Susan Watts | |
|---|---|
 Susan Watts in 2009 | |
| Born | Susan Janet WattsSusan Watts (cropped).jpg 13 July 1962 [1] |
| Alma mater | |
| Known for | |
| Children | two sons, two daughters [1] |
| Awards | BAFTA |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | |
| Website | www |
Susan Janet Watts (born 13 July 1962) [1] is a science journalist. [2] She was science editor of the BBC's Newsnight programme, from January 1995 to November 2013. [3] [4] [5]
Watts was educated at Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham Girls' School. She has a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from Imperial College London and a Diploma in Journalism from City University London [1]
Watts spent ten years in print journalism specialising in scientific topics. She worked for Computer Weekly from 1985-9, New Scientist from 1989-91 and The Independent from 1991-5, before moving into television. She won a BAFTA for her reporting of the BSE "Mad Cow" crisis in British farming. [6] In 2013 she was made redundant from Newsnight when incoming editor Ian Katz decided that the programme no longer required a dedicated science editor. [7] [8]
In 2015 Watts became Head of Public Engagement and Communications at the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences, Imperial College London. [9]
Watts came into the limelight in Summer 2003 during the Hutton Inquiry, a judicial inquiry into the death of Biological Weapons expert David Kelly. Kelly had committed suicide after his exposure as the source for a controversial report by fellow BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan, in which it was claimed that the British government had deliberately exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction in order to justify a war.
On 2 June 2003, Susan Watts broadcast a report in which she extensively quoted a "senior official involved with the process of pulling together the original September 2002 Blair weapons dossier". Her source was Dr Kelly. The thrust of the report was similar to the later Gilligan story, but the key allegations in Watts's report were described in more measured terms and without Gilligan's claim of the direct personal involvement of Alastair Campbell in rewriting the dossier.
Like Gilligan, Watts had spoken to Kelly on an unattributable basis but, unlike Gilligan, she had kept detailed verbatim notes of her conversations, and in one case a tape recording. Watts's notes and recording showed that Kelly had made remarks very similar to those attributed to him by Gilligan; her shorthand notes read:
"A mistake to put it in, Alastair Campbell seeing something in there, single source but not corroborated, sounded good."
She had felt under "considerable internal pressure" [10] to back her employers, despite her own misgivings and as a result she was represented by independent counsel at the Hutton Inquiry. There she told Lord Hutton that she regarded Kelly's remarks about the involvement of Campbell in the strengthening of claims in the dossier as no more than a "glib statement" and a "gossipy aside" for which Kelly had no evidence. Gilligan had decided to make more of similar remarks drawn from his memory of his conversations with Dr Kelly.
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Alastair John Campbell is a British journalist, author, strategist, broadcaster and activist, known for his political roles during Tony Blair's leadership of the Labour Party. Campbell worked as Blair's spokesman and campaign director in opposition (1994–1997), then as Downing Street Press Secretary, and as the Prime Minister's Official Spokesperson (1997–2000). He then became Downing Street director of communications and spokesman for the Labour Party (2000–2003). He returned as campaign director for the 2005 general election in Blair's third win.
David Christopher Kelly was a Welsh scientist and authority on biological warfare (BW). A former head of the Defence Microbiology Division working at Porton Down, Kelly was part of a joint US-UK team that inspected civilian biotechnology facilities in Russia in the early 1990s and concluded they were running a covert and illegal BW programme. He was appointed to the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) in 1991 as one of its chief weapons inspectors in Iraq and led ten of the organisation's missions between May 1991 and December 1998. He also worked with UNSCOM's successor, the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and led several of their missions into Iraq. During his time with UNMOVIC he was key in uncovering the anthrax production programme at the Salman Pak facility, and a BW programme run at Al Hakum.
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Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government, also known as the September Dossier, was a document published by the British government on 24 September 2002. Parliament was recalled on the same day to discuss the contents of the document. The paper was part of an ongoing investigation by the government into weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq, which ultimately led to the invasion of Iraq six months later. It contained a number of allegations according to which Iraq also possessed WMD, including chemical weapons and biological weapons. The dossier even alleged that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear weapons programme. Without exception, all of the allegations included within the September Dossier have been since proven to be false, as shown by the Iraq Survey Group.
Richard Sambrook is a British journalist, academic and a former BBC executive. He is Emeritus Professor in the School of Journalism, Media and Culture at Cardiff University. For 30 years, until February 2010, he was a BBC journalist and later, a news executive.
Newsnight is the BBC's news and current affairs programme, providing in-depth investigation and analysis of the stories behind the day's headlines. The programme is broadcast on weekdays at 22:30 on BBC Two and the UK feed of BBC News channel; it is also available on BBC iPlayer.
The Hutton Inquiry was a 2003 judicial inquiry in the UK chaired by Lord Hutton, who was appointed by the Labour government to investigate the controversial circumstances surrounding the death of David Kelly, a biological warfare expert and former UN weapons inspector in Iraq.
Andrew Stuart MacKinlay is a British Liberal Democrat politician, who was the Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Thurrock from 1992 until he stepped down at the 2010 general election.
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This article outlines, in chronological order, the various controversies surrounding or involving the BBC.
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The Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction, widely known as the Butler Review after its chairman Robin Butler, Baron Butler of Brockwell, was announced on 3 February 2004 by the British Government and published on 14 July 2004. It examined the intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction which played a key part in the Government's decision to invade Iraq in 2003. A similar Iraq Intelligence Commission was set up in the United States. Despite the apparent certainty of both governments prior to the war that Iraq possessed such weapons, no such illegal weapons or programs were found by the Iraq Survey Group.
Ronald John Baillie Neil CBE is a former BBC television journalist and news editor, who rose to become the BBC's overall director of news and current affairs in the late 1980s. He retired in 1998, but was recalled in 2004 to review BBC journalism and values in response to the criticisms made by the Hutton inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly.
Brian Francis Gill Jones was a UK metallurgist who worked as an intelligence analyst, was skeptical of claims of Iraqi WMD and gave evidence concerning the justification for the Iraq war.
Elizabeth Mary MacKean was a British television reporter and presenter. She worked on the BBC's Newsnight programme and was the reporter on an exposé of Sir Jimmy Savile as a paedophile which was controversially cancelled by the BBC in December 2011. The decision to axe the Newsnight investigation became the subject of the Pollard Inquiry. She and colleague Meirion Jones later won a London Press Club Scoop of the Year award for their work on the story. She also won the 2010 Daniel Pearl Award for her investigation of the Trafigura toxic dumping scandal.