BBC Appoints New Director-General

LONDON -- The British Broadcasting Corp. named a veteran television executive as its new director-general on Friday in the wake of a scandal over its reporting on Britain's pre-war intelligence about Iraq.

Mark Thompson, the chief executive of the private Channel 4 television, will replace Greg Dyke, who resigned after a judicial inquiry sharply criticized the BBC for a May 2003 report that had quoted an anonymous source as saying the government had "sexed up" evidence on Iraqi weapons to justify war.

The source quoted in Andrew Gilligan's BBC radio report was later identified as government scientist David Kelly. He killed himself shortly after his name was leaked, setting off a political firestorm and forcing Prime Minister Tony Blair to set up an inquiry to investigate the death.

Lord Hutton, the senior appeals judge who led the investigation, cleared Blair's government of almost all wrongdoing in relation to the suicide and harshly criticized the BBC, throwing the broadcaster into one of the biggest crises in its history.

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http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/news/wire/sns-ap-britain-bbc-appointment,0,5119272.story?coll=sns-ap-entertainment-headlines

Channel 4 Television is the station that produces the So Graham Norton show in Great Brition. Which appears on BBC America here in the states!! Seems like Mark Thompson already had a pre-existing relationship with the BBC!!

smile ally