Jean Seaton (born 6 March 1947) is Professor of Media History at the University of Westminster and the Official Historian of the BBC.

Pinkoes and Traitors received some positive reviews while several other articles have been published criticising factual errors and a perceived lack of objectivity.

[6] 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.

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".

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.

[10] The anonymous reviewer in Private Eye concurred with Milne and Elstein about the errors, saying: "According to this, the sixth volume of the official history of the BBC, Blue Peter celebrated its 15th anniversary in 1979 (it was the 21st anniversary), the IRA hunger strikes took place in 1982 (1981) […] while the controversial 1980 documentary Death of a Princess is called a “Channel 4 programme” (it was ITV – Channel 4 did not exist until 1982)."

"[11][12] In Power Without Responsibility (2010) [1988], she wrote of Marmaduke Hussey's chairmanship of the BBC quite negatively, stating that he "brutally dismissed one director general, shabbily pushed aside the next, and appointed the third, John Birt, without even advertising the job or considering other candidates."

[13]: 206  In 2021's Guardians of Public Value, she wrote of him to have been an "excellent" chair and to have "helped creatively to change [the BBC's] direction", only describing his initial appointment as politically motivated.