Following on from last night's post about the latest BBC faux-pas, here is a BBC Newsnight interview of Peter Fincham, Controller of BBC One, the man who presented the fabricated clip of the Queen to journalists on Wednesday, saying, according to David Silitto's report, "yes, it looks as though she stormed out", as he did so.
BBC Newsnight: Peter Fincham interview
BBC Newsnight interview of Peter Fincham, Controller of BBC One
Full post still to follow.
Read more...Today the BBC was forced to issue a grovelling apology to Her Majesty the Queen after showing journalists a preview trailer implying, actually, lying would be more accurate, that Her Majesty had stormed out of a photo shoot after a dispute with photographer Annie Leibovitz.
Naturally enough, journalists being journalists, saw this clip of the queen apparently storming out of the photo shoot for the major news story it apparently was, and splashed it all over this morning's newspapers.
Unfortunately, the BBC being the BBC, the truth was very different. The BBC's clip showed the Queen objecting to Leibovitz's request for her to remove her tiara, then cut to a clip of the Queen apparently 'storming out' of the photo shoot, in which she is heard to say "I've had enough with this dressing, I'm not going to change anything".
The reality was entirely different - the clip of the Queen 'storming out' was in fact footage of the Queen arriving for the photo shoot, with the Queen presumably complaining about getting dressed up (hence her quote). During the subsequent photo shoot, when Leibovitz asks Her Majesty to remove her tiara, the Queen appears to object by raising an eyebrow in what appears to be mock exclamation, the tiara being an important part of her regalia.
Following the wall-to-wall newspaper brouhaha the Palace complained to the BBC, who checked out what they should have checked out in the first place, and then issued a grovelling apology for publishing such a malign calumny.
Here are two of the BBC's own lengthy reports on today's events:
BBC News 24 this afternoon:
BBC News 24 this afternoon, with David Silitto reporting on the BBC's apology
The interesting points in David Silitto's report (above), include the BBC's statement of apology:
In this trailer there is a sequence that implies the Queen left a sitting prematurely. This was not the case and the actual sequence of events was misrepresented. The BBC would like to apologise to both the Queen and Annie Leibovitz for any upset this may have caused.
Silitto also says:
The issue of deception and trust has been said to be an absolute number one priority for the BBC, in fact an email was sent out only a matter of hours ago saying we need to look at every programme over the last few years to be sure, absolutely sure, that in no way we have deceived the public (my emphasis).
It sounds like the email was sent out before this story broke, though that's not entirely clear. What is clear though is that, if the BBC are to really check back in the way described, then they've got their work cut out for them. There are a lot of things they'll need to check, a lot of them are featured right here in Biased BBC's own archives. Somehow I expect they'll just have the most cursory of looks and then report back that there's nothing to worry about, so that's alright then.
BBC One's Six O'Clock News:
This clip has two parts - the first fifteen seconds are from the news headlines at the start of the programme, followed by the full report.
BBC One's Six O'Clock News, with Razia Iqbal reporting on the BBC's apology
Interestingly, in contrast to BBC News 24, where they said they couldn't show the original trailer footage "for understandable reasons", this report does include the footage shown to journalists, with the sequence in question about 53" seconds into the Youtube clip.
The report goes on to include a clip of Leigh Holmwood of The Guardian (where else, Beeboids!) on press reaction, Ray Snoddy, a respected journalist and media commentator (also presenter of the BBC's own Newswatch show), saying:
Ray Snoddy: Coming so soon after the fine over Blue Peter, you'd think somebody at the BBC might have thought this was a rather sensitive subject, and might have been more careful, and might have foreseen a possible row by feeding all of this material to the tabloids, who accepted it with the greatest glee.
Razia Iqbal: The other point to make is that broadcasters on the whole feel that they really are up against it in terms of pressure to compete for audiences, so when they launch their highlights for the next season they all want to try and do the best, and clearly this is something that's happened this time, in trying to highlight something that they think was a real scoop, they've not really looked carefully enough at what they were showing, what they were trying to highlight.
Really Razia, do you really think that they were just trying to do their best and that "they've not really looked carefully enough at what they were showing"?
Come off it - they manufactured a lie, as simple as that. There is no other way to interpret this devious manipulation of reality, damaging to the reputations of both Her Majesty and Annie Leibovitz. It was a straightforward manufactured lie, and yet you seem content to pass it off as people just trying to do their best and not paying quite enough attention!
Annie Leibovitz's portrait of Her Majesty the Queen:
Annie Leibovitz's striking portrait of Her Majesty - the finished product
Apologies for the delayed appearance of a post on this momentous story - it has taken some time to capture, edit, process and upload the clips, not to mention transcribing quotes and writing the rest of the post. More to follow tomorrow.
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