Tackling BBC Fabrications on Syria

Many readers will recall the fabrications made by BBC radio and television concerning Syria. We are talking 'Saving Syria's Children', the alleged napalm attacks, the alleged chemical weapons attacks, the alleged chlorine attacks, and the alleged dropping of so-called barrel bombs.

Nothing has yet come of investigations into these supposed events. Ofcom has issued a big report on them and you can judge for yourselves its value!

Below are some links concerning complaints about these reports and their editing:

Ofcom ruled that elements of the programme were "materially misleading".

It also said the BBC had been treated "unfairly" by programme, called The Truthseeker, as it was not given a opportunity to address the allegations before the programme was broadcast.


 OFCOM RULES ON ALL OUTSTANDING INVESTIGATIONS INTO RT MOSCOW

Published time: 21 Sep, 2015 11:23Edited time: 21 Sep, 2015 15:08

MOSCOW, 21 SEPTEMBER 2015 — /RT is disappointed with Ofcom’s decisions that found the channel to have breached the regulator’s broadcasting Code in four cases.  The “in-breach” findings concern two episodes of a commentary show, one of which did not air in the UK, and a documentary about refugees in eastern Ukraine, which was based on eyewitness testimonies./

/“We are shocked and disappointed in Ofcom's decision. The film about refugees was based entirely on first-hand accounts of the war victims,”/ said RT’s editor in chief Margarita Simonyan.

Ofcom ruled that RT documentary /Ukraine’s Refugees/ , which did not generate a single complaint from the audience but was assessed on Ofcom’s own initiative, and which was based on the accounts of refugees fleeing war in south-eastern Ukraine, had violated the due impartiality clause. The regulator stated that the authors didn’t sufficiently represent the Ukrainian government’s point of view, even though it unambiguously stated in the film that Kiev /“denied all charges of crimes against civilians”/.

Three of the four /“in-breach”/ judgments pertained to two episodes of /The TruthSeeker/, a commentary program that was closed in July 2014. One episode referred to an independent but unofficial investigation, which suggested that a BBC report might have staged some elements of a chemical attack in Syria, and replaced reference to /“napalm”/ with the phrase /“chemical weapons”/ in an interview with a Syrian doctor. BBC did acknowledge having edited the audio track while stating that /“it is common in broadcasting to edit spoken contributions to ensure maximum clarity.”/ In its ruling, Ofcom declined to consider the evidence that supported the statements made in /The TruthSeeker/, about the BBC report in question.  In Ofcom’s view, RT had exaggerated the significance of the independent inquiry and based on that exaggeration has misled the audience. 

written by BlackCatte

When challenged by blogger Robert Stuart , the BBC claimed this disparity was due to the snipping and overlaying of the raw audio in different ways. Commentators differ on how plausible this is, and we won’t get into that here. But even if true this “explanation” does not in any way clear the BBC of the charge of manipulation. Here is the reason they gave for removing the words “chemical weapons” from their original broadcast of the footage on August 29 (our emphasis):

“…The phrase “chemical weapon” was taken out of the news piece because by the time it was broadcast it was *known that this was an incendiary bomb* that had been used in the attack. Ian Pannell mentions this on two occasions in his script prior to the clip of Dr. Rola. *To have included her speculation that this could have been a “chemical weapon” ran a considerable risk of being incredibly misleading and confusing to the audience*, not least because the incident happened within days of an alleged chemical attack in Damascus….”