Wednesday, 13 July 2011

MORE ROYAL TELEVISION SOCIETY SCANDAL

I just found this story about Royal Television Society doling out an award to this dodgy documentary. So the Channel Television award for a well biased documentary to discredit the Jersey police investigation of Haut de la Garenne was not the first for RTS to be involved with. I would like to know who nominated this program for an award, but I do not expect Peter Bazalgette (Tom Watson MP,s friend) will be wanting to tell me somehow!

Shamed BBC hand back top award after 'faking footage of child labour' in Primark Panorama expose
By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 10:45 PM on 28th June 2011

The BBC today handed back a prestigious award it won for a Panorama programme after an investigation found it 'more likely than not' included faked footage of child labour.
The corporation won the Current Affairs Home Prize at the Royal Television Society awards for its show Primark: On The Rack, which was broadcast in June 2008.
It apologised to fashion chain Primark earlier this month after a report by the BBC Trust's editorial standards committee found a 45-second-long clip should not have been included.

Claims: The programme seemed to show children working on the clothing
A BBC spokesman said today: 'The BBC has apologised for including a short section of film which could not be authenticated in the Panorama programme Primark - On the Rack.
'We acknowledge that a serious error was made and therefore it would be inappropriate to keep the RTS award.'
The trust report, published earlier this month, stated: 'Having carefully scrutinised all of the relevant evidence, the committee concluded that, on the balance of probabilities, it was more likely than not that the Bangalore footage was not authentic.'
The BBC will apologise after it showed footage that was 'more likely than not' to have been faked
The Trust's report centred on scenes in the programme which were said to have shown the youngsters inspecting vest-tops and making sure ‘sequins don’t end up falling off in the hands of customers back in Britain’.
But on closer inspection the BBC Trust claimed there were inconsistencies and improbabilities.
The programme, broadcast in June 2008, had sought to investigate whether Primark could make ‘cheap, fast fashion without breaking ethical guidelines’.
Primark on the rack included footage said to show three boys in a Bangalore workshop testing stitching in the shop's clothes
As well as apologising on BBC1, the corporation will also have to display an apology on the Panorama website for a week and was told the footage can never be repeated or sold abroad.
The BBC could still be hit with a fine for breaching broadcasting as media regulator Ofcom said it would consider any complaint made to it by Primark.
The trust’s Editorial Standards Committee examined evidence such as the unedited ‘rushes’ of the programme and emails to the production team from the freelance journalist Dan McDougall, who obtained the footage.
The BBC trust said it wanted to apologise for a 'rare lapse in quality'
The BBC said today that they were handing back a prestigious award that the investigation won
The ruling noted six points that indicated the footage might not be genuine in the 45-second clip. This included the size of needles used, which it was claimed would have been ‘inappropriate’ for ‘delicate’ work they were doing.
Primark described the apology as extraordinary
The BBC Trust also found it odd that in the Bangalore scene there appeared to be no other garments visible in shot – which would be unusual if it was a ‘quality control process’.
It added that the way it had been filmed – with a tight focus on the boys and less on their surrounding environment – added to concerns. There were also said to be ‘inconsistencies’ in the evidence such as the email trail.
The report also found the corporation had broken its ‘accountability’ guidelines over how it handled the complaints process, which went on for three years.
Primark described the finding as ‘extraordinary’, claiming shoppers had been ‘fed a lie’. It even suggested the BBC had been in possession of enough evidence to prove the scenes were not real before it broadcast them.
However, defenders of the programme pointed out the BBC Trust agreed that overall the programme had obtained ‘clear evidence’ work was being outsourced from other factories in India which contravened Pri-mark’s ethical trading principles.
David Thomson of international aid agency World Vision stressed the ‘key concern’ should be that ‘Panorama proved Primark was breaking its own policies’.
In 2007 Blue Peter, Comic Relief and Children in Need were found guilty of faking competition winners. And in 2009 a Sun, Sea and Bargain Spotting cameraman posed as a customer.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2009113/Panorama-Primark-expose-BBC-hand-RTS-award-fake-child-labour-footage.html#ixzz1Rz80jwIv

1 comment:

Zoompad said...

WHO IS MAKING ALL THESE DODGY NOMINATIONS THEN?