Jean Seaton

Jean Seaton (born 6 March 1947) is Professor of Media History at the University of Westminster and the Official Historian of the BBC. She is the Director of the Orwell Prize and on the editorial board of Political Quarterly. She is the widow of Ben Pimlott, the British historian.

Following Bernard Crick's retirement as Chair of the judges in 2006, Seaton took the position of Director of the Orwell Prize. Together with Martin Moore of the Media Standards Trust, Seaton led the launch of the prize's website in 2008 and the involvement of the prize with literary festivals.

During her tenure, Seaton has separated the role of Director from a judging role, increased the number of judges of the prize, and introduced longlists for the prize in addition to the already-existing shortlists.

Her volume of the official history of the BBC, Pinkoes and Traitors: the BBC and the Nation 1970-1987, was published by Profile Books in February 2015. Pinkoes and Traitors received some positive reviews while several other articles have been published criticising factual errors and a perceived lack of objectivity.

In The Financial Times, Chris Patten reviewed the book very favourably, writing that "Seaton reminds us what [the BBC] stands for at its best (and worst) in a book that is both hugely entertaining and wise". Libby Purves in The Times referred to Pinkoes and Traitors as "epic" and described it as a "scholarly but eye-poppingly riveting history", while Dominic Sandbrook refers to the book as having "all the detail and clarity you expect from an institutional history" in a more mixed review in The Sunday Times.

Bonnie Greer, writing in The Independent, found Seaton’s book to be a "densely argued and magisterial account", adding: "Seaton, who is the director of the Orwell Prize, writes in prose which would have impressed Orwell himself. Unsentimental, robust, devoid of jargon and clear as a bell".

In The Guardian, Seumas Milne – son of former BBC director general Alasdair Milne, whose ousting in 1987 is a key moment in Seaton’s book – praised the author’s "evocative detail" but criticised the book for its take on his father, finding that "in her enthusiasm to show that the collision of the 1980s was as much the fault of BBC obduracy and incompetence as government ideology and menace, she tips over into rewriting history. There is a no man’s land between journalism, subject to libel law and instant challenge, and established history – and it’s in that land of factual licence that Pinkoes and Traitors sits". He added: "The book is littered with inaccuracies and demonstrable distortions: from names and dates to the self-serving spin of those who have survived to tell the tale".

David Elstein has also found numerous errors in the text. A long paragraph detailing errors in names concludes with Elstein noting: "Two of those whose names are mis-spelled are amongst the twelve people thanked for reading drafts of the book". His review finishes by stating, "Yet surely what we need from a professor of media history is a degree of accuracy, respect for the facts, ability to check detail, detachment and sound judgement, all of which Pinkoes and Traitors so lamentably lacks. Let us hope her successor as BBC historian serves us better." Responding to Elstein's criticisms in her own article for openDemocracy, Seaton acknowledged: