blurring the line between creating and covering news

In the course of making a program about political hecklers, the BBC provided equipment and coverage to hecklers at a Conservative Party speech by Michael Howard. The Conservatives contend that the BBC is playing against the rules "to generate a false news story and dramatise coverage. . . intended to embarrass or ridicule the leader of the Conservative Party". The Beeb defends its actions as "legitimate", though it promises a full review.

The giveaway?

Tory officials became suspicious at the meeting in Horwich, near Bolton,
last Wednesday, when they saw BBC camera crew focusing on the hecklers
rather than Mr Howard. They twice challenged the two men and a woman
involved, and discovered they had been equipped with radio
microphones.

The concern for the BBC is whether this type of program-making can sit side-by-side with its comprehensive and for-the-record news reporting. It wouldn't seem a big deal at all for Channel 4 or any old independent film-maker. One Tory official contends, though, that

"This is a clear and serious breach of recognised BBC producer guidelines,
and accordingly a breach of Section 5.3(b)1 of the BBC Charter Agreement. I
also believe that the recordings which were taken of these organised
hecklers, of ordinary members of the crowd and/or of Conservative officials
who reacted and were recorded, would amount to 'surreptitious recording'
under those guidelines."

Chalk it up as part of the continuing BBC-Tory saga...