Fabrication in BBC Panorama’s ‘Saving Syria’s Children’

On 18 December 2014 I received the BBC Trust’s final decision on whether it would hear my complaint regarding ‘Saving Syria’s Children’.

The decision was taken at the 6 November 2014 meeting of the Trust’s Editorial Standards Committee (ESC) and ratified at its December meeting. The decision was published on the BBC website on 20 January 2015 in the October – November 2014 edition of the ESC’s appeals findings report (pp 134 – 159). Below is an annotated copy of the decision with a number of weblinks included for further information and clarification. A lack of annotation in any part does not indicate agreement.

A decision on a final request for review of an appeal made separately by another complainant was taken at the ESC’s January 2015 meeting and will be relayed to the complainant in February. A complaint regarding the re-editing of the 29 August 2014 edition of Newsnight is also pending.        

Decision of the Editorial Standards Committee

BBC One, Panorama: Saving Syria’s Children, 30 September 2013

BBC One, Ten O’Clock News, 29 August 2013

BBC One, Ten O’Clock News, 30 September 2013

The complainant asked the Editorial Standards Committee to review the decision of the Trust Unit that the complainant’s appeal did not qualify to proceed for consideration by the Committee.

The complaint

In the summer of 2013 a BBC team travelled to Syria with two British doctors who were working with a charity, to bring medical care to the war-affected region. This is the programme billing on the BBC website:

“In a special edition, Panorama travels with British doctors inside Syria to exclusively reveal the devastating impact of the war on children caught in the conflict. The doctors witness the aftermath of the bombing of a school by a suspected napalm-like incendiary device and medical facilities constantly under attack – both war crimes under international law. Filmed in the north of the country after the chemical weapons attack in Damascus which inflamed world opinion and brought America, Russia and the UN to the table, the film shows how the conventional war is intensifying with children bearing the brunt of this humanitarian catastrophe.”

The complainant alleged that sequences depicting the aftermath of the incendiary bomb attack contained “a large degree of fabrication”.

The two news reports included in the appeal were items about the incendiary attack; they both used material shot by the Panorama team, most of which also appeared in the documentary.

In its response at Stage 2, the Editorial Complaints Unit (ECU) advised it was incorporating into one response the allegations concerning the reports which appeared on the Ten O’Clock News and the allegations about Panorama. The same approach was adopted for this decision.

None of the issues raised by the complainant were upheld at Stage 1 or Stage 2. 

Appeal to the BBC Trust

The complainant appealed to the BBC Trust on 11 June 2014.

The complainant appealed on the substance of his complaint that, in his view, the programme had breached the BBC’s and Ofcom’s guidelines in the following ways: 

Right of reply and fairness

The complainant considered that the BBC had made the supremely serious allegation that the Syrian government had deliberately targeted schoolchildren with an incendiary device, yet had at no point requested or published a response from the Syrian government as required by section 6.4.25 of the BBC Editorial Guidelines and section 7.11 of the Ofcom Broadcasting Code.

Misleading audiences

The complainant considered that ‘Saving Syria’s Children’ misled audiences in a number of ways and the programme breached the BBC Editorial Guidelines in the misleading chronology presented in its first half, the editing out of all chronology of the scenes of the “napalm bomb” “victims” from 30:38 onwards and, above all, in the staging of an atrocity.

The complainant presented a number of points to support his view that the programme misled audiences. He argued that there were discrepancies between the Panorama programme and third party content. The discrepancies he highlighted related to, but were not limited to, the casualty figures, the date and time of the attack, images and details of victims. The complainant considered that the inconsistencies suggested that the incident had been fabricated. This paragraph is a loose roundup of concerns I have expressed throughout my correspondence with the BBC and does not represent the contents of my 11 June 2014 appeal which focused narrowly on a number of specific points.

He raised the following additional points:

• An audio edit of an interview with a doctor was misleading.
• The nature and severity of the injuries of some of the victims seemed to be fabricated.
• The location of the attack appeared to be a private home and not a school, which suggested the incident had been fabricated.
• There had been recycling of “costumes” between two “actors”, which suggested the incident had been fabricated.
• The affiliations between one of the doctors, the charity featured on the programme, and the Syrian Opposition Movement were not scrutinized.

Of the five bulleted points above, only the fourth was included in my 11 June appeal. I had last raised the point regarding the school on 17 March 2014.

The complainant asked the Trust to review the decision of the ECU not to uphold his appeal. He also asked for points he had raised in previous correspondence to be considered and included some additional information to support those points. 

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