside from responsible broadcasters, we have a responsibility to do what we can to get him back out in one piece.

Jon Snow: Right, Tony Berman and Richard Sambrook, the Muslims have turned their campaign into a daily vigil outside TV centre, they've also taken out newspaper adverts condemning your channel's biased coverage, they've called on the authorities to prosecute you under the race hate laws, the station is under siege and your workers can't even get in or out, they're having to camp inside the building. What do you do?

Tony Burman: I think our approach has been to be robust in our defence of our journalism and our programming. I think our response and approach to this would not be defensive if we're talking about a 15 second mistake then that's straightforward and in the wider context we wouldn't be defensive, we would hold the line. Our expectation, and we certainly have past instances to prove it, would be that this black cloud will pass too.

Jon Snow: Well the trouble is, this black cloud may take your station off the air if you're not careful.

Tony Burman: Not if our security is thorough enough! I think that these things are not new to our operation, we're used to it.

Jon Snow: Ok, I'm going to leave you two cooking for the moment. We're going to return to Baghdad where the kidnappers have set a 72 hour deadline. Tony Maddox, anything more you can do?

Tony Maddox: Well no, not really. We said we'd do anything we can to try and establish any kind of contact, we'd work any kind of contacts we have, we'd appeal to any of the colleagues we have in Arab networks we feel may have better contacts, we'd brief at senior level that fellow journalists should be aware of the situation, any appeal for any kind of dialogue but we won't be paying the ransom and we won't be persuading seven other TV channels to run the beheading of a Bulgarian man.

Jon Snow: Suzette Knittl, you're now running the NBC operation in Baghdad, are the executives handling it alright?

Suzette Knittl: It's a tough one to handle! They're doing the best they can, desperately trying to stay in touch with all the contacts we have established in the field over the long period of this conflict.

Jon Snow: If we all rounded up on the Palestine roof, we'd all end up with a degree of unanimity that the executives were standing by us all.

Suzette Knittl: I think what you find in these situations is that there's no perfect way to do it, you do the very best you can. I think our executives are committed to saving lives. One thing we have learned, is that we don't want people to die, we've all lost people and if we were naïve before, we're not now and the executives do the best they can.

Jon Snow: Well you're one of the last American teams in there at the moment since the kidnapping of Paul and Mohamed. Every western network with western staff in Iraq has been pulling them out. The only news coming out is via the television news agencies whose cameramen are local. While local negotiations continue for the release of the kidnapped cameraman a bomb goes off at a police station killing ten people. One of the cameramen, Nigel Baker, brings in astonishing video of the bomb actually going off.

(Runs VT)

Jon Snow: It's terrific stuff, it's rare to get an absolute on-the-moment close up explosion like that. A terrific scoop, you must be concerned about how your cameraman happened to be in the right place at the right time.

Nart Bouran: He was a cameraman known to us, filming something else that we'd sent him to do so it was pure chance that he was there when it happened.

Jon Snow: I'm sorry but there's a telephone call here, it's Colonel Cratchett from the US command within the green zone making a formal allegation that the cameraman is a member of the insurgent group linked to al Qaeda. They demand that you sack him at once, what do you say?

Nart Bouran: I say no, he was known to us, we checked out his background and he has worked for us for a significant amount of time and obviously we reject his allegation at this stage.

Jon Snow: Well hang on I've got a second telephone call just coming in, the UK military are offering you some scratchy amateur video which they've shot themselves, it's of British troops in a firefight in Al Mara.

(runs VT)

Jon Snow: It's not quite the big bang from Fallujah but rare footage of British troops in action. Anybody interested in running it? It goes on to get better than that. Are you going to run it Richard?

Richard Sambrook: Well I think as long as it's clearly labelled that it's provided by the British army and the MOD and at all times it's clear that that's the provenance, then I have no problems running it.

Jon Snow: You don't think there's an oxygen of publicity problem here - isn't it just the same, publicity for the coalition rather than the insurgents?

Richard Sambrook: The basis on which we don't show pictures is usually one of taste rather than anything else so if it's showing people being killed there may be a taste issue to it. But beyond that I don't see a problem as long as it's properly attributed.

Jon Snow: But you don't have any dispassionate way of knowing what's going on here. Is there even an enemy? We didn't see one. They were having a great shootout!

Richard Sambrook: That's why the attribution is important. These pictures have been provided by the army, we can't verify what happened, but this is what they show. As long as you're completely transparent with the audience about what's happened, then it's fine.

Jon Snow: Nart Bouran, would you show the British pictures?

Nart Bouran: It depends what context they were taken in. What's the story

Jon Snow: You've been rung, rather unusually, at Abu Dhabi TV 'hello, could I give you some pictures of your chaps in action? '

Nart Bouran: Yes sure but it would probably go to the archive. Maybe those pictures if they're part of a story we're doing they are needed but we would probably say as well where they came from and how they were provided.

Jon Snow: Right I have to interrupt proceedings just for a moment because at this stage we had been hoping to hear from an executive of NOS but apparently there's been some kind of incident at his HQ in Hilversum, he's had to go off to deal with it. However, we have got Gerri Eikhof, a reporter from the station, on a live link from near the station. Go ahead Gerri, what can you tell us, what's gone wrong?

Gerri Eikhof: Yes well the reason why Hans was called away is that we have a terrible situation here at our HQ. Apparently, terrorists have occupied our station, and more specifically, the newsroom, where I normally work. However, I was on an outside job and I returned about an hour ago and was fortunate to escape the terrorists. Eye witnesses however say that about 20 masked and hooded people, most of them men but possibly a few women burst into our newsroom one hour ago. The newsroom where right now, 140 of my colleagues are being held captive. One of them however was released a few minutes ago and he was sent out with a message from the terrorists, so I talked to him briefly before he was led away and he gave me the message which is in the Arab language in which I am not proficient, but hopefully one of your guests, if I hold the message up to camera, can translate.

Jon Snow: Gerri thanks, we'll have Paul cast his eye over that. Paul?

Paul Eedle: Ok looking at this, it's from a group that calls itself Repentance and Flight Martyrs of Fallujah Brigade. The group announces its complete control of the nest of unbelief, the HQ of Dutch radio and television in order to stop its campaigns dishonouring the religion of God Almighty, represented by the crusader Zionist Theo van Gogh and the lying distorted reports from the spies of Dutch intelligence working under the cover of Dutch radio and television in the land of the two rivers.

Jon Snow: Thanks very much Paul. Gerri, what else can you tell us?

Gerri Eikhof: As you can see, there is some red tape behind me, we are on the outer area of the border that is sealed off by police, you can't see them but actually they are all over the place. The colleague who was released to deliver this message told me that the terrorists inside the newsroom have apparently rigged themselves and the newsroom with explosives, similar to the Beslan situation of last month, so really a terrible, terrible situation. Also I have been told that they have managed to activate one of the cameras inside the newsroom, a camera that we normally use for our ordinary broadcasts, and they are offering live pictures of what is happening inside the newsroom

Jon Snow: Before you let us see that live camera, and it sounds pretty good, who is going to put that on air? Tony, irresistible, CNN offered live pictures of terrorists in a newsroom holding 140 captives, they've activated the camera themselves. Are you going to cut live to it?

Tony Maddox: We're having quite an afternoon at CNN! I'm not going to cut live to it, but what I will do is take a feed from it and we'd prerecord it but I wouldn't put it live to air. We have no way of knowing what on earth it is we're going to put up there or what's going to happen the moment we put it to air so no we wouldn't put it out live.

Jon Snow: Tony Burman, I'm going to put you back to CBC for a moment, are you going to take live pictures?

Tony Burman: No, there would be no question, our practice has long been to record it, to assess it and then to determine whether we should broadcast it.

Jon Snow: Ingrid, are you going to put it out in Norway?

Ingrid Andersgaard: No, I wouldn't do it either.

Jon Snow: Richard?

Richard Sambrook: No, absolutely not and I would make sure my inexperienced staff knew what they were doing!

Jon Snow: Nart at Abu Dhabi?

Nart Bouran: I was hoping you weren't going to come to me! No I don't think we would do it.

Jon Snow: Really? I think yes actually.

Nart Bouran: Well, we're not a 24 hour news channel

Jon Snow: That's true, but it happens to coincide with your main evening bulletin. (laughter.) I just don't believe you, I believe you would do it. A major European capital?

Nart Bouran: Well, maybe yes.

Jon Snow: Gillian, you're in the newsroom, what would you do?

Gillian Findlay: I would have to consult with my superiors. What is my role in the newsroom?

Jon Snow: Do you want it shown? Do you want to see what's going on?

Gillian Findlay: I'm in the newsroom inside, or outside?

Jon Snow: Ok I've recast you for a moment, you're a Dutch journalist, inside the newsroom, and they've got your camera and they're training it on you. Do you want it shown, or not? Tricky, eh!

Gillian Findlay: No, at this moment, no.

Jon Snow: There is talk that a newfangled German satellite news service is thinking about putting these pictures out, what does WDR do Arnim?

Arnim Stauth: I think it is a very easy decision like Tony said, we will record it and edit it, but for the reasons that the other guys have already said, never live on air.

Jon Snow: Suzette Knittl, you're with your colleague in the newsroom now, there's two of you, you're both in the newsroom, you're both glamorous Dutch reporters, do you want to be shown on this camera? Do you mind if they put it out?

Suzette Knittl: Ooh, in that kind of chaotic moment, I'm not sure I'd be thinking in those terms, maybe it would be a chance to say something, maybe in a moment like that you want to say something

Jon Snow: Well the one person who really has no problem at all is Nigel Baker of APTN, because all you have to do is offer a live feed. Are you going to do it?

Nigel Baker: Yes I've got CNN and BBC on the phone saying we want live pictures via you. The point is that we are a business, the business provider as long as we give the necessary warnings to our clients; I think we would offer them...

Jon Snow: But just a moment, if you didn't offer them, they wouldn't have the pictures and there wouldn't be a problem.

Nigel Baker: I think that obviously in those circumstances, the provenance of the pictures is known and it's known they exist and that it's happening in real time, and the broadcasters all say that they want to be able to see them as quickly as possible

Jon Snow: Ok, while we're working on getting that live shot, because there's no reason why this room shouldn't at least see it, I think we've got someone from NOS with us now. Can you identify yourself? Should the other television channels show a live shot of your colleagues being held captive?

Gerard Dielessen, NOS: Before I answer that question, maybe I can add something here. We're talking about showing the pictures, yes or no, but the terrorists have let us know that they will put them on the internet anyhow, so the public will be able to see the footage whether you show the pictures or not.

Jon Snow: Ok, so it's now widely available on the World Wide Web, so that's got you lot off the hook and then on the hook. What do you think? You're the boss man, it's now out there on the web, your man Gerri has just been talking about it, we might as well put it out mightn't we?

Gerard Dielessen: Yes I think so, I don't think the people inside have got much choice because they're in big danger and that's the point to make I think and it's for the other channels to make the choice as to whether they'd send it out or not. NOS has no choice.

Jon Snow: I think we should try and recap because we've got a rather explosive situation here. First of all Paul, are you regretting trying to get the scoop of your life? Are you wondering whether CNN can save your life?

Paul Eedle: I think what I'm regretting is that I got the risk assessment so wrong, because Zarqawi's safe passage worked, but we were so obsessed with how to deal with the obvious problem that we ignored all the other risks that operate in Iraq, which is Shi'a banditry, and all the other groups. We weren't taken by Zarqawi, we were taken by another group, and that's what I'm really cursing myself for

Jon Snow: Should you by now abandon Paul Eedle? It was his fault, he put himself there, and you said no, what obligation do you have?

Tony Maddox: The same obligation as I said before, we just can't leave the lad out there. Paul makes an interesting point about opening negotiations, we don't have any kind of contacts with the Zarqawi people, there must be people out there that are better informed than we are and the fact that he's apparently been taken by a group not connected with that and that might be out of kilter but it might be a route to explore if we could get some pressure or appeal for his release. We'll be trying every option.

Jon Snow: Richard you're in so much difficulty, with what went out perceived as being an anti-Islamic stance. Are you going to show a beheading to save Paul's life?

Richard Sambrook: No, but I'm going to liaise closely with Tony and support whatever CNN are doing up until the point we're asked to broadcast something or not. In other words, I'm not going to say or do anything that's going to undermine CNN's position.

Jon Snow: Nigel, I've given you a bit of time to stew after that dramatic bomb footage, are you still perfectly happy that he had no awareness of what was going to happen, and that he was not complicit, and that he may be part of an al Qaeda cell?

Nigel Baker: I'm perfectly happy, he had been known to us and he'd been sent there before the event by a person whom we trust. He was there to film another story when it happened.

Jon Snow: But Osama was known to the Saudi ambassador in London, who said he was a frightfully nice chap.

Nigel Baker: I would have been far more concerned had he been a freelance who had turned up with the footage but the fact that he had been assigned by somebody who is absolutely trusted by the company would lead me to believe that it was an easy diversionary tactic, perhaps to get the pictures withdrawn.

Jon Snow: I'm sorry, we've got to go back to Hilversum because on the live link from the newsroom where several staff are being held hostage, I can tell you that the hostage takers have issued a new statement. Let's go over to Gerri Eikhof on the scene.

Gerri Eikhof: Yes you're quite right, another colleague of mine has been released and before being taken away by the police he slipped me a second message from the hostage takers and I suggest we take the same procedure, I'll hold it to camera and someone might read it and translate.

Paul Eedle: We warn the board of management of Dutch radio and television that we will carry out the sentence of God of all the enemies of God and the agents of evil in the headquarters of Dutch radio and television. If this dirty broadcaster does not withdraw its spies from the land of the two rivers immediately the sentence of God will be carried out by slaughter live on air.

Jon Snow: Crumbs - do we still want the live shot? It's hanging around all over the internet now. Gerrad, given this development, do you still feel you might want to let the pictures go or not?

Gerard Dielessen: Yes I think we have to let the pictures go in this situation

Jon Snow: What do you feel Tony, given that it's out there on the internet, that given this threat that at any moment you could see people die on a live link from the newsroom at NOS, what should be done about these live pictures?

Tony Maddox: Well we wouldn't be sitting on the live pictures and neither would anybody else, we'd be pre-recording with a view to broadcasting off air, I think the issue of when these pictures appear on the internet, that's actually become quite a clumsy phrase now, 'it's out there on the internet' - does that mean that tens of millions of people have accessed them or if you really know the internet well, you really know where to get to them. I also think there's a world of difference between something appearing on a website and then it appearing on CNN or BBC in which case everything moves up a step, but we're still not running the live pictures.

Jon Snow: Can I just say that there's a new dimension, Sky have managed to get their helicopter across from London and it's now hovering above the Hilversum station and can see through the glass roof into the atrium and is getting some aerial footage although not quite as graphic as what's coming out from the ground and you're in competition with them, surely?

Tony Maddox: No, not really! Dream on! Certainly we wouldn't be able to use those pictures either but the reality is that you make your judgments because you think it's what's right for your channel and if you're going to suddenly change them when you see what your competitor has got, particularly on a very complex story like this, you're going to come a cropper and that's guaranteed

Jon Snow: Surely you live in the real world - you must be waiting in the Middle East to see who breaks rank first and lets these pictures go and if they do you'll follow suit?

Nart Bouran: Not really, since we dipped into them during the news bulletin, I think we've already done the deed, but I wouldn't really be watching what CNN or BBC are doing and their point of view of whether they should be doing it or not, we already made our call and went into it and are coming out. We wouldn't cut programming and go live with that sort of thing when we don't know exactly what's going to happen

Jon Snow: Do you know anybody in the Middle East who would?

Nart Bouran: Yes, I think other stations in the Middle East would probably look at it differently and would probably go into it and stay with it.

Jon Snow: So now that it's up in the Middle East, that's a problem for you isn't it?

Richard Sambrook: I think it's a really easy decision - we record pictures and we wouldn't go live with it under any circumstances.

Jon Snow: Tony, you wanted to come back?

Tony Maddox: Yes I think the point that Richard makes....

Jon Snow: (makes sound of helicopter) It's still up there and it's taking great pictures.

Tony Maddox: Ok ok, I've got it! I think the point that Richard makes is very important and particularly so in 24 hour news, and that is that you are having an ongoing dialogue with your audience and you have to be very candid as to how that unfolds. I see absolutely no problem with explaining to the audience precisely what's taking place here, I see no problem with saying there's a feed of live pictures but we don't want to show them because we don't know what's going to happen with them and we have no kind of control over them but we are making efforts to pre record them. I think it's important that the audience understands that, so they don't assume there's some other motive behind it. We would be explaining this to the audience in full as the story is unfolding. In the pre-record in the Channel 4 news at 7pm, that programme is by its nature well-prepared and well thought through and well produced I'm sure, most of the time, and by its nature, one expects that kind of product. In 24 hour news, people come to it because they like to see news evolve, they like to see the mechanics of news, so sharing that with the audience is incredibly valuable to them.

Jon Snow: But I'm suggesting that one of your satellite competitors, small minnow though it may be, is basically already accessing some kind of a picture, you've got nothing and I want to look at the conundrum this provides the terrestrial broadcasters like Ingrid, like Jose, like Juan. Are you going to do nothing? Nigel's been on the phone to you, saying 'you can take a live feed mate', and you'd have something better than some of these other competitors have got - are you tempted?

Juan Pedro Valentín: Depends on what you're looking at in these images, it depends on whether you have control of the pictures or not.

Jon Snow: You could put them on a seven second loop, cut away.

Juan Pedro Valentín: No.

Jose Rodrigues dos Santos: I've got to be frank with you. I would look for a reference with CNN. I would look to see whether they are broadcasting the story, I would have in mind the fact that there are no Portuguese people inside, the families of these people are probably not watching RTP so I would take that into consideration but I wouldn't for sure be the first one to break the story.

Jon Snow: Mohamed, you've suddenly managed to be able to pop your head out of your incarceration and you want to say something.

Mohamed Gohar: Why don't you offer all these terrorist activity pictures to al Jazeera, they will blindly use it all.

Jon Snow: I think Nart was drifting in that direction, I think we can safely make the assumption that there is a satellite broadcaster, unnamed, beaming this absolutely coast to coast. I think at this stage I will take a quick audience vote - who in here would frankly say at this stage, given that Sky is above and several Middle East broadcasters are now running this stuff, there is a French rogue satellite station that is putting them out, who in this audience would say that as it's now out in the public domain, we're four days into this siege, it's reached a critical point, 'we will take the live feed'. Hands up anybody that would take it? Can I ask you there why you would take it?

Unidentified: Well as you say it is already there and there is no reason to conceal it from the public. I can understand the consideration that we don't know what's going to happen next, but still we have the control.

Jon Snow: Tony Burman?

Tony Burman: I think it's a simple decision for most broadcasters, in other words, not to run it. I think if anything now, the tipping point within 24-7 news is to be cautious, not to be reckless, not to be irresponsible. The damage that would occur if somebody ran it and there was some sort of awful consequence, is so life

scarring as a network that I think it's an easy (regardless of the internet) decision.

Jon Snow: But will you by now have run a little bit of tape of it?

Tony Burman: Well yes, let's go back to the original criteria, that we would record it, we would evaluate it, and in many cases we would run those excerpts we felt were valuable and were helpful to our viewers but beyond that, why would we? I actually agree with our Portuguese friend.

Jon Snow: What is so very different from what happened on all your networks, seeing people jumping from the twin towers and seeing people blown up in a television station? Are you more caring for the people that work in television than the poor people who worked in the twin towers, Richard Sambrook?

Richard Sambrook: No of course not, but I think Tony's right, we've learnt partly from 9/11 and actually on 9/11, a lot of us were very careful about the images we used and in fact we edited a lot of the shots out and also to be frank about it, close up shots of individuals under extreme duress possibly being blown up, is very different from those distant shots of the twin towers that did get used. So I agree with Tony, I think this is a very straightforward decision and I find it hard to understand how anybody would go to air risking a live assassination on air.

Jon Snow: Ingrid, are you happy with the way this is going? Do you really see so big a distinction between a major atrocity like the twin towers in which inevitably, if you have live coverage, you will see what happens and a newsroom in which there is about to be an atrocity? I mean it was an atrocity that was killing people when the towers actually fell down.

Ingrid Andersgaard: I think that the difference is not that this is a newsroom, I think that there is a big difference in principle between editing bits and pieces and, like Tony Maddox said, taking our audience into the situation, telling them what kind of choices we have to make, and what we are told. So between that on one side and on just breaking news on air directly, that's the difference. I also think that 24 hour television is not the threat, the threat is breaking news and bringing that on air all the time.

Juan Pedro Valentín: I feel that if you want to put on air something like a terrorist big brother, so if you can see your home with the kidnappers there, with a camera broadcasting pictures every minute, I don't think there is any information in that, there is only people waiting. The information is, what happens, is there any news, and you can't control this situation if this happens in a rush.

Jon Snow: But isn't the difficulty that actually, for a time, you had the twin towers belching smoke but the picture didn't really change for some time, we were waiting for something to happen, we didn't know what, we didn't initially think that they were going to fall down and here we are waiting for these people in the newsroom and we are told they are going to be blown up. The fact is surely that we can see their faces, the whites of their eyes, but with the twin towers, we were in a Hollywood moment, we were somehow separated because they were widescreen.

Juan Pedro Valentín: Yes but you should control the information you put on air.

Jon Snow: I'm sorry I have to interrupt because there's been a further development at Hilversum, we're going straight back to Gerri Eikhof. I think a new statement from the hostage takers, Gerri?

Gerri Eikhof: Yes that's right, they've released one more hostage, another colleague of mine, they have given her a message that's been slipped to me and the hostage takers have stressed that this will be their last and final message so I'll hold it up to the camera and maybe Paul can translate once more.

Paul Eedle: Repentance and Flight Group announces that it will begin to implement the sentence of God on the enemies of God in the headquarters of Dutch radio and television immediately if the channels and stations of the so called western media do not broadcast the transmission from - they're calling it the Department of Distortion and Spying - the newsroom, live on air.

Jon Snow: Right, we're going to go back because we are in absolutely the last chance saloon. Tony, you're not weakening, you're not going to go back to the Bulgarian footage of a week ago of this terrible incident where this man was executed?

Tony Maddox: I have a new opt out, because my colleague from CNN Turkey is carrying these pictures live, so I'm alright on this one. (laughter)

Jon Snow: Any of you moving at all? Absolutely rigid! I'm wondering if there's anybody in the room who considers that there's anything that could be done at this late hour to fulfil the demands?

(Unidentified): Has anybody considered a Superbowl-style delay of ten seconds on the footage?

Jon Snow: Well yes I offered Juan seven seconds on the footage but I agree, what about ten seconds? No... but the issue really is, that they want this tape broadcast more than anything else. If somebody will broadcast the tape, we will apparently be in business. You have the tape Nigel, you've made it available to everybody if they want it, so it's there but unfortunately it does show a head coming off a body. Nobody in here prepared to broadcast it, and so with a huge bang and explosion in Hilversum, the whole of Dutch television is blown apart and there is nobody left. I would like to thank you very much Gerri for your courage in coming outside the television station there and to wish you Godspeed and to whoever is still there, good luck to them!

A nice hand to Gerri for some fine reporting.

Well, that concludes today's hypothetical. Inevitably patchy, because news is a patchy business, but we now have half an hour for some decent discussion. I know a lot of people were frustrated at not being able to make their points, and there are a lot of points that people wanted to make that have arisen earlier and I'd be very keen now to open this up to a much more general discussion. There are many more general issues that are raised here: the oxygen of publicity, what one should and should not run in terms of instant coverage. Would anybody like to set the ball rolling? Does anybody feel that they've picked up something from here that they would like to explore?

Unidentified: Having just gone through a hostile environment course last week, one of the rules of engagement with terrorists when you are captured is to try and engage with your captors in a way and I think one of the difficulties of this last scenario is the fact that they issued three messages and it seemed a little bit conclusive, there is no more talk, but having seen some of these unfortunate videotapes, there are usually two parts. One where they have a long statement read by one of these hooded men and then the execution that takes place at the end and I wonder whether any of us would consider playing with time saying, ok we're going to show the tape, and actually just show the first part of it, which is just reading the statement which shows the hooded men, and not running the execution. Then maybe you can get engaged with some kind of discussion. You haven't run it all you've run part of it, but anything just to gain time.

Jon Snow: A kind of goodwill gesture?

Unidentified: No not really, just winning more time, because as you concluded, there was no more talk, and we have seen the whole building explode and everybody die and maybe gaining some extra minutes would give security forces extra time and then something might change.

Jon Snow: Anybody else like to get back to some of the issues that were raised by the hypothetical? About the choices that were taken and the choices that were available? Anybody from the panel too?

Unidentified: I was just thinking about the power of television, what makes good television, what sells the product to a certain degree; and if you have a ten second layover or rolling tape, I would be really surprised realistically if some channels would be producing some of the live shot. Sky would have the live aerial shot, I would be surprised if we didn't see it on CNN or anywhere else for that matter, or even BBC News 24. I'm surprised I think because, we've got time to deliberate and think it through, but you have pressures of television sales to a certain degree, viewership, the tabloids are now printing the story as well in their pages, I don't know, just a question mark, how reasonable would it be not to put it on television, in terms of television culture world?

Tony Burman: I'd like to make a response to that from the point of view of the CBC in Canada. I think what mystifies me about the question is this assumption that if something dramatic happens, and we go with it, and all of a sudden the audience spikes for a period of a minute, two minutes, three minutes, five minutes, that it somehow magically produces ratings that are eternal and add revenue that shoots through. From our perspective there is no financial or business incentive to do that. But the counterpoint, and this is my earlier point, is that there's far more potential damage if we go with something and it literally and figuratively blows up in our faces and we then become a poster child of a kind of reckless, irresponsible, sensationalistic television network, and I think that that reality that has developed over time, especially since 9/11 explains why people are careful and cautious and I would argue in a fairly mature way that there is no reason for us to jump wildly because somebody else is going for it.

Unidentified (as before): But if there's a bomb that goes off in Tel Aviv, two minutes later, you will often see a camera running with a shaky side to it, you might see the ambulance, or an odd limb, but you'd see something

Richard Sambrook: I think the crucial point is control of your output and if you've got a delay or you've got it on tape, you've got a chance to - if it's only for a few minutes - assess it beforehand. If you're live on something as highly unpredictable as this scenario, the risks are enormous and of course I agree with Tony and the issue is really the value to your brand in the long term. There are only downsides to going live with something like that. It's about control of your output.

Abdallah Schleifer: It had nothing to do with Holland, Mohamed Gohar started with me as a cameraman 25 years ago with MBC Cairo, I'm very worried, the story ended and they're still out there and you know, I have a sentimental attachment to that guy!

(laughter)

Jon Snow: Paul, what did happen to you in the end, did you die?

Paul Eedle: No, in actual fact of Tony Maddox's astute reading of the situation, things in Iraq are changing all the time, the key point about the Margaret Hassan execution was that the Al-Zarqawi group condemned it. There are relationships that can be leveraged, we are still hoping that George and Christian will come out from the Islamic army of Iraq. I think Tony put his finger on what might be a way through, and thanks to that, after three weeks of tortuous negotiations, Mohamed and I surfaced at the Intercontinental in Amman.

Jon Snow: Yes Mohamed, keep going, welcome back!

Mohamed Gohar: Yes a bit more serious this time, Abdallah mentioned that I'd been working with him as a cameraman for many long number of years and the thing is, he was always willing to take risks, while I was always making sure that we got out of dangerous situations safely. The Middle East needs more than professionalism to do their business. You need a lot of passion and understanding of what's going on and both parties, the western media, will always be willing to take risks and the Middle Eastern media would have full responsibility for getting them out to get the story the way you want. I don't know how we're going to make him safe though, he's risking himself too much. I remember some years ago, meeting Mr Tukamizi from a Japanese broadcaster to cover a story in Saudi Arabia. We took him to a mosque to convert before covering the story.

Tony Maddox: I just want to go back to a point that Tony was making because I think it's important and it's something that I've seen change over the years at gatherings like this, and that is that post 9/11 if you want, and post the war, or particularly post the experience of most major broadcasters losing staff, actually having people that work for them die, there has been a shift in this industry, there has been a shift to a different set of priorities, and we still remain ferociously competitive and of course in a situation like that, we'd use whatever pictures we had and going big with it, we'd be doing all we could to give good coverage, but as an industry we've got a better sense of perspective out of all of this and a bad day used to be being scooped, and that's still a bad day, but a bad day is actually losing people now and we're finding ourselves facing these sorts of issues that were very unusual at one time but are now becoming more routine and I think it has had a sobering effect on those of us who work here and a sobering effect of how to handle 'they've got these pictures and we haven't' but there are other issues at play here.

Jon Snow: A sobering effect, but are we able any longer to give a comprehensive account to our viewers of what's going on in Iraq any more? And are we candid with our viewers about how little we know?

Tony Maddox: I think that's a really good question Jon, because we're not giving as full an account as we should because we're all doing very little news gathering in Baghdad, that's the reality of it, we speak to that and I've seen it in two ways on other channels and we speak to it as well but it's very difficult to move around and I've seen our own correspondents and other correspondents mention that they can't get around as well as they could do. The reality of the situation on the ground in Baghdad is that we would like to be telling that story more fully than we are currently able to tell it, and that is unquestionably true.

Chris Hampson: I have two issues, first of all the issue of translating pictures that are coming from a terrorist hostage taking, at best that is to me some sort of participation in the act if you transmit those pictures and at worst, collaboration. There's a moral issue, and a dynamic to think about. Secondly, as a bureau chief, it terrifies me that some of you would put this to air, because it invites these mad guys to come into my bureau and do the same thing so I think there's self interest here in saying that we wouldn't broadcast it, we don't touch it.

Arnim Stauth: I think we're missing one point, and that is now that half of Dutch television is dead. We should reconsider our decision not to air that tape and I think we have just forgotten that we denied that question, I mean can we sleep well tonight after all these people having been killed? I think it was a decision between a different kind of values, our principle of not bowing to terrorists and their demands and the other side is the right of people to live and in all of our civilised constitutions this right is the basis and not the principles of free journalism and so of course our decision was completely wrong, providing that we had to take seriously the threat to blow up Dutch television, and to kill 150 people, we should have aired this tape, we could have made our remarks, that this happened under a threat, and we are utterly opposed to doing such things, but that in the end, comparing the values and thinking of the families of the people under threat of being killed, that we had to do it, I think our decision was very much too easily taken, and it was wrong.

Gillian Findlay: As somebody who was allegedly there and is now supposedly dead, you're assuming that if you had run them, that would have been the end of it? How can you make that assumption, how can we know that that was the real demand and that the demands wouldn't have gone up and up and up?

Arnim Stauth: I can only judge on the facts, but if I compare the different evils, the two evils are: one is bowing to terrorist, showing the tape that we usually as journalists would never have on air but on the other shire, it's 150 people being killed. So of course the lives of 150 people weigh more than our journalistic principles.

Jon Snow: Well let's go back to our executives, because here are the channels arrayed. You took the right decision?

Richard Sambrook: I think Chris Hampson made the remark that it's the principle that you set, because there would be more, and you would have set a successful precedent for terrorists to hold people hostage in this way and for the media to react in this way and so on. So of course I understand the equation and 150 lives is more important than a principle but I don't think it's just about 150 lives, I think it sets a precedent for the future and you can't do it.

Jon Snow: But isn't there a truism at the moment that if you take somebody like the tragic case of Margaret Hassan, and you show the pictures of her in captivity as we did, we have already joined the terrorist game, it's just that they didn't show her at that moment, the first time we saw her, they didn't show her in a way that we found so unbroadcastable that we couldn't show it. The fact is we did show it and we were surely playing their game. And the Arab media showed it.

Tony Burman: From the CBC point of view, your premise is arguable and not all news organisations broadcast the Margaret Hassan video when she was in captivity...

Jon Snow: I think we can say the mainstream broadcasted it pretty heavily

Tony Burman: Well I think there's a logic to your point but I think there are many networks, for basically exactly that reason, what is the credibility, there is a certain inherent fraudulence to that Margaret Hessian video done under duress, saying things that we have no independent knowledge of whether she meant or not, so then it is a slippery slope.

Jon Snow: But we haven't done it once, we did it lots of times, this is not the first and it won't be the last, will it Richard?

Richard Sambrook: I agree, I think it's a really difficult question and the BBC has tried to be very restrained about the extent that it has used any of those hostage videos at all, not just Margaret Hassan but any of them and I agree we've attempted to sit on the line by saying that we'll show just a little bit to give a sense of what's happened, without being voyeuristic, without providing a lot of the oxygen of publicity, but I think it's very difficult.

Jon Snow: But when the Spanish interior minister came along and said look I want to try and stop you putting this stuff out, you told him to go away.

Richard Sambrook: But I think it's for us to decide.

Unidentified (Portuguese): Just to come to Arnim's point about whether we did well or not in broadcasting these pictures, here is a very interesting story that happened four years ago in Portugal. There was a man who hijacked himself inside Portuguese television, RTP, he locked himself in the toilets and said he would kill himself if RTP would not play a legal problem he had so it was a big story. We broadcast this story live and you could hear the voice of the man, then we showed the negotiations between the police and the guy and they reached an agreement that the man would hand himself over and not be arrested. So after several hours of live television negotiations, he surrendered himself and was released. The effect of this was within a few days, there was a mushroom of cases like this, there was a guy hijacking himself in a shopping centre, and what happened eventually was that all television networks agreed not to report these and after a while they stopped.

Jon Snow: That was not imposed by the government but was agreed by the television stations?

Unidentified (as before): Yes, we agreed that it was going over the top.

Unidentified (UK): The follow on from that surely is the question is not about showing the video but should we be carrying the story at all, and is it conceivable that you could have a voluntary media embargo on terrorism and hostage taking in the way that you had in Portugal

Unidentified (Portuguese): The embargo was on live reporting, we kept reporting the story, but not live.

Unidentified: It's only a step, as Richard Sambrook said, then to reporting some of it to asking yourself should you be reporting the story at all, and is there an argument for simply not reporting these stories.

Richard Sambrook: I think there is an argument, it's not one that we've followed yet, but there is a precedent certainly in Britain for criminal hostage and kidnap taking where there is an agreement between broadcasters and the police that the broadcasters will have a blackout on the situation on the basis that there is full disclosure of what happened and access to what happened, and evidence and interviews with individuals at the end so the situation can be fully reported eventually but there is a blackout to prevent that. The problem is, that would never come because we now have the global media, the internet. Terrorists are in a position to be able to broadcast their position over the internet. There is not that level of control that is capable of being imposed so it's out of our hands, the genie is out of the bottle, and it's not going to go back in.

Jon Snow: Just before we lose that point, what about Beslan? We seem to be talking about the specifics of this hypothetical case but the facts of Beslan were that virtually everybody was tipping live pictures of naked children running in terror and appalling shots were going out completely unsorted.

Richard Sambrook: I think again, this is something that we will learn from. I think there were shots, in hindsight, live at Beslan that we should have thought twice about. All of us, not just one network or another.

Jon Snow: What gave rise to that, it was competitive wasn't it? You saw them going out on CNN and said 'sod it, I'm going to put them out too'.

Richard Sambrook: I was actually on holiday at the time Jon but of course we all suffer from competitive pressures but I don't think it' true to say 'oh they're running it, so we'd better', I really don't. Every case raises new issues and new sensitivities and you build up a kind of case law about these things, and I think we do need to review and think about Beslan because I think there were cases there that we need to think twice about.

Nigel Baker: Jon, as people heard earlier, my company had a photographer taken in Baghdad six weeks ago and because I've been around in this business for 25 years, we managed to organise a three day embargo on the coverage. There is no doubt in my mind that the embargo saved the life of that photographer. It gave us a period of calm in which we were able to make contact through intermediaries with the abductors and there's no doubt at all that it helped enormously with the successive outcome. There are a number of people here who helped in organising that embargo, the Arabic news channels, God bless them, joined in and observed it, and I'm now getting letters and emails about double standards,. You know, if this can be organised for somebody in the media, and there's been previous cases of an embargo when media people have been taken in Iraq, so then why shouldn't it be done for aid workers and civil servants who get taken? That's the question I'm getting and I'm not certain I know the answer at this point, it's an immensely difficult question.

Jon Snow: Well that takes us right into the whole nub of the argument and of course it was easier in a sense for you to fix it locally than it would ever have been for someone to do it globally, isn't that right Richard?

Richard Sambrook: I'm sure that is right, and well done for securing that but the point is, is whoever had taken him had wanted the publicity, they could have put it on the internet themselves and I think the web is now so wide that I don't believe it can be completely controlled.

Jon Snow: I'll come to you in a moment but I just want to pick up Ahmad Fawzi on this point, because this takes you to aid workers and the rest of it. What's your view about what we're talking about, whether the media does have to rethink and think in terms of embargoes on footage of captives in these terms?

Ahmad Fawzi: Can I first say that I'm rather frustrated that I have 100,000 demonstrators outside white city and they're still not listening to a moderate Muslim leader?! I think it's important to put an embargo on these pictures because they will put the lives of these hostages at risk. However, in the hypothetical, I felt that there wasn't enough, as was said earlier, gaining of time, enough mediation with the kidnappers, in NOS at Hilversum. Giving them a few carrots to keep them going, yes we will broadcast your story but give us a little time. I didn't see any interaction with the security services either, in Holland, which I'm sure would have got involved at a very early stage and were probably positioned where the Sky news helicopter was, already looking down into the atrium, to see what they could do. But yes, we are very concerned, humanitarian workers have been taken, some have been killed, some are still hostages, in Afghanistan for example, I think the fact that the hostages in Afghanistan are still alive and I hope they will remain alive and come out soon, is that we have tried as much as possible to keep a low profile on that story.

Eason Jordan: In the hypothetical, Paul Eedle allegedly knew the whereabouts of Zarqawi and I would pose another hypothetical question, let's say that the kidnappers of Margaret Hassan, or the people claiming to be the kidnappers of Margaret Hassan call the BBC in Baghdad and they're expressing great frustration at their getting bad publicity and they want to explain why they wanted to kill Margaret Hassan and they've asked the BBC to come to such and such an address on Rashid Street in Baghdad. I pose the question because there are a lot of people in this world who would say there comes a time when you need to take off your hat as a journalist and actually be a responsible citizen and help apprehend killers. I don't think there's any doubt that if Zarqawi could take captive anyone in this room, nine out of ten would be decapitated. Are we prepared to say, never cross the line, and by the way the security companies have now been told where Margaret Hassan's killers are, are they going to say nothing to their contacts within the intelligence and government community?

Nart Bouran: I'm going to pose a question as well, when at Abu Dhabi television we had the tape of the killing of Mr Bigley, you would be shocked by the number of phone calls I actually received from a lot of people who are probably represented in this room asking for the tape and when we were going to put it on air. It was very frustrating, it was a process where we were talking about what we were going to do, eventually we decided that we weren't going to run the tape. I had the feeling because I was fielding most of these calls that we were expected to show it, that we were supposed to, you know 'is it on your 6pm, is it on your 9pm?' and it was extremely frustrating and might come as a surprise to many people that we didn't show any of the Margaret Hassan footage.

Jon Snow: But what about Eason's point, if you find yourself perilously close to the identity of somebody who's done some grievous crime of that nature, do we have any obligation as journalists to put a word in certain directions?

Nart Bouran: I think if you're talking about people in general then yes, but if you're talking about Iraq specifically, it would be very difficult because if you knew who was responsible you would probably be dead yourself already. It is a very difficult question and I don't think I really have the answer.

Jon Snow: Ok well let me ask our security chaps. Eason's saying it's becoming common currency in Baghdad as to who these people were, what do you feel your obligations were in all this?

Andrew Kain: I don't think you would get close enough to Zarqawi apart from in the hypothetical scenario that we've been talking about, when we actually got to the vehicle, there were two guys we believed to be dead who were only actually wounded, they informed us that it wasn't Zarqawi, we contacted CNN, we got in touch with again, locally, with Zarqawi, and that led to the release in the hypothetical.

Jon Snow: But in real life, do your boys get wind of identities and if they do, what do they do about it?

Andrew Kain: We don't in that context, because we're working as effectively part of a journalistic team. If we step outside of those bounds, then we put ourselves and the journalists we protect, at risk.

Hans Laroes: Just a journalistic question for the ones who receive tapes from these hostage takers: was there ever from your official side, an official enquiry into how you got hold of these tapes?

Jon Snow: What do you do to track back, Tony? Do you want to know how the tape ever came to the CNN office in Baghdad?

Tony Maddox: By and large, we don't tend to get them and I'm pleased that we don't.

Jon Snow: Hence all the calls to Abu Dhabi television to find out what time they're screening?!

Tony Maddox: Well no, actually that's a bit of a cheap shot...

Jon Snow: But that was his complaint.

Tony Maddox: Well let's go back to Eason's point, and I think he goes to the heart of what I was talking about before about where our values shift on, I think that particular question is as important a one as we're going to have to answer. My belief is because the Margaret Hassan thing was so dreadful, and you can't find someone who wasn't deeply horrified by it, that somehow as journalists we have to succumb to every temptation in our body to get the bastards sorted out who did it, to me crosses a line and once we've crossed it, it's very difficult to go back. If we say the legitimate news information that comes our way, we're going to turn over to the authorities because these are particularly bad people, even by our standards, where do we draw a line on that? I don't think we can so my answer to that one is, we can't place ourselves as some third party agency no matter how just the cause may be at the time, because it shifts our position and in future makes it very difficult for us to argue that we are not an agency no matter how just the cause may seem.

Jon Snow: Nigel, is that your line?

Nigel Baker: Are you talking about acquiring video Jon or...

Jon Snow: Do you ever consider crossing the line if material comes your way that identifies some link or somebody who's wanted by the authorities?

Nigel Baker: I think that's very difficult for us to do because obviously when you get into that situation, I think in this case with the broadcasters represented here that it's a far closer story for them than many but as Tony says, you're setting yourself up as a judge in this particular situation. The other thing we have to consider constantly is the position in which we put our staff operating for us in a country and obviously once you're seen as being an agency or an arm of a law enforcement agency, you are then putting your staff in an extremely dangerous position.

Richard Sambrook: I think Eason's question is a very good one. If you take the dilemma out of the terrorist context, and say it was a straightforward criminal case, if in our normal work we had evidence of a murder or murderer, or even perhaps when we are doing an investigation and uncover wrongdoing, then I think it's a lot more straightforward, we often do investigative programmes, and share the results with the authorities and that feels very different to being in a terrorist context where it's highly politicised and we all feel very sensitive about trying to maintain some degree of independence and objectivity for all the reasons that have been discussed. But I'm still thinking about it because it's such a good question, you know, are the fundamentals really that different from what you would do in a criminal context.

Mohamed Gohar: I think you guys all live in luxury doing this business, all the distinguished people here had to choose between using the tape live or recorded and their only obligation was to the audience. I didn't see that NBC's obligation was to Walt Disney or to advertisers but in the middle east, we live in delusions of obligations, we have to make sure that the story pleases the government, or that some Sheiks in Saudi Arabia like the story, we have to be committed to some religious illusions, we have to choose a character that we use in the story, just to make sure that not one of them has a different religion and we are boycotted from somewhere. Illusions surround us and we can't think editorially of how to use the story.

Jon Snow: And satellite life hasn't changed that for you? The al Jazeera, the Abu Dhabi, the Lebanese television channels haven't changed that for you?

Mohamed Gohar: On the contrary, satellite life is run by individuals, and their obligations always go to different things than professionalism.

Jon Snow: Do you feel that you are with Mohamed on this and that you are viewing things in a very different way to most of the European and American broadcasters, Nart?

Nart Bouran: No, I don't agree with Mohamed all the way, there are some points that are correct, if you want to talk about the media in the Arab world, a lot of what Mohamed said is actually very true, there is the fear and the worry that you're going to do something or say something.

Jon Snow: Are you worried about Sheiks in Saudi Arabia?

Nart Bouran: No, not me particularly, but also you have to take into context that satellite life in the Arab world is very young, it's only been there a few years and we have actually moved forward quite a bit. On the other hand though, you'd be very surprised at some locations where I work at the little amount of interference at what you do and put on air. I was astonished when I first started, and I still am.

Jon Snow: Mohamed, you live in Egypt, can you imagine how different that might be?

Nart Bouran: Yes that would be different, there are cases in Egypt where bureaux have been closed down and organisations have been closed down. It's different from one place to another, and it's different in terms of the political pressure that that regime or country faces, how much baggage it actually carries and what it has to show for itself.

Jon Snow: I think in many ways your intervention has been possibly the most salutary of the afternoon because in the end it's brought us up short of the recognition that it's easy for us to tangle about our consciences and the morality of whether we run a thing right now, or on tape, or never, and you, poor man, are wondering what your government might think, or will I be in a job tomorrow. Even those young producers that slightly lost it on the live transmission are still in their jobs...

Richard Sambrook: I'm not too sure about that Jon! I'm not convinced.

Jon Snow: On your behalf, I would like to thank all our panellists but above all I would like to thank Simon Bucks and his team from Sky who put this event on and our colleagues from NOS who gave us the kind of cinema verite feel to it all and above all I'd like to thank you all for being here and for participating so actively in this hypothetical.