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In August 2013, the BBC broadcast an episode of Panorama titled "Saving Syria's Children" portraying a chemical attack.

The Russian TV Channel RT claims that the attack was staged by the BBC.

It further claimed that the BBC replayed one of the interviews in September 2013, but that the voice of the interviewees had been altered, so that rather than saying "It must be some sort of napalm", she said "It must be some sort of chemical weapon."

The BBC complained to the UK Regulator Ofcom about the accusations. This 2015 BBC News article suggests that the UK regulator sided with the BBC and found the RT had breached journalism standards in its report.

However, the article doesn't actually state whether the BBC altered the clip or not, as is portrayed in the RT report.

Did the BBC alter the words of one of its interviewees in post-production?

Oddthinking
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dwjohnston
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1 Answers1

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No - the BBC apparently did edit an interview, twice, but seems not to have added words. The interviewee originally both used the words "chemical attack" and used the word "napalm"; the BBC using different parts of the same interview in different broadcasts

You can read Ofcom's investigation into RT (not into the BBC) at https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/50507/issue_288.pdf (pages 22-48) in which RT/TV-Novosti told Ofcom that the original interview with Dr Rola Hallam had

“I need a pause because it’s just absolute chaos and carnage here...umm... we’ve had a massive influx of what look like serious burns... Er... it seems like it must be some sort of chemical weapon, I’m not really sure, maybe napalm, something similar to that. Um so we are trying to do a bit of triage and stabilisation. We’ve got a lot of walking wounded who are managing to manage OK but obviously within the chaos of the situation it’s very difficult to know exactly what’s going on...”

and that this was edited down for the BBC News on 29 August 2013 to

“I need a pause because it’s just absolute chaos and carnage here...umm... we’ve had a massive influx of what look like serious burns... Er... it seems like it must be some sort of napalm, something similar to that ... but obviously within the chaos of the situation it’s very difficult to know exactly what’s going on...”

and that the 30 September 2013 BBC News and the BBC Panorama Programme had

“it’s just absolute chaos and carnage here we’ve had a massive influx of what look like serious burns ... it seems like it must be some sort of chemical weapon, I’m not really sure”

The RT report took a lot of its allegations from Robert Stuart, whose related blog can be found at https://bbcpanoramasavingsyriaschildren.wordpress.com/ and includes a response to him from the BBC related to this particular point at https://bbcpanoramasavingsyriaschildren.wordpress.com/2014/01/18/bbc-response-to-first-letter-of-complaint-2-december-2013/

Henry
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    “the BBC apparently did edit an interview” — To put this into perspective, **every** news outlet edits their interviews. It’s normal procedure. Un-edited interviews are mostly horrible to watch/listen to/read. – Konrad Rudolph Apr 11 '17 at 09:21