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The British defence ministry has temporarily banned television news broadcaster ITV from embedding their journalists with British troops, a defence ministry spokesman told AFP.
His comments were in response to a report in The Times newspaper saying that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had halted cooperation in war zones with ITV, Britain's biggest commercial news broadcaster, after accusing it of inaccurate and intrusive reports about wounded soldiers.
Declaring The Times report to be inaccurate, the spokesman said that the MoD was “disappointed by inaccuracies in the ITN (which provides ITV News) report last week, and we are writing to them to seek explanation.”
But he acknowledged that ITV had been banned from embedding their journalists with British troop divisions, though he stressed that the ban was temporary, noting that it could be reversed within a few hours, if ITV and the MoD reached an agreement. He said that the ban had been in force since last week.
The spokesman added that ITV would still be able to access the MoD's press office, and would retain access to military personnel.
Unidentified sources within ITV News told the newspaper that the broadcaster had cancelled its planned trip to Afghanistan to cover troops marking Remembrance Sunday because of the row with the defence ministry.
The Times reported that the head of ITV News, David Mannion, had written to the MoD demanding an explanation, sending a copy to the Cabinet Secretary Gus O'Donnell, Britain's highest-ranking civil servant.
The news segments in question, unnamed MoD sources told The Times, raised concerns over images showing identifiable wounded soldiers arriving in Britain at night, without obtaining permission from the men, possibly causing their families distress.
The Times cited an e-mail apparently sent by James Clark, the MoD's head of news, to ITV editors last week which read: “As bad a hatchet-job as I've seen in years. Cheap shots all over the place, no context, no reasonable explanation.”
Mark Wood, chief executive of ITN, told The Times: “We are not happy about the way it has been handled. They (The MoD) have objected to some of our coverage but we haven't quite worked out what the repercussions are.”
“We welcome any criticism particularly if it is pointing to factual errors or inaccuracies. What we have had is criticism of our coverage which has not actually gone into any detail of what is factually wrong.”
