BBC's change of strategy

British journalist, former editor of the Russian Features department in BBC Masha Karp wrote that she received a written warning over airing a programme "The Life and Death of Alexander Litvinenko" December 18, 2006. Her managers found that the programme presented "much stronger and detailed arguments from one side of the discussion and under-represent[ed] the other". In a phone call the day after airing, a senior BBC Russian Service editor told her that "pro-Kremlin guys sound stupid and Bukovsky and the others sound intelligent".[1]

Karp wrote that BBC closed her department and removed the need to broadcast opinions "not heard on the state-controlled media" from its strategy.

One year later Martin Dewhirst, University of Glasgow, and Victor Suvorov complained about BBC Russian Service's lack of impartiality. In their letter to the complaints unit of the corporation they mentioned that Deputy Head of the region and Editor-in-Chief of the service could have regular contacts with KGB in the past.[2]

-----------
[1] BBC plays by the Kremlin's Rules: Masha Karp, November 2010, Standpoint Magazine, http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/3492/full

[2] Letter to the Editorial Complaints Unit of the BBC from Martin Dewhirst, Department of Slavonic Studies, University of Glasgow and Viktor Suvorov, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Minutes of Evidence, http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmselect/cmfaff/50/7062714.htm