Posted on 07/15/2007 11:20:13 AM PDT by blam
BBC in more trouble over edited pieces
By Patrick Phelvin , Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 5:14pm BST 15/07/2007
The BBC was involved in a fresh row about doctored footage yesterday after it admitted mixing up the chronology of a documentary about Gordon Brown. Just days before Director General Mark Thompson is hauled before the BBC Trust to explain the royal fiasco, it emerged that the sequence of a Newsnight film had also been altered.
The Treasury has complained to the corporation that the 12-minute piece, on attempts by documentary-maker Jamie Campbell to secure an interview with Brown during the leadership contest, unfairly portrayed the PM and his staff.
Featured on the flagship news programme on June 26, it showed Treasury Press officer Belshan Izzet clashing with Campbell as Brown arrived in London to talk to Muslim leaders. He then suggests that the next time they met the civil servant recognised him and summoned police, insisting they question him under anti-terror laws. But the two events happened two weeks apart, and in reverse order.
In the latest row about deceit in television, Newsnight stands accused of wrongly portraying the press officer as abusing her position and doctoring footage to make Brown appear less accessible. Treasury oficials have also raised concerns that a hidden camera was used to record a bodyguard, without his knowledge, describing Brown as “shy and introverted”.
Newsnight’s deputy editor Robbie Gibb admitted that a sequence had been shown out of chronological order but said it made no difference to the meaning.
The disclosure of the complaint follows the row over footage of the Queen which apparently showed her storming out of a photo shoot. The BBC subsequently apologised after admitting that the sequence of events had been shown out of order.
But Mr Gibb said the Newsnight package was different to the item on the Queen. He said: “(The Treasury) were unhappy with the film in general but directed their complaint at how the film portrayed a Treasury press officer, claiming the chronology of two events were out of sequence and as such misrepresented the events.”
The BBC insisted there had been no intention to deceive. “The commentary does not suggest that the two are chronological and that one led to the other,” a spokesman said. “The sequences would have had the same meaning if we had run them in the reverse order. “It has been suggested that the filmmaker may have employed dishonest tactics in filming, using a hidden camera. “The camera was visible at all times and the film-maker was completely open about his intentions.”
The latest complaint about editorial propriety comes after a wave of criticism for television programme-makers and journalists. BBC1 controller Peter Fincham’s fate is likely to be decided after Wednesday’s meeting between the Director General and the BBC Trust, the governing body tasked with ensuring programme quality.
This week also sees the release of a damning report on rigged quiz show phone ins. Written by Richard Ayre, former chief executive of BBC News and now a board member of watchdog the Office of Communications, it is expected to sharply criticise TV companies for practices such as drawing up shortlists of winners before phone lines close and asking TV staff to masquerade as winners.
Earlier this month the BBC was fined £50,000 for persuading a child guest in the Blue Peter studio to pose as the winner of a phone in competition. The Treasury declined to comment.
I saw a poll yesterday that said 87% of those participating do no trust the BBC.
The Michael Moore school of documentary.
Does anyone know if the UK is experiencing the death of oldmedia like the US is?
Shameless propagandists posing as journalists biting the government teat that feeds them....
Don't Know.
Some news organizations place way too much emphasis on “facts” and “accuracy”. Bravo for not succumbing to the temptation of trendy fads like truth in reporting, BBC!
Great Screen Name Bunny Slippers.
I wouldn’t say “death” of the old media, just a lot more choices leading to lower ratings for the older media.
Cable/sat arrived in Britain in a big way in the 90s, according to a Brit poster here, and that opened up the field. With more diverse news sources, the Beeb’s reportorial slant became much easier to detect and document over time. I really got hot under the collar with some of their coverage of the ME, back when I was under the illusion the Beeb was a vaunted news source and I checked them regularly.
Murdoch has his Sky News, which had a lot of live feed during the recent islamo-incinerations in London and Glasgow.
Apparently BBC has a royal charter so it is not going to disappear. Dang.
If the studio is that cold, they really need to turn up the heat before they let any children in there. :=)
Wow. This is shocking.
Seldom do I watch newsnight but I did actually watch this piece - but for them to claim it made no difference is a flat out LIE.
The whole way they played it was “the more we tried to make contact the more harsh they got with us”
i.e. by showing reference to the terrorism act in reverse order aimed to show a progression in the hostility toward this film maker when that was clearly not the case.
This is quite disturbing - from an independent broadcaster you might expect it - but NOT from the bbc.
This is actually quite an outrage.
Is there anyone we can trust these days?
You guys need to have a yourselves a little T(V)-party over there....
Sadly we are.
I read today that they footed a 200k bill to give hospitality to 5 mps and a few others at the glastonberry music festival the other week.
It’s a scam.
More unbiased reporting I see.
Ah !
Fake but accurate!
Haven't we seen that somewhere before?
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