John Ware

John Ware   (journalist, author)
"John Ware’s own personal and political views make him unsuitable to present this programme."

John Ware is a British journalist, author, and investigative reporter. He was a reporter on the BBC public affairs documentary programme Panorama from 1986 to 2012. He joined Panorama as a reporter after working at the Worcester Evening News and Droitwich Guardian.

John Ware has also written for the The Sunday Telegraph, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, the Jewish Chronicle and Standpoint magazine.

Early career

Earlier, he was at The Sun in Belfast from 1974 to 1977 and then a researcher on Granada's World in Action, becoming a producer in 1981. He also presented BBC's Rough Justice, Taking Liberties and Inside Story. Several of the cases profiled in the show were referred back to the Court of Appeal and several resulted in overturned convictions. Ware has covered Northern Ireland since 1974.

At the BBC

According to the BBC, some of John Ware's accomplishments while employed by the broadcaster include:

• 1984, filming two Scotland Yard Flying Squad officers in the act of setting up an armed robbery. His evidence led to their trial at the Old Bailey.
• 1989, uncovering evidence that led the District Auditor and then the High Court to accuse Dame Shirley Porter of "gerrymandering", by attempting to rig the Westminster City Council's elections.
• 1990, discovering an attempt by paratroopers in Belfast to cover up the unlawful shooting of joyriders. The conviction for murder of the paratrooper, Lee Clegg, for this incident was ultimately quashed on appeal.
• 1996, reporting on human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia and how the Sharia courts condemned an innocent young man to public beheading.
• 1997, discovering papers belonging to the Deputy Prime Minister showing that, despite elections promises to the contrary, the new Labour government planned to privatise the London Underground within two months of taking office.
• 1998, unearthing evidence showing that Deborah Parry, one of the two "Saudi Nurses", was innocent of murdering Yvonne Gilford in 1996.
• 1998, securing evidence of secret price fixing deals between car dealers and three leading motor manufacturers, including Volvo, which led to the Director General of Fair Trading John Bridgeman to accuse the Swedish car giant of "disgraceful" conduct, while pointing out that under the government's proposed new competition laws, the company could have been fined £70m.
• 2000, reporting that, in contravention of New Labour's strict contest rules, the party's General Secretary (in 2000) and his senior officials were responsible for leaking a confidential list of London party members to Downing Street's London Mayoral candidate Frank Dobson, giving him an unfair advantage over rival candidate Ken Livingstone.

He has taken a particular interest in investigating Islamic extremism.

• 2005, A Panorama edition Ware produced criticising the Muslim Council of Britain, A Question of Leadership, was described by them as "deeply unfair" and "a witch hunt".
• 2006, Responding to complaints about another Panorama edition, Faith, Hate and Charity produced by Ware, the Charity Commission in 2009 dismissed its allegations that British based Palestinian relief charity Interpal was funding organisations involved in terrorism. The Muslim Council of Britain described Ware as "an agenda-driven pro-Israel polemicist". The programme resulted in the BBC paying undisclosed libel damages and giving a public apology to the General Manager of Islamic Relief UK, who was prominently shown while not being a subject of the programme.
• 2010, Another Panorama edition by Ware, British schools, Islamic Rules on some Islamic teaching in Britain, was criticised by the Muslim Council of Britain as a partial and unbalanced portrayal.

In 2012, Ware took voluntary redundancy from the BBC, but has continued with some freelance work. Since leaving the BBC, he has published articles about its top management. In 2015, Ware was commended for being "sympathetic to Jewish concerns", receiving a Commitment to Media Award from the Women's International Zionist Organization. Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle, said "I tell our trainees at the JC, that if there is one person they should model themselves on, it is John Ware.".

Labour documentaries

He has produced at least two documentaries on the Labour Party in recent years.

• 2015, A Panorama edition by Ware on the campaign of Jeremy Corbyn to be elected as Labour Party leader, Labour's Earthquake, attracted hundreds of complaints, including from Corbyn's campaign team, and was described by a member of Corbyn's campaign team as "containing factual inaccuracies" and "a complete hatchet job".
• 2019, An extended Panorama edition, entitled Is Labour Anti-Semitic, was described by Labour as containing "deliberate and malicious representations designed to mislead" and the party alleged that "Panorama has pre-determined the outcome of its investigation and is relying on unsubstantiated allegations and misrepresentation to come to its conclusions." and that "No proper attempt has been made by Panorama to understand Labour’s current processes and procedures".

 

Related Documents

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:BBC Panorama Investigation Into Labour Antisemitism Omitted Key Evidence and Parts of Labour’s Response	Article	22 July 2020	Justin Schlosberg	The fact that the Labour Party is now settling libel cases brought by both John Ware and the Labour 'whistleblowers' is remarkable, not least because there is meant to be an ongoing internal inquiry into the leaked internal report, whose findings have now effectively been prejudged. But I’ve been told this will cost the party close to half a million in damages and costs.
Document:Is The BBC Anti-Labour?	Report	December 2019	Paddy French	Paddy French's antidote to John Ware's Panorama programme "Is Labour Anti-Semitic?"
Document:Jeremy Corbyn’s Opponents Burned the House Down to Stop Him - Now Keir Starmer Is King of the Ashes	Article	25 July 2020	Daniel Finn	By sacking Rebecca Long-Bailey on a trumped-up pretext, Sir Keir Rodney Starmer has set the seal on a drastic shift to the right for the Labour Party. That shift comes just as the key arguments by Jeremy Corbyn’s opponents to justify a break with his left leadership have been falling apart in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Document:That Leaked Labour Party Report	blog post	20 April 2020	Craig Murray	That Leaked Labour Party Report proves conclusively that Sam Matthews’ allegations of unwarranted interference from Corbyn’s office to block anti-semitism action are malicious lies.
Document:With Panorama's hatchet job on Labour antisemitism, BBC has become pro-Tory media	Article	11 July 2019	Jonathan Cook	The question is why did the BBC’s flagship political investigations show decide that the marginal problem of racism in Labour was a much more urgent matter than the provable and significant racism in the Conservative Party?

Many thanks to our Patrons who cover ~2/3 of our hosting bill. Please join them if you can.

References

This page imported content from Wikipedia on 21 July 2019.
Wikipedia is not affiliated with Wikispooks.   Original page source here