BBC staff stop work in protest [View All]

[Loonman]

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,8543230%255E401,00.html

BBC staff stop work in protest
By Peter Wilson
January 31, 2004

THE BBC plunged deeper into its worst crisis yesterday as thousands of staff around the country walked out in support of their deposed leaders and opinion polls showed many Britons thought the Hutton report into the death of weapons scientist David Kelly had been "a whitewash".

Some 56 per cent of voters told a Daily Telegraph poll that law lord Brian Hutton was wrong to lay all the blame on the BBC, while 49 per cent agreed in another poll that the findings were "a whitewash".

The BBC, the world's largest public broadcaster, was reeling yesterday from the report's scathing criticisms of its role in the lead-up to Kelly's suicide.