John Sweeney (journalist)
Encyclopedia
John Sweeney is an award-winning journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

 and author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

, currently working as an investigative journalist for the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

's Panorama
Panorama (TV series)
Panorama is a BBC Television current affairs documentary programme, which was first broadcast in 1953, and is the longest-running public affairs television programme in the world. Panorama has been presented by many well known BBC presenters, including Richard Dimbleby, Robin Day, David Dimbleby...

series.

Investigative journalism

Before joining the BBC in 2001, Sweeney worked for twelve years at The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...

,
where he covered wars and revolutions in more than sixty countries including Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

, Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...

, Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

, Chechnya
Chechnya
The Chechen Republic , commonly referred to as Chechnya , also spelled Chechnia or Chechenia, sometimes referred to as Ichkeria , is a federal subject of Russia . It is located in the southeastern part of Europe in the Northern Caucasus mountains. The capital of the republic is the city of Grozny...

, Burundi
Burundi
Burundi , officially the Republic of Burundi , is a landlocked country in the Great Lakes region of Eastern Africa bordered by Rwanda to the north, Tanzania to the east and south, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west. Its capital is Bujumbura...

 and Bosnia
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...

.

Barclay brothers suit

In 1996, John Sweeney was sued for criminal defamation
Slander and libel
Defamation—also called calumny, vilification, traducement, slander , and libel —is the communication of a statement that makes a claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual, business, product, group, government, or nation a negative image...

 in France by the Barclay brothers, owners of the Daily Telegraph, but the claimants lost their case. At the time, Sweeney worked for the rival newspaper The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...

, and had given an interview on BBC Radio Guernsey alleging that they had been involved in corruption
Political corruption
Political corruption is the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption. Neither are illegal acts by...

. Since the broadcast could also be heard in northern France, the claimants were able to bring their claim in the French courts. Sweeney was ordered to pay €3000 by the appeal court in Rennes
Rennes
Rennes is a city in the east of Brittany in northwestern France. Rennes is the capital of the region of Brittany, as well as the Ille-et-Vilaine department.-History:...

, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

.

Zimbabwe

John Sweeney reported on mass graves in Robert Mugabe
Robert Mugabe
Robert Gabriel Mugabe is the President of Zimbabwe. As one of the leaders of the liberation movement against white-minority rule, he was elected into power in 1980...

's Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...

 for the BBC in 2002. Mugabe had banned BBC reporters from the country, forcing Sweeney to hide in a car boot
Trunk (automobile)
The trunk or boot of an automobile or car is the vehicle's main storage, luggage, or cargo compartment. Trunk is used in North American English and Jamaican English; boot is used elsewhere in the English speaking world. Trunk is also primarily used in many non-English speaking regions, such as...

 in order to travel to a meeting with the Leader of the Opposition.

Cot death investigation

John Sweeney spent four years investigating the cases of Sally Clark
Sally Clark
Sally Clark was a British solicitor who became the victim of an infamous miscarriage of justice when she was wrongly convicted of the murder of two of her sons in 1999...

, Angela Cannings
Angela Cannings
Angela Cannings was wrongfully convicted in the UK in 2002 of the murder of her seven-week-old son, Jason, who died in 1991, and of her 18-week-old son Matthew, who died in 1999...

 and Donna Anthony
Donna Anthony
Donna Anthony is a British woman from Somerset who was jailed in 1998 after being convicted of the murder of her two babies. She was cleared and freed after having spent more than six years in prison....

, three women who had been falsely imprisoned for killing their children. Sweeney's investigation helped to clear their names, and led to Sir Roy Meadow, the expert witness whose testimony had proved decisive in their convictions, being temporarily struck off the General Medical Council
General Medical Council
The General Medical Council registers and regulates doctors practising in the United Kingdom. It has the power to revoke or restrict a doctor's registration if it deems them unfit to practise...

's medical register. Sweeney received the Paul Foot Award
Paul Foot Award
The Paul Foot Award is an award given for investigative or campaigning journalism, set up by The Guardian and Private Eye in memory of the journalist Paul Foot, who died in 2004....

 in 2005 in recognition of his work.

Investigative report on Scientology

"Scientology and Me
Scientology and Me
Scientology and Me was a television documentary broadcast 14 May 2007 as part of the BBC's Panorama series. Reporter John Sweeney visited the United States to investigate whether the Church of Scientology was becoming more mainstream...

", a Panorama
Panorama (TV series)
Panorama is a BBC Television current affairs documentary programme, which was first broadcast in 1953, and is the longest-running public affairs television programme in the world. Panorama has been presented by many well known BBC presenters, including Richard Dimbleby, Robin Day, David Dimbleby...

investigation into Scientology
Scientology
Scientology is a body of beliefs and related practices created by science fiction and fantasy author L. Ron Hubbard , starting in 1952, as a successor to his earlier self-help system, Dianetics...

 written and presented by Sweeney, was aired on BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...

 on Monday, 14 May 2007. Prior to its airing, video footage filmed by the Church of Scientology
Church of Scientology
The Church of Scientology is an organization devoted to the practice and the promotion of the Scientology belief system. The Church of Scientology International is the Church of Scientology's parent organization, and is responsible for the overall ecclesiastical management, dissemination and...

 was released on YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....

 and on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 that showed Sweeney shouting at Scientology representative Tommy Davis
Thomas W. Davis
Thomas W. "Tommy" Davis is the head of the Church of Scientology's Celebrity Centre International in Los Angeles, California.-Celebrity Centre:...

 during a visit to CCHR's "Psychiatry: An Industry of Death
Psychiatry: An Industry of Death
Psychiatry: An Industry of Death is a museum in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA, as well as several touring exhibitions. It is owned and operated by the Citizens Commission on Human Rights , an anti-psychiatry organization founded by the Church of Scientology and psychiatrist Thomas Szasz...

". The clips were sections of a documentary the Church of Scientology's Freedom Magazine TV
Freedom Magazine
Freedom Magazine is a magazine published by the Church of Scientology since 1968. The magazine describes its focus as "Investigative Reporting in the Public Interest." A frequent topic is psychiatry .-Content:...

 produced about the BBC Panorama programme.

Sweeney remarked that he lost his temper due to days of harassment by Davis and the Church, and a strong personal reaction to the psychiatry exhibit. He had been visited at his hotel by Davis, despite not having shared the address with the Church, and had been followed on several different occasions. Sweeney labelled the clips "attack videos" and others say they were produced to discredit himself and the documentary.

The BBC in response aired its own full recording of the incident. Panorama's Editor Sandy Smith explained what happened and how the BBC dealt with the incident in a post on the BBC's Editor's Blog. An internal BBC investigation found that Sweeney's conduct at one point in the filming was clearly inappropriate, but also noted that Sweeney had apologised for his outburst and concluded that as a whole, filming of the documentary had been performed in a proper and fair manner.
Later on that same year in the BBC Panorama year in review Sweeney said “..a new generation is making up its own mind, and for that I make no apology”. Only a month and a half later Project Chanology
Project Chanology
Project Chanology is a protest movement against the practices of the Church of Scientology by members of Anonymous, a leaderless Internet-based group that defines itself as ubiquitous...

 began.

This time as a part of a rehearsed joke, Sweeney goes into a similar outburst in January 2009 when being interviewed on Radio 4 about the Tom Cruise film Valkyrie
Valkyrie (film)
Valkyrie is a 2008 American historical thriller film set in Nazi Germany during World War II. The film depicts the 20 July plot in 1944 by German army officers to assassinate Adolf Hitler and to use the Operation Valkyrie national emergency plan to take control of the country...

—clearly referring to the episode two years previously.

A follow-up Panorama programme also hosted by Sweeney, which at an hour is twice the length of the original one was aired on the 28 September 2010. This documentary contained interviews with high profile ex-scientologist Mike Rinder
Mike Rinder
Michael "Mike" Rinder is an Australian Scientologist who was a former chief spokesman of the Church of Scientology. Rinder served as Executive Director of the Office of Special Affairs and was a director of the Church of Scientology International...

 who explained the tactics used by the church during the making of the previous documentary. Rinder had been involved in the Scientology organisation's stalking of Sweeney.

Awards

Sweeney has won several awards throughout his career, including:
  • 1998: What the Papers Say
    What the Papers Say
    What The Papers Say is a BBC radio programme that originally ran for many years on British television.Its first incarnation was the second longest-running programme on British television after Panorama...

     Journalist of the Year prize for reports on human rights abuses in Algeria
    Algeria
    Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...

    .
  • 2000: an Emmy Award
    Emmy Award
    An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...

     and a Royal Television Society
    Royal Television Society
    The Royal Television Society is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present and future. It is the oldest television society in the world...

     prize for programs about the Massacre at Krusha e Madhe
    Massacre at Krusha e Madhe
    The Massacre at Velika Kruša near Orahovac, Kosovo, took place during the Kosovo War on the afternoon of 25 March 1999 the day after the NATO air campaign began....

    , Kosovo
    Kosovo
    Kosovo is a region in southeastern Europe. Part of the Ottoman Empire for more than five centuries, later the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia...

    .
  • 2001: the Amnesty International
    Amnesty International
    Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...

     prize for "Victims of the Torture Train," about human rights
    Human rights
    Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...

     abuses in Chechnya
    Chechnya
    The Chechen Republic , commonly referred to as Chechnya , also spelled Chechnia or Chechenia, sometimes referred to as Ichkeria , is a federal subject of Russia . It is located in the southeastern part of Europe in the Northern Caucasus mountains. The capital of the republic is the city of Grozny...

    .
  • 2003: a Sony Gold award
    Sony Radio Academy Awards
    The Sony Radio Academy Awards , started in 1983, are some of the most prestigious awards in the British radio industry. They are run by ZAFER Associates in association with the Radio Academy...

     (2003) for Best Radio News program.
  • 2004: a Royal Television Society prize (2004) for "Angela's Hope," a BBC One
    BBC One
    BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...

     documentary about a woman wrongly convicted of murdering her three babies.
  • 2005: The Paul Foot Award
    Paul Foot Award
    The Paul Foot Award is an award given for investigative or campaigning journalism, set up by The Guardian and Private Eye in memory of the journalist Paul Foot, who died in 2004....

    .

External links

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