Not sure if this was mentioned in the comments, but ex-Panorama journalist Tom Mangold unloaded on his former employer in Sunday’s Independent:
Primark’s objections were investigated by the BBC’s internal Editorial Complaints Unit (ECU); its admirable report, completed last summer, was, at the request of Primark, never published – because the retailer thought it would jeopardise its appeal to the BBC Trust. Remarkably, senior BBC managers used that decision to put an aggressive public relations operation into action: someone authorised the press office to brief several newspapers that Panorama had been exonerated, when, in fact, the report had done nothing of the sort. In fact, the ECU, set up after the Hutton inquiry, specifically highlighted the suspicious nature of the footage in question.
It is only now, three years after the programme was broadcast, that the BBC Trust has forced Panorama to admit the error of its ways. In the meantime, the BBC’s arrogant refusal to admit it was wrong has resulted in an editorial catastrophe not only for Panorama, the flagship, but for all the corporation’s journalism.
And this from Tim Black on the self-righteous moralising behind the Panorama programme is good too:
That ethical consumerism is almost solely concerned with using the lives of the world’s impoverished to chastise those crowding the aisles of Tesco or Primark was clear from a particular segment in On the Rack. There, Panorama reporter Tom Heap confronted shoppers across Britain with the now infamous child-labour footage. This, as Daniel Ben-Ami remarked at the time on spiked, was ‘the contemporary equivalent of forcing someone to confess a sin’. It was a moment that captured the deeply elitist, profoundly snobbish core of ethical consumption. That is, it’s all about elevating those who shop ethically above those who shop on a budget: the masses can have their cheap chic, runs the barely concealed logic, they can even look good – but we are better than them.
So sure of their superiority, in fact, that they think it’s OK to fake a crucial scene and then bullshit the papers about it later.
Good catch by Mangold. The Beeb piece on the 16th of June linked to a Guardian blog by Roy Greenslade, where the lie is repeated yet again.
When the clothing retailer originally complained that the segment – which showed young boys in Bangalore making clothes – was faked, the BBC’s editorial complaints unit held an inquiry into the complaint and cleared the programme makers.
Anyone from the Beeb like to explain why, after the Trust’s decision, you are linking to this old lie?
Wow, I’m losing count of the number of times that, while the Graun journos can only offer blind support, the readership knows a lemon when they see it… and are not afraid to call on it.
Greenslade must be an even deeper shade of red now.
When even your own neutered mutt of a “Trust” says that you`re likely to have lied…to go on as if you`ve been exonerated is -well exactly what the BBC trains its ciphers to do.
Dogs bark, bees sting…and anyone paid by the BBC will do anything for an award or to have bragging rights in Heaven on Sturday night.
They really need to be chopped off at the wallet…at least Brand had to f***off and pimp off others like himself.
Let that be the BBC Branding exercise we do on the Baddiels, Henrys, Toksvig, Brigstockes, Hardys….
Maybe the fake clip of the 3 boys picking at sequins was only meant as illustration for the commentary.
After all, the BBC’s news dept often thinks we need such illustration to grasp what is being said. That’s why it show us, for example, a video clip of a person filling up a car with petrol to accompany a news item about petrol prices.
Another favourite is the very short clip of a woman and a nurse preparing for a breast X ray, shown every single time breast cancer is mentioned.
Bet there`s a rummage sale on sequinned thongs down in the BBC canteen after their jaunt to India recently.
No chance, Phil. The BBC make no claim that this was just an illustrative clip.
I can write the script for the BBC :-
“Mangold, old , out-of-touch, bitter, never complained when he was working at the BBC…….. blah, blah, blah….. “