Fabrication in BBC Panorama “Saving Syria’s Children”: Substitution of “Napalm Bomb” Footage
BBC Upholds Complaint
The below admission from the BBC that its substitution of Syria
footage between two 2014 broadcasts breaches its own Editorial
Guidelines on accuracy is a modest victory in the battle to attract
scrutiny to the wider charges that one of the reports in question (at
least) was largely, if not entirely, fabricated.
For almost two years I have pursued the question of
whether scenes of the aftermath of an alleged incendiary attack on an
Aleppo school – filmed by BBC staff and first broadcast as UK
legislators voted on military intervention in Syria – were staged for
the purposes of propaganda.
Many compelling evidence points have arisen: the widely contradictory accounts of precisely when the alleged attack occurred – including disagreement between the BBC reporter and cameraman concerned; the testimony ofa former Free Syrian Army commander stationed in the vicinity denying
that an attack occurred; a fortuitously-grabbed screencap of one of the
alleged teenage victims grinning broadly into the camera; “victims” sharing the same “costume”, and, most astonishing of all, the self-identification of
a “victim” seen in footage from the day (in reality a 52 year old
Netherlands resident) who contacted me on Facebook, anxious that she may
be recognised.
