{"id":70307,"date":"2021-09-06T08:59:42","date_gmt":"2021-09-06T07:59:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/?p=70307"},"modified":"2021-09-06T13:45:54","modified_gmt":"2021-09-06T12:45:54","slug":"bbc-admits-to-flawed-syria-documentary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/2021\/09\/06\/bbc-admits-to-flawed-syria-documentary\/","title":{"rendered":"BBC admits to flawed Syria documentary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/mail-bbc-complaint-re-syria.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-70308\" src=\"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/mail-bbc-complaint-re-syria.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"822\" height=\"258\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<ul class=\"mol-bullets-with-font\">\n<li class=\"class\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><b>BBC said a documentary on alleged chemical weapon attack had inaccuracies\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"class\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><b>The programme dealt with an alleged chemical attack at Douma, Syria, in 2018<\/b><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"class\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><b>It\u00a0included an account of &#8216;Alex&#8217;, a former inspector with the poison gas watchdog<\/b><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"class\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><b>BBC said it had no evidence that &#8216;Alex&#8217; believed the attack in Douma was staged <\/b><\/span><b style=\"color: #800000;\">Adjudicators agreed it had failed to meet ECU&#8217;s editorial standards for accuracy<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"author-section byline-plain\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-9958679\/BBC-admits-Syria-gas-attack-report-flaws-complaint-Peter-Hitchens.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Padraic Flanagan, Mail on Sunday, <span class=\"article-timestamp article-timestamp-published\"><time datetime=\"2021-09-05T01:29:35+0100\">5 September 2021<\/time><\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\">The<\/span> <strong><a id=\"mol-567fbc50-0de0-11ec-b0f7-c58bc6ada980\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/bbc\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">BBC<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><span style=\"color: #800000;\">has admitted that a Radio 4 documentary on an alleged chemical weapon attack in<\/span>\u00a0<strong><a id=\"mol-5681df30-0de0-11ec-b0f7-c58bc6ada980\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/syria\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Syria<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0<span style=\"color: #800000;\">contained serious inaccuracies.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\">The Corporation&#8217;s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) upheld a protest from Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens following last November&#8217;s broadcast of Mayday: The Canister On The Bed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Adjudicators agreed the programme by BBC investigative journalist Chloe Hadjimatheou failed to meet the Corporation&#8217;s accuracy standards by reporting false claims.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\">The programme, part of a series on the conflict in Syria, dealt with an attack at Douma in 2018 and included an account of the role later played by &#8216;Alex&#8217;, a former inspector with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"imageCaption\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\">The BBC has admitted that a Radio 4 documentary on an alleged chemical weapon attack in Douma (pictured in 2018), Syria, contained serious inaccuracies.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\">[ezcol_1third]<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Adjudicators ruled that the programme by investigative journalist Chloe Hadjimatheou failed to meet the Corporation&#8217;s editorial standards for accuracy by reporting false claims.<\/span><\/p>\n<h6 style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Right:\u00a0 Chloe Hadjimatheou [\/ezcol_1third] [ezcol_2third_end]<a href=\"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Chloe-Hadjimatheou-BBC-Douma.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-70369\" src=\"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Chloe-Hadjimatheou-BBC-Douma.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"428\" height=\"285\" srcset=\"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Chloe-Hadjimatheou-BBC-Douma.jpg 428w, https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Chloe-Hadjimatheou-BBC-Douma-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 428px) 100vw, 428px\" \/><\/a>[\/ezcol_2third_end]<\/span><\/h6>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><br \/>\nLast week \u2013 nearly ten months after the broadcast \u2013 the ECU delivered its finding that the BBC was wrong to insinuate that &#8216;Alex&#8217; was motivated to go public about his doubts over the attack by the prospect of a $100,000 (\u00a372,000) reward from the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\">No such reward was ever paid, according to WikiLeaks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\">The BBC also accepted it had no evidence to back up its claim that &#8216;Alex&#8217;, a highly qualified and apolitical scientist, believed the attack in Douma, which prompted retaliatory missile strikes by Britain, the US and France, had been staged. <span id='easy-footnote-1-70307' class='easy-footnote-margin-adjust'><\/span><span class='easy-footnote'><a href='https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/2021\/09\/06\/bbc-admits-to-flawed-syria-documentary\/#easy-footnote-bottom-1-70307' title='Some do say the Douma attack was staged, and they are not easily dismissed. (See this &lt;a href=&quot;https:\/\/off-guardian.org\/2021\/05\/25\/douma-3-years-on\/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot; rel=&quot;noopener&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;review by Eva Bartlett&lt;\/strong&gt;&lt;\/a&gt; in OffGuardian earlier this year. Ms Bartlett does visit Syria: making her, in the eyes of corporate media, an &amp;#8220;Assad apologist&amp;#8221;. Meanwhile accounts by deskbound columnists using sources at best limited &amp;#8211; like the one man &lt;a href=&quot;https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/04\/10\/world\/middleeast\/the-man-behind-the-casualty-figures-in-syria.html&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot; rel=&quot;noopener&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Syrian Observatory on Human Rights&lt;\/strong&gt;&lt;\/a&gt; &amp;#8211; and at worst tainted &amp;#8211; like the jihadi-friendly &lt;a href=&quot;https:\/\/21stcenturywire.com\/2018\/08\/01\/hitchens-on-white-helmets-heroes-or-fanatics\/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot; rel=&quot;noopener&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;White Helmets&lt;\/strong&gt;&lt;\/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2019\/11\/27\/narrative-managers-faceplant-in-opcw-scandal-spin-job\/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot; rel=&quot;noopener&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;DC funded Bellingcat&lt;\/strong&gt;&lt;\/a&gt; &amp;#8211; are cited as unbiased truth.) But Chloe Hadjimatheou&amp;#8217;s documentary alleged that &amp;#8216;Alex&amp;#8217; shares the belief that Douma was staged. Which speaks to me less of deliberate misrepresentation; more of a decade old demonising, of all things Assad, too intense to leave room for discrimination. All who challenge the official line on Syria &amp;#8211; former ambassadors like Peter Ford and Craig Murray, ex CIA men like Philip Giraldi and women like &lt;a href=&quot;https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/2019\/11\/12\/syria-the-opcw-and-the-cia-renegade\/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot; rel=&quot;noopener&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Elizabeth Murray&lt;\/strong&gt;&lt;\/a&gt;, former US Senators like Dick Black, Assad loathing but truth loving journalists like Hitchens, or OPCW whistleblowers aghast at this UN body&amp;#8217;s manipulation of factual evidence and capitulation to DC bullying &amp;#8211; are tarred with the same brush. (My list of dissenters is far from exhaustive though you wouldn&amp;#8217;t know this from corporate media whose most frequent lies are of omission.) This failure to distinguish differently motivated challengers of the official narrative serves as a measure of the extent to which a &amp;#8220;Get Assad&amp;#8221; agenda has been lazily internalised &amp;#8211; I dare say Ms Hadjimatheou believes all she says &amp;#8211; and trumps every other factor.'><sup>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\">In its ruling, the Corporation withdrew the imputation that Mr Hitchens, who has reported on despotic regimes for more than 40 years, shared &#8216;the Russian and Syrian state views on the war&#8217;.\u00a0 <span id='easy-footnote-2-70307' class='easy-footnote-margin-adjust'><\/span><span class='easy-footnote'><a href='https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/2021\/09\/06\/bbc-admits-to-flawed-syria-documentary\/#easy-footnote-bottom-2-70307' title='See footnote 1. Take me for instance. I do not share Peter Hitchens&amp;#8217; assessment, which the Mail clearly implies here, of Putin&amp;#8217;s Russia and Assad&amp;#8217;s Syria as &amp;#8216;despotic regimes&amp;#8217;. For current purposes, however, that is beside the point.'><sup>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> <span id='easy-footnote-3-70307' class='easy-footnote-margin-adjust'><\/span><span class='easy-footnote'><a href='https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/2021\/09\/06\/bbc-admits-to-flawed-syria-documentary\/#easy-footnote-bottom-3-70307' title='See my post, &lt;a href=&quot;https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/?s=universalism&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot; rel=&quot;noopener&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Monbiot, Syria and Universalism&lt;\/strong&gt;&lt;\/a&gt;. Though written close to four years ago, nothing that has since happened alters my view that we have been massively lied to on Syria, while much that has since happened reaffirms it. (I do, however, retract an aside in which I refer to Russia and China as imperialisms. &lt;a href=&quot;https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/2021\/04\/18\/three-china-reads-3-global-reach\/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot; rel=&quot;noopener&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I no longer believe that&lt;\/strong&gt;&lt;\/a&gt;.) See also two of my 2019 posts, &lt;a href=&quot;https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/2019\/10\/12\/the-kurds-in-syria\/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot; rel=&quot;noopener&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The Kurds in Syria&lt;\/strong&gt;&lt;\/a&gt;, and &lt;a href=&quot;https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/2019\/11\/20\/syria-how-trotskyism-got-it-so-wrong\/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot; rel=&quot;noopener&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Syria &amp;#8211; how Trotskyism got it so wrong&lt;\/strong&gt;&lt;\/a&gt;. Finally, for a broader take on virally propagated dominant narratives, see my 2018 review of the Media Lens book, &lt;a href=&quot;https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/2018\/10\/02\/book-review-propaganda-blitz-2\/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot; rel=&quot;noopener&quot;&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Propaganda Blitz&lt;\/strong&gt;&lt;\/a&gt;.'><sup>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"imageCaption\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\">The programme (pictured) dealt with an attack at Douma in 2018 and included an account of the role later played by &#8216;Alex&#8217;, a former inspector with the poison gas watchdog<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\">The ECU ruled the BBC was wrong to insinuate that &#8216;Alex&#8217; was motivated to go public about his doubts over the attack by the prospect of a reward from WikiLeaks. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Upholding his complaint, the adjudicators said: &#8216;The ECU found that, although they were limited to one aspect of an investigation into a complex and hotly contested subject, these points represented a failure to meet the standard of accuracy appropriate to a programme of this kind.&#8217;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Welcoming the ruling, Mr Hitchens said: &#8216;This is a major victory for the truth. The whistle-blowers inside the OPCW were always motivated by a strict regard for scientific truth.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\">&#8216;Far from seeking rewards, they realised that their actions would damage their careers but went ahead anyway.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\">&#8216;I do not serve any government, least of all those in Moscow and Damascus. <\/span><span style=\"color: #800000;\">I am glad the BBC has now made clear that it grasps that my reporting was motivated solely by the search for truth.&#8217;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\">He added: &#8216;It is astonishingly rare for the BBC to rule against itself. <\/span><span style=\"color: #800000;\">This is a huge development. I hope it represents a wider change of heart in the Corporation.&#8217;\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">*<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BBC said a documentary on alleged chemical weapon attack had inaccuracies\u00a0 The programme dealt with an alleged chemical attack at Douma, Syria, in 2018 It\u00a0included an account of &#8216;Alex&#8217;, a former inspector with the poison gas watchdog BBC said it &#8230; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/2021\/09\/06\/bbc-admits-to-flawed-syria-documentary\/\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-politics-middle-east"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70307\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}