You can’t just do this
It’s not directly related to Scottish independence, but we were disturbed to be alerted by former UK ambassador Craig Murray to a piece of recent BBC coverage. A friend of ours has helpfully cut down the video footage in question to just the important parts, and saved it in case of sudden disappearances. You should probably watch them.
Both clips are from BBC reporting of a chemical attack in Syria, for an episode of Panorama. The first one appears here, at 2m 0s, and the key section is this one:
The second one is from this page, at 2m 18s, and this is the extract:
You’ll note that both feature the same woman, wearing a protective mask and apparently speaking live. There’s no audible cut as she speaks and of course you can’t see her mouth, but the two clips have her saying different things.
VERSION 1
“…it’s just absolute chaos and carnage here, erm we’ve had a massive influx of what look like serious burns, er seems like it must be some sort of chemical weapon, I’m not really sure…“
VERSION 2
“…it’s just absolute chaos and carnage here, erm we’ve had a massive influx of what look like serious burns, er seems like it must be some sort of, I’m not really sure, maybe napalm, something similar to that…“
(Our emphases.)
Now, in this particular instance it happens that the underlying meaning hasn’t been significantly changed. Napalm IS “some sort of chemical weapon” (though it may not meet the technical UN definition of one, which could be important). But here’s the same woman, in the same footage, apparently saying two different things.
Or rather, it LOOKS like it’s the same footage. But in fact it’s not. Unnoticed by Craig Murray, and also by ourselves until some readers picked it up, the scene has been re-shot. You can tell by watching the chap in the high-visibility jacket standing beside Dr Hallam – in the first clip his arms are down by his sides the entire time, whereas in the second they’re behind his back the whole time.
(The second clip also has a car horn dubbed in at the point where Dr Hallam says “some sort of”, to cover the join where the audio’s been edited.)
We’re sure we can’t be the only people who find this more than a little troubling.
News reporting is about trust. The BBC is the UK state broadcaster. All we’re saying is, maybe bear these two short pieces of video in mind the next time it shows you a suspiciously short clip of someone speaking and then tells you what they said.
Wouldnt trust them as far as i could throw em, Brit-State propaganda mouth piece, as for the pathetic quay lot, where do you start?
It’s the second video which has been tampered with.
Maybe it’s a musician’s ear listening here but I caught an audible snip between “some sort of[], I’m not really sure”.
I believe the phrase “chemical weapon” has been cut out from it.
Of course, the first video is just as suspicious given that they chopped the entire second part of the sentence instead of just a bit in the middle.
Thats shocking. Think the BBC was to be on message for Camerons bombing ambition for Syria. How far will they go?
Looking at the background, and listening to the background noise, I’d guess Version 2 was filmed first, and she was asked to replace the word “napalm” with “chemical weapon”. Disgusting and, given the BBC’s rightful criticism of the “sexed up” Iraq dossier, very hypocritical. But also unsurprising.
Perhaps we should ask her what she thinks – I thought I’d check if Dr Rola Hallam existed and she seems to (scroll down a bit):
link to atfal.co.uk
Is it me or is she the only one in view wearing a mask? Whole thing stinks,
of black propaganda
Did they not also get caught recently using a ten-year-old photo of dead bodies from Iraq at the top of a story about what was at the time an unconfirmed massacre in Syria?
Dear oh dear, interestingly in the first August report I Pannel himself says, after she speaks,
“This wasn’t a chemical weapon but a so called conventional one”.
Putting words in mouth yes but are you saying she doesn’t the second part, not sure.
I was visiting some friends last night and they had the beeb on, I cant watch telly at home as I have stopped paying my licence fee (honest) Anyway, there was a short report on the news about the destruction of the Syrian Chemical Weapons, the BBC reported that Assad had said he will not use Chemical Weapons against his own people again as he knows that America will bomb him” or something very similar to that, Now as far as I am aware Assad has never accepted responsibility for using Chemical Weapons at any time never mind against his own people. In fact despite all the surveillance capabilities of the West and Mossad nobody has come up with any credible evidence that Assad was behind the chemical attack.
I would have thought he would have been the least likely person to authorise such an attack as he had been warned by the Americans that if he did he was in deep shit.
Perhaps you are more likely to find the perpetrator by looking at who has most to gain for such an horrific act, and the fact is that Assad and his regime has the least to gain and it is therefore very unlikely that he committed this crime against humanity.
Sorry didn’t have time to edit, messy I know.
Anyway what I wanted to say was I think she’s been asked to say ‘chemical weapons’ and it has been edited in for the September Panorama. It seems there are lots of question marks over the Hand in Hand organisation.
Deeply disturbing.
1. The audio on both takes is noticeably louder on the first (possibly down to the editing software used to copy the clips)
2. If you pause the VT on the first clip where the guy in the high vis vest walks through the gate she’s saying two completely different things?
This is either staged or dubbed. The mask is the perfect cover.
I am strangely calm about this. Possibly because it vindicates my belief.
I critisised Derek Bateman the other day about the BBC being more than just badly managed. I stand by my comments. The BBC is a propaganda tool of the state regardless of what he thinks. I will never trust it as an impartial broadcaster or the British state for as long as I live. I will in turn educate my kids to that end too.
What else do they fiddle?
I see someone over on twitter is saying that we shouldn’t be concerned about ‘semantics’ when children are dying.
Two wrongs don’t make a right. And surely the question is if the BBC, and possibly Hand in Hand, only cared about the dead and dying why the need for them to worry about the semantics when it came to using the footage for Panorama one month after the original horrendous attack and report.
From ‘Wag the Dog’ –
The same piece of film seems to have been edited into two rather different video sequences illustrating the same event. I’m honestly struggling to see the problem.
I’ve listened to both short clips, and unless I’m hallucinating, the links above are the wrong way round. In one, the doctor says “… some sort of chemical weapon, I’m not really sure….” and then the clip ends so we don’t know what more she went on to say.
In the other, she says “… some sort of […] I’m not really sure, maybe napalm, something similar to that. But obviously, in the chaos of the situation, it’s very difficult to know…” and her speech continues.
I think there is an audible cut where the words “chemical weapon” have been removed from the longer interview. The shorter version leaves those words in, as indeed it had to because it would have made no sense otherwise.
Both web versions are accompanied by text alleging the cause was something “napalm-like”. Thermite is also mentioned. There is no difference at all in what is being conveyed to the viewer by the two different edits of the same clip.
I don’t know why one editor has chosen to take two words out of what the doctor said, but it hasn’t changed the sense. The other editor has actually excised more, by cutting off everything she said after the word “sure”.
We know these things are edited for clarity. I’m doing two TV interviews myself tomorrow about the Lockerbie affair, and I just hope to hell I manage to avoid too much repetition and er-umming so that the video editor doesn’t have to keep cutting to make me sound coherent.
I can’t see where the sinister intent is in removing two words from what is actually a fuller version of the interview, when these two words don’t add a great deal to the sentence. Two editors have made slightly different choices as to how to present the same material, that’s all.
I have a friend who is busting a gut trying to trace down examples of biassed and falsified reporting in relation to Syria. He has uncovered some quite disturbing things, including video footage that has been manipulated (I think the BBC actually reported on that manipulation, showing what had been done), and an example where the identical x-ray (which might itself have been faked) was represented as being an image of two entirely different children.
This does not seem to me to be an example of the same sort of manipulation. They edit these things. We know they edit these things. We’re only looking at two different editors’ slightly different choices, where one has taken a couple of words out that don’t change the sense of the sentence at all.
Of course it’s possible to fake up anything by editing it. Showing an example of what seems to be perfectly legitimate editing doesn’t go any way at all to demonstrate that anyone at the BBC is actually faking anything – at least in this context.
You want BBC fakery, in my opinion staging a completely fake leafleting scene at the bottom of the Canongate on 21st September, where Better Together people handed leaflets to people who were obviously waiting to play their part in the show, and then pretended that this was actually Better Together leafleting people taking part in the march from High Street to Calton Hill (which didn’t go anywhere near the bottom of the Canongate) was far far more reprehensible than this apparently innocent piece of tidying up.
raab
I like most of what Bateman writes but I feel he has become an apologist for the BBC Scotland’s newsreaders and interviewers.
I am not in the least surprised by this, I have been saying for years that the BBC, as the state broadcaster for Britain, is nothing more than a propaganda organ for the British state. It is undermining the democratic process in Scotland on a daily basis by skewing the referendum debate in favour of the union. Goebbels would have been proud to be the Propaganda Minister of the BBC.
I notice that other comments were posted in the time it took me to watch the actual clips and write my post. Someone else spotted that the words “chemical weapon” have been snipped from the longer clip.
I’m sure that is the full extent of the manipulation, and indeed it was only possible because she was wearing the respirator. I think the question is, was this just an innocent bit of tidying up by the audio editor, or was there some sinister propaganda reason for wanting us all not to hear these two particular words?
If the latter, it’s a bit funny the uncut clip was broadcast in a different programme.
I think there is a serious danger of becoming enmeshed in the conspiracy mind-set, and inferring all sorts of sinister motives when in fact there is a perfectly innocent explanation for the anomaly. In this case, just two different editors working on the same material.
“a perfectly innocent explanation for the anomaly”
There is nothing the least bit “innocent” about cutting words – especially when the words are “chemical weapons” – out of the middle of someone’s speech. What conceivable reason could you have for doing so? She said them, and cutting them out just gives you a load of extra work in order to save 0.4 seconds of airtime.
This isn’t ANY kind of “theory”, conspiracy or otherwise. It actually happened, right in front of our eyes and ears.
@ MajorBloodnok
Dr Rola Hallam was there working for a charity called Hand in Hand – bit like an Islamic Medicines Sans Frontiers.
I have been trying to support them, as to my knowledge they are working in areas in Syria that even the Red Crescent doesn’t go to. They are ALL that many Syrians have got.
If the BBC has been doctoring (no pun intended) footage from them then heads should roll.
The BBC is a propaganda tool of the state regardless of what he thinks. I will never trust it as an impartial broadcaster or the British state for as long as I live.
Totally agree Rabb – I do not trust the BBC nor have done for a number of years (well before the matter of the referendum)
If the original whole clip included both ‘chemical weapons’ and ‘er maybe napalm’, a decision has been taken to remove ‘chemical weapons’ from the original August report and remove ‘napalm’ from the September Panorama. Yes there’s editing of interviews but this is very odd editing, I’d say, for both reports.
In this particular instance the phrase ‘chemical weapon’ is pretty central to the report, no?
Maybe it’s just me, but I’m struggling to see when it would ever be OK to broadcast on the news an interview with any words midway through a sentence ‘edited out’.
Lets face it, if this is considered acceptable we could have interviewees expressing all sorts of things they didn’t actually mean.
Dr Hallam was certainly on Newsnight criticising non-intervention in Syria, and asked Ed Miliband to come to Syria with his family at her expense to see what his happening.
link to tinyurl.com
Napalm is classed as an incendiary, not a chemical weapon.
In fact, Israel dropped it on the deck of the USS Liberty during the 1967 War.
As loathe as I am to quote the Bliar, but he did at least supply the line “look, when we’re talking about nuclear, chemical and biological agents, we’re not just talking about washing powders and detergents….”
“Chemical Weapons” are, in the meaning of the Geneva Accords (and international convention that Syria made a conscious decision not to become signatory to, so they wouldn’t be in breach, heaven if they had used gas, which they haven’t) describes only a specific collection of substances, delivery systems and battlefield applications for that chemical;
For example, White Phosphorus (“Willie P”) is totally illegal when fired at people or property, as tends to burn right through living human flesh and bone in 3 seconds or less if you are unlucky enough to have any particles land on you.
It is, however, legal to use for night-time battlefield illumination if you launch off a couple of flares.
That doesn’t stop the US Marinw Corps burning up half of Fallujah alive over a 10 day period or Israel from showering streets and schoolyards across Gaza with it at 2 in tok afternoon. Bastards.
But, to return to the point, napalm is not a chemical weapon, not a banned or restricted substance and is cheap and easy to mass produce by practically anyone.
Sarrin, VX etc, are not – but the point about all anti-government insurgents that no one ever seems to understand is this – nearly all their equipment is stolen anyway, and the rest is supplied on the basis that it will be largest untraceable.
1st clip – guy appears at the railing behind her head when she says ‘chemical weapons’ – no guy in second clip, so clearly it has been edited.
Did the BBC not stitch up the miners at Orgreave?
The first video, mentioning chemical weapons, is dated 29th August 2013, the second, mentioning Napalm, is dated 30th September 2013.
Napalm would suit the narrative better after the Westminster Government was caught doing naughty things between the dates of these two versions such as allowing the export of chemicals that can be used for nerve gasses such as Sarin after the conflict had being going on several months as reported on 2nd September by The Independent:
“Revealed: UK Government let British company export nerve gas chemicals to Syria”
link to archive.is
Changing to Napalm (after the chemical export revelations) sort of “exonerates” the UK Government of any “blame” regarding exporting any chemicals capable of being used to manufacture Sarin etc whereas the more general term chemical weapon (used before the revelations) leads back to the report, such as this one;
“The Business Secretary, Vince Cable, will today be asked by MPs to explain why a British company was granted export licences for the dual-use substances for six months in 2012 while Syria’s civil war was raging and concern was rife that the regime could use chemical weapons on its own people. “
Susan
Derek, worked with all of these people and he knows better than any of them the pressures that are applied. I don’t think it is odd that he might be supportive and sympathetic towards a number of them.
His blog is a window into a hitherto closed building. It is a wonderful thing and if it has Grahamski chuffing that the hegemony is being challenged that that is just joyful sweet irony as icing on the cake.
maybe bear these two short pieces of video in mind the next time it shows you a suspiciously short clip of someone speaking and then tells you what they said.
One of the many eye-opening things I’ve learned over the course of the independence debate is never, ever to trust any media source which reports in their own words what someone else has said or thinks. They do it to Salmond all the time and it’s basically “what the Telegraph (or whoever) wishes you to think Salmond has said or thinks”. It’s a tool the media use to smear people, because mostly you dno’t question it, or assume there’s a quote in there when there isn’t, or it’s one word with no context.
I also find with someone like Assad who’s being tarred as an evil dictator I’m a lot less inclined to believe it because my own government is being tarred as a dictatorship and I know that’s purest mince. If Assad and the Syrian government are being called the same thing as Salmond and the Scottish government, but clearly there is also a desire to bomb the hell out their country, I just don’t believe it. I’ve entirely switched off from Syrian coverage because I don’t trust what I’m being told. That is a real problem in a whole lot of ways.
All that said I’m not sure getting hung up on a few words in a translation is necessarily helpful. It may simply be that it was done quickly and at some point Napalm has been substituted because it’s a closer interpretation to what she was saying than the first pass.
“Changing to Napalm (after the chemical export revelations) sort of “exonerates” the UK Government of any “blame” regarding exporting any chemical”
Hmm, or it could be that, yeah.
@Kirriereoch
You’ve got it the wrong way round. ‘Chemical weapons’ is cut out of the first report in August and ‘napalm’ from the September Panorama.
Interestingly in both his scripted links before she speaks I Pannell refers to napalm.
Could it depend on where it was filed from, just a thought.
The point is why was ‘chemical weapons’ cut from the original.
Albalha said:
If the original whole clip included both ‘chemical weapons’ and ‘er maybe napalm’, a decision has been taken to remove ‘chemical weapons’ from the original August report and remove ‘napalm’ from the September Panorama. Yes there’s editing of interviews but this is very odd editing, I’d say, for both reports.
I think that’s it in a nutshell. The original clip, I think, did include both terms. She seems to have been speculating on the hoof in the middle of a very fraught situation, and said both things.
The original August report is the one that cut out the two words. It’s hard to attribute a sinister intent to that, when the reporter introduces the clip with the opinion that “some sort of chemical” has been dropped here. It’s odd editing, but I honestly can’t see what sort of agenda is being followed. I mean, deliberately remove the words “chemical weapons” but introduce the segment by saying that “chemicals” have been used? Why?
The September report is a “re-visited” edition. Like “Grand Designs Revisited”, it includes some of the original footage. This time, less of the interview is used, which seems understandable because it’s been used before, and there is new stuff to present. So only a short clip is used, cut after the word “sure”.
Obviously this editor has been working from the original, and has not thought it necessary to remove these two words – in fact he has made a virtue of it, because their inclusion means a shorter clip can be used – she gets to the point sooner. I don’t think “napalm” has been deliberately taken out, it’s just that only the first couple of sentences were used in the “re-visit” editing.
Honestly, is this what all the fuss is about? An editor takes out two words, possibly because he’s trying to edit for clarity. It’s an odd edit, and a bit cack-handed, but how can it be sinister when the same words are explicitly used by the presenter in the preamble?
Then later, a different editor using the same original, leaves these words alone. No big warning notice saying “do NOT broadcast this doctor saying the words ‘chemical weapons’ by order of the NWO” or anything like that, apparently.
There’s nothing to see here apart from an odd, cack-handed edit in the original broadcast version that didn’t take out anything that wasn’t already being said anyway, and which was reversed in a re-broadcast.
“Honestly, is this what all the fuss is about? An editor takes out two words, possibly because he’s trying to edit for clarity. It’s an odd edit, and a bit cack-handed, but how can it be sinister when the same words are explicitly used by the presenter in the preamble?”
I have no idea what YOU’RE making the fuss about. The article explicitly says it’s not the specific content of the change that’s alarming, but the fact it happened at all. If I see someone speaking on screen and hear their words, I damn sure want them to be the words she said, not some “clarified” version concealed by a facemask.
Edit for clarity? Losing what are probably the two most important words of the interview doesn’t seem to me to contribute to clarity I’m afraid.
O/T Now it’s the terrorists turn if we vote Yes. They just cant stop themselves.
link to dailymail.co.uk
Train Fares
I think that you have some catching up to do as the Rev covered this yesterday 🙂
Blatant big brother stuff.
Another example – it’s beyond ‘chutzpah’ –
link to imediaethics.org
@Seaside Dave
So he did, I totally missed that.
I have no idea what YOU’RE making the fuss about. The article explicitly says it’s not the specific content of the change that’s alarming, but the fact it happened at all. If I see someone speaking on screen and hear their words, I damn sure want them to be the words she said, not some “clarified” version concealed by a facemask.
Yes, I realise that. I just think it’s a storm in a tea-cup. The editing is cack-handed, and it’s hard to see the reason, but it’s especially hard to attribute a sinister reason when the reporter in the preamble specifically refers to “some sort of chemical” being responsible for the injuries.
I was probably wrong to use the word “clarified”, but I was speculating that was possibly what was in the mind of the editor when he was putting the sequence together.
I don’t think there’s anything at all to criticise about the “revisited” version. No words have been removed, it is simply that only a short clip was used on that occasion, which stopped before she said “napalm”. Again, “napalm” is specifically speculated about in the commentary on the web version.
It all boils down to, why were these two words removed from the earlier report. Was anyone trying to play down the possibility of a chemical weapon being used? No, because that possibility is explicitly mentioned about 30 seconds earlier, by the reporter. It’s a slightly odd thing to have done, but I suspect if we could get hold of the guy who did it he’d tell us, truthfully, that he thought he was just removing repetition. Clumsy and pointless edit, but people do clumsy and pointless things from time to time.
The editor dealing with the re-visit sequence didn’t repeat the mistake.
We know all these things are edited, removing repetitions and er-um and so on. We know it’s possible to perpetrate all sorts of iniquities if that’s the agenda. Saying “here is evidence of a small, clumsy, injudicious but pointless edit, so let’s all speculate that the BBC is into wholesale fabrication” isn’t really all that helpful to my mind.
@Morag
Though as I pointed out higher up in the first report I Pannell says after she speaks,
‘This wasn’t a chemical weapon but a conventional one’.
The article explicitly says it’s not the specific content of the change that’s alarming, but the fact it happened at all.
Yes, but the real question is, WHY did it happen? Two words are removed, which seem kind of important so it’s strange that they were removed, but as you said yourself, their removal didn’t change the sense of what she said. And it isn’t the case that someone was cackling evilly and intent on not having the word “chemical” heard by the listener, because the reporter says it explicitly just before the clip starts.
And the original unedited footage was preserved, and used without that edit when the clip was re-used for a “re-visit” programme. This is hardly the stuff of manipulation and cover-up.
What do you think was in the mind of the editor when he snipped these two words? “I have to take these out because I’ve been told she cannot be heard saying ‘chemical weapons’?” Whatever it was, I don’t think it was that.
News footage can obviously be manipulated. In fact it obviously is manipulated every day of the week, or the news would be unwatchable. An example showing a clumsy but pointless edit, which was reversed in a later re-broadcast, doesn’t provide grounds for speculation that the BBC is re-dubbing interviews wholesale to suit the agenda of the NWO.
As I said before, I find the staging of the fake Better Together leafleting of the Calton Hill marchers to be a far far more disturbing incident.
I admit to being slightly puzzled by the differences in those two clips. Quite apart from the missing words, as shinty pointed out a person behind railings is missing in the second clip while at one point in clip one a man in a blue shirt moves from left to right behind her in the second clip he is missing yet at the same time of her speaking in the second clip a man in a white shirt moves from right to left.
Is this a case of a scene being set up and we have two different “takes”– strange for what we are being led to believe is an on the spot as it happens report
Though as I pointed out higher up in the first report I Pannell says after she speaks,
‘This wasn’t a chemical weapon but a conventional one’.
And yet he says “some sort of chemical” was used.
If someone did decide to take out these two words to suit an agenda, I agree it’s disturbing. I don’t like it. But then they were left alone with the original untouched footage avaliable for the later re-broadcast. At the most, it’s minor tinkering.
As I said, it’s about what was in the mind of the guy who did the snipping. If it was to match a “no chemical weapon” agenda for the programme, it was spectacularly unsuccessful, because the possibility of “some sort of chemical” was explicitly referred to, and her reference to napalm was left intact.
Though I would agree, if that was the agenda, it is worrying. I’d just like to be sure that it was, because it looks more like clumsiness and pointless meddling than an agenda to me.
This is worth a look, as indeed are the other documentaries on the site. Highly recommended, if you have the time.
link to thoughtmaybe.com
@Morag
I don’t know the answer either, before he’s talking about ‘whatever liquid’, ‘whatever chemical’, slightly obtuse perhaps, but isn’t water a chemical?
And napalm, I think is categorised as an incendiary weapon.
Anyway I’ve probably spent far too long thinking about this now.
“You can’t just do this”
They can, and they did!
@Mosstrooper
In the general sense, particulary with TV, in pre recorded interviews, most of the presenter’s questions are cut in after it’s all over. And of course that also means there can be retakes within the original interview itself.
That’s why you rarely see both interviewer and interviewee in the shot.
And this is not a live TV event, it’s a pre recorded TV package.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think there’s anything sinister in this at all. Maybe bad editing or bad judgement, yes, but I think it’s going a bit too far to make the jump and assume this is some kind of sinister cover-up.
In the general sense, particularly with TV, in pre recorded interviews, most of the presenter’s questions are cut in after it’s all over. And of course that also means there can be retakes within the original interview itself.
I think this illustrates what I was saying about news broadcasts always being “manipulated” and edited. We’re not seeing the whole thing as it played out in real time and we almost never do.
Because of this, it’s pretty much a given that anything can be manipulated to show something very different from what actually happened, or the interviewee actually intended. Like this, for example. link to midwinter.com This is not news.
The original version of that interview had two words removed. This is passing strange, but the edit didn’t change the sense of what the doctor said. In addition, the original was kept on file and was broadcast unedited at a later date.
We’re being invited to consider that this is evidence that the BBC are manipulating interviews, presumably to present a false impression to the viewer. I don’t think this is a reasonable inference from the evidence presented. We don’t know why the two words were removed. If there was sinister manipulative intent, it’s not clear what was achieved.
To my mind, all the clips show is that news footage is edited before it’s shown. Which I already knew. And that sometimes edits are clumsy and may be inappropriate. Which I could have guessed.
I don’t think it’s something to highlight and shout “smoking gun – evidence on BBC’s own web site!”
This footage needs to be viewed in the context of wider events, notably the push by the USA, the UK and French Governments pushing for a military strike on Syria by blaming the Assad regime for the use of chemical weapons. My view is that the BBC were complicit in attempting to influence public opinion here on the need to attack Syria. The BBC is after all the propaganda machine of the Westminster government as we see/hear in Scotland on a daily basis. The BBC is not impartial, it never was and it never will be.
Oddly familiar this:
link to pressthink.org
Interesting comments from Richard Sambrook.
Another comment suggests that the BBC disabled comments on the Youtube video of the Newsnight interview, after these turned out to be somewhat unfavourable to the BBC.
I find that hard to believe. After all, the Beeb has never done such a thing before.
Why does anyone even expect this Westminster wholely owned outfit to speak the truth about such things? There is no way any present or past “U” initial nation can be believed when they are talking about weapons in general, specific weapons or the Middle East. I remember Saddam’s massive “U” sponsored/tolerated/encouraged – use of gas against his own people and the Iranian army. On television the US government spokesman was denying – and obviously lying- that there was any proof of gas use. Meanwhile the Iranians were flying horribly gassed victims to Germany for treatment. The chemicals for the weapons did not originate in the third world. The Mideast continues to be a massive market for traditional and novel methods of killing people and the “U” nations are in the thick of it because of its profitability. Ask Vince Cable why he swallowed his principles in this regard. Oops he’s a LibDem – forgive me for even asking.
Hopefully one of the first acts of the Free and Independent Scottish government will be to set up a truely free and independent broadcasting system. I hope the current government have already started planning for this.
O/T Radio Scotland doing a wee light-hearted item a minute ago on the post-mistress at Lochboisdale Post Office collecting donations to build a tunnel under the Minch. Just as the interviewer thinks he’s safe to adopt a jokey tone with her and ask her what she’ll do with the money if she doesn’t get enough to build a tunnel, she launches in with Oh, she doesn’t know, but if we get independence maybe there’ll be money to add to her collection to build the tunnel, instead of us sending all our dosh to get wasted down at Westminster. You could have heard a pin drop 🙂
@Jeannie
I’m all for infrastructure spending in an indy Scotland, but a tunnel under the Minch might mop up a fair whack of our oil fund! Do you think we could interest Eurotunnel? Would be great to have trains direct from Lochboisdale to Paris. Maybe we can crowd fund some of it? 🙂
Morag – I’m would like to more in regard to your comment “As I said before, I find the staging of the fake Better Together leafleting of the Calton Hill marchers to be a far far more disturbing incident.’ I missed that at the rally, was it maybe some sort of taking the mickey? Or a more sinister aspect of unionist tactics to provoke people at the rally? Bu to be honest I find the constant repeating of lies and misinformation on the real BT leaflets more disturbing.
Back to the BBC I think just as they are paying off or redeploying experienced people it is notable the quality the research, news reporting, production and editing has went down. It seems the operational stuff is being run by trainees and interns. So not , at that level, a britnat manipulation but the editiorai policies are set at a higher level and that’s what gets my goat. (I still miss that goat 🙂 )
What, the BBC editing news stories?
Talking tunnels, if the tunnel under the Pentland Firth is a goer, then Scapa Flow would make a better base for the SDF than Faslane and our own MoD would not be wanting to stop the oil search off Arran as well.
Westminster isn’t working for Scotland.
There is nothing the least bit “innocent” about cutting words – especially when the words are “chemical weapons” – out of the middle of someone’s speech. What conceivable reason could you have for doing so? She said them, and cutting them out just gives you a load of extra work in order to save 0.4 seconds of airtime.
This isn’t ANY kind of “theory”, conspiracy or otherwise. It actually happened, right in front of our eyes and ears.
Yes, it actually happened. The question is, why did it happen?
There’s no conceivable sinister explanation that I can see. As you said yourself, the sense of what the doctor was saying wasn’t appreciably changed. If there was any intent to divert the attention of the viewer from the possibility that chemical weapons had been used it was spectacularly unsuccessful, what with the reporter himself talking about “some sort of chemical”, and the reference to napalm being left in (if that isn’t technically a chemical weapon, I think that’s a distinction that would be lost on 99% of viewers). It’s also not much of a cover-up that leaves the original footage there to be used in a follow-up programme, unedited.
Albalha has explained how much these reports are manipulated as a matter of course, with the interviewer’s questions being edited in afterwards. It’s normal. I have no idea why that particular edit was made to the first broadcast version of that interview, but it looks like bad editing or bad judgement, just as Keith said. Not like an agenda to manipulate the news.
I kind of wish we hadn’t had this item. It comes over as if we didn’t know that interviews filmed in the field are edited, and that now we’ve realised that we should conclude that the BBC is faking interviews. It’s also got nothing to do with Scotland.
I wish we’d had an item on the staged leafleting last September instead. That really did happen, right in front of our eyes, and even if the whole thing was BT’s idea, if the BBC went along with the pretence that the actual march was being leafleted, as I understand they did, that was real false reporting. Even to spend air-time on a tiny gathering of BT people half a mile away from a rally of 20,000 to 30,000 people which they didn’t cover was absolutely despicable.
Snipping two words out of an interview during the editing process, which didn’t alter the sense of the interview, and being so unworried by this that they later broadcast an unedited version without batting an eyelid – not so much.
What, the BBC editing news stories?
That’s what they do. That’s why what appears on the screen is concise and coherent and watchable. That’s a news editor’s job.
Altering the sense of what was said, now that would be bad. But as Stu himself pointed out, they didn’t do that.
Could be a false flag type incident, god knows the MSM is littered with them.
As for the BBC didnt they report during 9/11 that WTC 7 had collapsed 16 minutes before it actually did collapse, or to be more specific, it was a controlled demolition, ordered by Larry Silvrstein and Frank Lowy.
On the flipside, Radio 4 news reported earlier that Scotland is the first NATION in Europe to prescribe Nalmefene.
I wonder how long till Paul Sinclair gets that pulled?
I’m would like to more in regard to your comment “As I said before, I find the staging of the fake Better Together leafleting of the Calton Hill marchers to be a far far more disturbing incident.’ I missed that at the rally, was it maybe some sort of taking the mickey? Or a more sinister aspect of unionist tactics to provoke people at the rally?
I didn’t see it, bit it was described online, and I spoke to someone at work who saw it and was able to describe where it happened.
The BBC’s coverage of the march and rally was only about the march. They didn’t send any cameras on to the hill. They accompanied or intercut their coverage of the march with an interview with Blair McDougall, who was apparently given more air time than Alex Salmond. McDougall disparaged the march, and said something about Better Together taking the opportunity to hand out leaflets (to the marchers, I think) to show the undecided that we’re Better Together.
The feature included some footage of BT passing out leaflets, with about five people walking past all stopping to take a leaflet. My understanding is that this was represented as them leafleting the actual march, and these being people on the march taking the BT leaflets. In fact it was a staged-for-the-cameras event at the foot of the Canongate, about half a mile from the route of the march. They didn’t go anywhere near the march itself.
This was real manipulation, to my mind. To allow BT equal or greater air time with the (minimal) coverage of the march, and to give credence to their pretence that they were in there leafleting the marchers. I assume it was BT who came up with the idea, but the BBC should have told them that three activists leafleting five (complicit) passers-by half a mile from a rally of 30,000 people wasn’t something they were going to cover.
As for the BBC didnt they report during 9/11 that WTC 7 had collapsed 16 minutes before it actually did collapse, or to be more specific, it was a controlled demolition, ordered by Larry Silvrstein and Frank Lowy.
Oh, please, NO!!! Just – no.
“As for the BBC didnt they report during 9/11 that WTC 7 had collapsed 16 minutes before it actually did collapse, or to be more specific, it was a controlled demolition, ordered by Larry Silvrstein and Frank Lowy.
Oh, please, NO!!! Just – no.”
QUARANTINE! EVERYONE, QUARANTINE, NOW!
@Morag
No, the Rev is quite right to highlight this. We now have proof that BBC “interviews” are doctored to show to those that rely on the beeb for their “news”.
From this we can build on to their quoting of politician’s soundbites but not the full fat version of what they actually said.
There is nothing like destroying the confidence of people in their “news” source to get them seeking after the truth. Which is of course that Westminster and its accolyte the BBC are not working for us.
Link to the BBC WTC fiasco.
Okay @Morag!
You turn a blind eye if you want too.
The key words in Rev’s piece are, for me anyway, ‘apparently speaking live’.
If anyone doesn’t understand why this is important, and sinister, then they’re not paying attention, or have an ulterior motive for appearing ignorant.
For those of you not familiar with Morag, you should know that she detests Craig Murray and has made a point of trashing his name each and every time it has appeared (either in a post or comment) on WoS, regardless of what he happens to be talking about. Same goes for anyone who dares raise particular topics, or refers to others with a track-record she doesn’t like.
Please bear that in mind as she continues to shout-down anyone interested in having a serious look at this slam-dunk example of propaganda.
I’m speaking from long, weary experience – other regulars know what I’m on about. It’s sad, but there ye go…
@Morag
Re BT, the march and in general. Not to excuse bad broadcasting but nobody should be in any doubt how much BT is regularly contacting BBC Scotland about every word they print, say etc.
As Bateman said in one post, it’s all about keeping up the pressure. BBC Scotland needs to, if it wants to be taken seriously, direct staff, who are contacted personally, to tell them, like anyone else, they should put in a formal complaint if they have one.
Is it not the case here that the BBC probably wrote the script they or whoever controls them wanted and then went out to find somebody to put it into words.
If this is what they did here this is what they do a lot of the time – but of course we know that already
What? Even me. 🙂
These two clipa are not the same.
The guy in the flourescent yellow jacket is positioned correctly, to draw the eye in the second clip. The guy who walked intp frame from the left is edited out> and behind he, if you follow the spoken words the person who walks behind her form left to right is missing at the correct sync is missing.
It is faked, for why, I do not know but faked it si.
Have to say there is no way on this earth anyone can tell me WTC 7 collapsed in free-fall due to a fire fuelled only by office materials. It’s just not possible – steel towers like this catch fire quite often – none – NONE have ever come down in perfect symetry and in total free-fall like this one did…
Like it or not there is only one explanation – demolition.
As for the rest – the two main towers and whether the planes where real or not I have no idea – but that WTC 7 collapse stinks like a dead fish in the midday sun.
Always makes me smile when people roll the eyes at the mention of a false flag attack – not like it’s never been done before eh? Riechstag anyone?
@Morag
You have posted a lot of comments insisting that there is nothing significant in this. You have previously, if I remember correctly, described Craig Murray as a ‘fruitloop conspiracy theorist’. Are you really sure that there is no connection between these?
Conspiracy theorist seems to be your deadliest insult. Certainly some ‘conspiracy theories’ are ridiculous, such as David Icke’s alien reptiles one. But history has plenty of examples of genuine conspiracies. Guy Fawkes and John Wilkes Booth did not act alone. There is a lot of evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald was not the lone nutcase of the Warren Commission version of events. 9/11 was a conspiracy, but whose conspiracy was it? There are a lot of problems with the official version.
Conspiracies do happen, but it suits some organisations, possibly starting with the CIA, to label those who question the official versions of certain events as conspiracy theorists, knowing that the knee-jerk reaction of many people will be to dismiss the sceptics as crazy, without looking at the evidence for themselves.
Maybe there is no conspiracy at the BBC to mislead the public with doctored clips, but the possibility that there is needs to be seriously considered.
Ian (and others), I’m debating the subject of the thread, on the facts. I suggest you do the same and quit with the personal insults.
Handclapping said:
We now have proof that BBC “interviews” are doctored to show to those that rely on the beeb for their “news”.
No, we don’t have proof of that. All BBC interviews are edited before transmission. What we have proof of here is a piece of bad and clumsy editing. The meaning of the interviewee’s words was not essentially changed, as RevStu himself pointed out, and there is no evidence at all of any intent to impose and agenda or misinform.
Hi BtP.
You are correct these are two different clips, there is also the difference in the sun and its highlights. It is the sound track(s) that have been spliced, if at all. It could be that one is a retake as the “first” wasn’t “adequate”?
Albalha said:
Re BT, the march and in general. Not to excuse bad broadcasting but nobody should be in any doubt how much BT is regularly contacting BBC Scotland about every word they print, say etc.
As Bateman said in one post, it’s all about keeping up the pressure. BBC Scotland needs to, if it wants to be taken seriously, direct staff, who are contacted personally, to tell them, like anyone else, they should put in a formal complaint if they have one.
My thoughts also. BT certainly contacted the BBC before the march and insisted they cover their own “activities” as well as the march itself. BT’s activity turned out to be a staged event involving half a dozen people, half a mile from a march of 20,000 to 30,000 people. They wanted to pretend they were interacting with the actual march, although they weren’t.
The BBC should have told them to get stuffed. Instead, they went right along with it and filmed it and gave BT equal coverage. Derek Bateman has described exactly how that would have been achieved. That, to me, is the real story.
Morag- thanks for the clarification. Krackerman you need to go to the Quarantine part to discus this matey. Regardless I believe BBC in situations like Syria is taking editoral guidance from FCO. I’ve worked for British Council and understand the close links between BC, FCO, BBC. Regardless I believe all the MSM isn’t as critical of the govt as they should be, leaving the critical stuff to the likes of Private Eye.
There is no way the MSM are not complicit in the promotion and maintenance of the status quo regardless of any particular aspect of it. This incident may be stupidity rather than planned. But who really trusts the beeb anymore to be honest. Not us, nor any trade unionist, hospital campaigners, land rights activists, fracking demonstrators, animal rights protestors, environmentalists, FOI campaigners. You get the picture.
Morag can’t point to any ‘personal insults’ in my post – I didn’t make any.
And don’t expect her to show-up in Quarantine to discuss this or anything else – Morag doesn’t ‘do’ Quarantine, it’s below her.
What would be interesting is if Craig Murray gave us his take on it all, as he did a while ago on another subject. On that occasion, if memory serves, he had a bit of a ding-dong with Morag – a highly entertaining points-win for Murray.
@Morag
You may be right but if we are wanting to shew the undecided that they cannot rely on the BBC then this is a well documented “difference” in the Beeb’s reporting of an interview.
You may be highly skeptical about the BBC output and your travails in reporting Lockerbie may make you sympathetic to the problems of editors but for those, and they are many, for whom the BBC is gospel, this will come as a shock. My hope is that the destruction of their faith in the BBC may start them, with a little bit of pushing on our part, to seeking their own “truth”.
We do need informed voters to make the decision on whether Scotland should be an independent country.
Sneddon said:
Regardless I believe BBC in situations like Syria is taking editorial guidance from FCO.
I wouldn’t be particularly surprised. It’s just that this pair of clips doesn’t demonstrate anything particularly untoward. Albalha has already explained about different takes of the same interview, and how the questions are almost always edited in afterwards for example. We’re simply looking at two different editing jobs on the same raw footage, which convey exactly the same information. And information that doesn’t seem to be disputed by anyone.
There is a clumsy, pointless and peculiar edit in the first version which isn’t there in the second one. However, the sense remains the same. There’s no apparent motivation other than bad editing.
If we’re looking for evidence of BBC malpractice, this isn’t it.
…. for those, and they are many, for whom the BBC is gospel, this will come as a shock.
I totally fail to see the “shock” in the revelation that interviews are edited.
I was a lot more shocked to realise that they were prepared to present a wholly staged BT event in exactly the false and misleading way BT wanted them to present it, to upstage the Calton Hill rally.
“I totally fail to see the “shock” in the revelation that interviews are edited.”
Come on, Morag, you’re being wildly disingenuous here in your eagerness to crush any hint of a “conspiracy theory”. Of course it’s not a revelation that interviews are edited. But it’s startling, and I speak as someone who’s worked in the media for 20+ years and knows all of its dark arts, to see bits being cut out of the middle of a sentence, and other bits added to the same video footage in their place, under the cover of a facemask.
If you want to do that honestly, you do a cutaway to a “noddy” or similar. You don’t just chop up and rearrange what she said to suit yourself.
@Morag
Let me try again. You are an inteligent politically aware person and you have a healthy scepticism of BBC output. Not everybody enjoys your advantages. There are those for whom the BBC output is gospel. They do not even have an idea that seeming live interviews may be staged. To them this would be a shock, its only 15 seconds each clip so well within their attention span.
You are more exercised by the BBC march report. For BBC believers, of whom you are not one, an explanation of how the BBC were set up by BT over the march would take them well beyond their comfort zone in listening to an outsider talking to them about the referendum and the sources from whom they should get their facts.
IMO it is better to destroy their faith in the Beeb and leave them to decide to look elsewhere for the facts that will determine their vote in the referendum.
I’m with the Rev on this one.
The fact is that the same person has been presented to us making two different statements conveniently behind the cover of a mask. Both statements have completely different implications.
The unsuspecting punter will have no idea which statement was the original. One of these statements stirs deep sadness in me. The other deep horror, outrage and the need to do something about it.
Call me a conspiracy nut all you like but both of these pieces have been designed to create a desired outcome.
Some of you can call it editing all you like. I call it doctoring.
O/T
RT News has just done a piece, (4.5 mins), on OPEC putting its twopence worth on the ‘Scottish independence question’.
Quite a long piece on Westminster and its connections to OPEC, project fear and the almost humorous stuff coming from Westminster.
Then Angus MacNeil, ‘is the new policy of OPEC that countries shouldn’t get their independence and eh will these members of OPEC want to be returning to their former imperial masters. I think not.
Think it’s repeated at nine.
I haven’t believed anything political the BBC has said since the shite they spouted during the Kosovo conflict 15 years ago.
@rabb-
Agreed.
‘News reporting is about trust.‘
Aye. And choosing to trust a source only when it suits you is what rotten media thrive on – the approval of willing idiots who enjoy seeing their prejudices dignified, and happily part with cash to make sure it continues.
There is an Arab tradition of saying polite things that your host would like to hear. to say that Scottish independence is unthinkable no doubt pleases the British Government. The Opec chap might equally be saying to himself “and it is perfectly true….I never think about it”.
Some on here appear to be at a loss as to why such a fuss, but bear in mind that to the man on the Clapham omnibus, it appears to be an unstaged recording of a live event. WHy then not say that it was staged or edited. What was wrong with the CORRECT wording? If you wish to give the impression of an unbiased, truthful news program, then this is rather dishonest and serves nobody.
Further to the BBC and the Ghouta chemical weapon attack.
link to dandelionsalad.wordpress.com
Remember the BBCs’ numerous assertions that the Assad ‘regime’ was responsible.
Syria crisis: UN report to confirm chemical arms attack
14 September 2013 Last updated at 03:49
“The A UN report expected next week will “overwhelmingly” confirm that chemical weapons were used in Syria last month, the secretary general says.”
link to bbc.co.uk
Apparent Dan Kaszeta was not too impressed by inconsistencies between environmental and medical evidence reported by the UN.
link to globalresearch.ca
Come on, Morag, you’re being wildly disingenuous here in your eagerness to crush any hint of a “conspiracy theory”.
Come on Stu, you’re adopting Ian’s smear of my being exercised to crush conspiracy theories in principle. On the contrary, show me good evidence of a conspiracy and I’m your woman. Seriously. What does sadden me is the amount of baseless conspiracy theorising going on, which allows the term “conspiracy theory” to be used as a dismissive insult, in lieu of actually disproving a credible claim.
What do we actually have here? We have two versions of the same collection of raw footage. The sound in the later version is clean, although only a short clip has been used. The earlier version is longer, with more of the interview included. That version has had two words clipped out of it, but as you said yourself, the edit hasn’t changed the meaning one iota.
There are two possible explanations for this, broadly speaking. The one you seem to favour is a deliberate decision that the viewers should not hear the words “chemical weapons” spoken by the doctor. Where is the evidence for this? None at all. “Some sort of chemical” is mentioned as a possible cause of the injuries by the reporter. The viewer does hear her say “napalm”. Again, you said yourself that the sense hadn’t been altered.
The other explanation is that this was a clumsy and misguided edit for no particular reason. I agree it’s weird that those words were cut out, but sometimes people do weirdly inexplicable things.
The other reason to feel there’s no sinister purpose behind this is that the original sound was available for the re-edit a month later, and was used apparently without a second thought.
You say “under cover of a face mask”. Do you really think the doctor was induced to don a disposable respirator so that the BBC could make her appear to be saying something she wasn’t? All that bother to cut out two words which didn’t change the meaning, and which were broadcast uncut a month later. Really?
Apologies if this has been picked up already, it looks like Dr Rola Hallam is a controversial figure with family political history (husband’s key role with the rebels and her father’s hatred of the Assad regime a generation ago).
link to doyouwearblack.blogspot.co.uk
link to nawarnews.blogspot.co.uk
original BBC report as ‘napalm or thermite’ attack while the video of Dr Hallam states ‘chemical weapon’ attack.
link to bbc.co.uk
Did the BBC doctor the video to tie in with the written report so there wouldn’t be any confusion over napalm and chemical weapons (which napalm is not)? The editorial line seems to be that napalm was the cause of the injuries to children which is then used to beam the horror into British homes… another vote in parliament for military intervention coming up? Can’t use the chemical weapon line now because of UN intervention in destroying Assad’s stockpile, so move on to something more horrific to the human eye and the tv cameras, children being napalmed.
Not quite sure what the BBC news team are up to with this one, but I can tell you that a spectral analysis on these videos shows up the original and the edit, the ‘Panorama – Chemical’ video up top has the unaltered audio. The ‘Panorama – Napalm’ video despite being broadcast earlier has the edited audio, and there appear to be 2 maybe 3 distinct chops in the dialogue.
What is odd though, is that the video/sound editor has masked an edit with an inserted foley effect. There is a horn toot sitting on top of the words ‘SOME SORT OF’ in the ‘Napalm’ video, and the spectrum of the horn has a wider bandwidth than the rest of the video’s audio, it’s been inserted and mixed in to mask the edit in the dialogue audio.
Note the horn is missing from the ‘Chemical’ video, and the reason it’s in the ‘Napalm’ video is not because of the video cut to the stretcher, because the horn continues beyond that visual.
Strange.
to the man on the Clapham omnibus, it appears to be an unstaged recording of a live event. WHy then not say that it was staged or edited.
NONE of the footage you see on TV, with the possible exception of some “stop press” items which are broadcast almost immediately after being filmed, is “unstaged” in the way you mean. Read what Albalha said – she works in television. The very questions from the interviewer are dubbed in later. Often interviewers will ask an interviewee to repeat something and film it again, to avoid a stammer or a mis-speak. Sometimes footage from both versions will be spliced together in the final edit, to get the best presentation. It’s NORMAL.
Practically every clip of every news or current affairs programme would have to be labelled as “staged or edited” by your way of looking at it. It’s simply how the industry works, and it’s aimed at providing a product that is polished and good to watch. “Production values” is the term.
What was wrong with the CORRECT wording?
That I do not know. It’s a reasonable question. However, the answer does not seem to be “because the words ‘chemical weapons’ were words we did not want our viewers to hear”. I could speculate half a dozen ways bad editing could have allowed that edit to appear in the first version of the film. If the line had been “on her face” it wouldn’t have happened of course, but it wasn’t.
The edit didn’t change the meaning of what she said. Stu pointed that out in the original post. What is supposed to have been the point of this, if it was done deliberately, for goodness sake?
@Morag
For accuracy I don’t and have never worked in television. I worked in radio.
On this it’s not an issue of the broader point I made about TV interviewing, there are no broadcast questions in either piece.
” Morag: the Better Together leafletting video was so amateurish that it inclines me to wonder whether the Yes campaign does indeed have sympathisers at the BBC.I watched it on TV on return to my son’s home following the rally and immediately exclaimed “that’s a setup”.
I’ve read through the debate responses here, tedious frankly, and I despair at a few of the barbed comments. Are we really going to start insulting,arguing any falling out with each other as Better Together would wish?
Go placidly- As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all people.Speak your truth quietly and clearly and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant;they too have their story…If you compare yourself to others you may become vain and bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.”’Beyond a wholesome discipline be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars:you have a right to be here….Be careful.Strive to be happy.
Albalha said:
For accuracy I don’t and have never worked in television. I worked in radio.
On this it’s not an issue of the broader point I made about TV interviewing, there are no broadcast questions in either piece.
OK, I see. No, there aren’t any questions, I was just highlighting what you pointed out about post-production editing with things being spliced in and out being normal.
I certainly agree that the two missing words are odd. However, I can’t for the life of me see what sinister outcome is supposed to have been achieved by this dastardly plot. It looks far more like clumsy editing, with the glitch restored in the re-visit edit.
Just as a point of reference to my previous post. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, the ‘allies’ were drumming up support for military intervention of the area. Repeated endlessly on tv were American politicians recounting eye-witness stories of how Iraqi soldiers went into Kuwaiti hospitals and killed 22 new-born babies while looting their incubators. It was called the Nayirah testimony, the girl that ‘witnessed’ this happen. This was to shock the western public opinion into backing military action. The story was repeated by George H Bush at least 10 times alone on camera. Anyway after the war and the ensuing invstigation by multiple organisations reported that the story was fake and Nayirah had been coached (she was a daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the USA).
People are dying in Syria, but we really don’t know who is the bad guys.
There’s a reason why the media are regulated and why newspapers should be regulated the same way. We assume it’s the media’s job to present the truth. It’s not. It’s the media’s job to report a story. Which is why a celebrity nipple slip is a “story” even though porn is common place on-line and in the tabloid press.
It’s all about the story. Not the truth!
“That version has had two words clipped out of it”
That’s the EXACT crux of the point Morag.
The two versions triggered two completely different emotions in me (an uneducated oaf).
Napalm made me angry that someone could order such an attack on civilians.
The other mentioning chemical weapons horrifies me to the point that I want action to be taken immediately.
Tow versions of the same VT each designed to trigger a different emotional response.
It’s doctoring for a purpose end of,
Velofellow, I really don’t know what the latter part that post of yours is supposed to be about.
I wish I’d seen the BT leafleting segment. I’m only going by what I’ve been told by people who saw it. I actually hoped Stu would do an article on it, but he was absolutely run ragged and camping in Bathgate at the time.
It seems as if it was a set-up, by BT, but broadcast by the BBC in the full knowledge that it was a set-up, and indeed represented by the BBC to be something they knew it wasn’t. And if we want to know how the Beeb was induced to do that, I think Derek Bateman has drawn us a picture.
Frankly, they don’t need to make clumsy audio-edits in recorded interviews. There was a clumsy audio-edit in the Hallam interview, but it didn’t change the sense of the interview, and the clip was broadcast unedited a month later. The BBC is so unworried by this that it has posted both versions on its web site for anyone who likes to “spot the deliberate mistake”.
This entire thread is an exercise in looking in the wrong place. Seeing a basically meaningless glitch and extrapolating all sorts of skullduggery from it. Pointless waste of an afternoon that could have been spent in trashing Moore and the new guy what’s his name, and all their collective works.
thats more like it, liars like moore and co deserve a good trashing
Sorry Morag but you are showing tunnel vision quite probably from your own professional discipline but in real life one has to look further afield, as you have done re Locherbie. The West wanted rid of Assad and are willing to stitch up anyone in their task to grab energy supplies.
link to golemxiv.co.uk
Morag: Go Placidly – found in Old St Paul’s Church , Baltimore, dated 1692. Starts off ” Amid the noise and the haste and remember what peace there may be in silence”.
I suppose its my comfort blanket.
@Dcanmore
At first glance I thought you were referring to the absolute global manipulation, led by US central command, that was the missing real Battle of Nasiriyah, greatest loss of US military lives during the illegal invasion of Iraq, and the, staged, middle of the night press conference of the Jessica Lynch non story.
That’s a story, sadly, those in the heart of the fight, the embedded journalists, or the marines, still haven’t felt able to tell.
Unless I’ve missed their honest accounts.
The BBC certainly has a bit of form in cheer-leading illegal invasions, though the evidence of this may only be considered circumstantial (Jane Standley wouldn’t know anything about that though).
The thing about propaganda is that it is systematic, i.e. it and the timing if its dissemination is programmed to effect best results. I think trying to deduce anything of the BBC’s intentions, from the video evidence presented, is a pretty pointless task and is bound to end in frustration.
The bottom line is, how can the BBC tell us what is going on in Syria (which appears to have caused turmoil within the UN), if they can’t broadcast footage of the recent mass rally supporting Scottish independence, IN SCOTLAND’S CAPITAL CITY? Did their Scottish correspondent have a half-day? And if the BBC managed to miss the rally, how can we trust them to accurately report on the independence debate.
Just watched Russian television do a fair but definite deconstruction of the OPEC chairman’s claim that Scotland should not be independent even interviewed Angus MacNeil. Explained that most of the OPEC countries relied on the UK for the supply of weapons and were very close to the Westminster establishment.
Fine day when we have to rely on Russia television for equitable reporting of our struggle.
I could be wrong, but I imagine the earlier Panorama clip had the words “chemical weapon” edited out because of the high level of political sensitivity around the term? And may, therefore, have caused heightened tensions, especially if it had turned out not to be the case. The later (revisit) version left them in, since by that time the use of chemical weapons had been widely acknowledged and was beyond dispute? Just a thought.
cameronB
I think the problem about Propaganda in, not only is it systematic but, as Derek Bateman alludes and we can see pretty much, it is systemic and self imposed.
The edifice needs to be dinged doom. It is unsaleable, in reformable.
Better, much better, to start anew with fair minded honest real journalists with a proper funding and pledge to convey the truth, without fear, favor or. Personal benefit.
Cynical Highlander, I don’t know what you’re talking about. All I have been talking about in this thread is the two missing words, and the question of whether this was some grand conspiracy or a clumsy edit. I didn’t say anything at all about Assad.
Velofellow, I’m perfectly calm. I really do have to tidy up the living room though, as I have an important TV interview to do in the house tomorrow.
I really, really like finding genuine evidence of skulduggery. I mentioned early on the x-ray picture being touted as being of two quite different children, in an attempt to accuse some group or other of taking pot shots at children playing in a conflict zone. That was incontrovertible. It was also quite possibly a faked radiograph in the first place.
The other side of this is that you have to be prepared to acknowledge that there’s “nothing to see here folks” when the claims just don’t stack up. And this one doesn’t, not in the way it’s being represented.
SMOKING GUN……WMD….STRIKE CAPABILITY IN 45MINS…..CHEMICAL WEAPONS…..NAPALMING CIVILIANS……JUSTIFICATION FOR MILITARY ACTION!
WHO BENEFITS? THE WORDS USED ARE IMPORTANT…..WARS HAVE STARTED FOR LESS!
link to news.bbc.co.uk
Firestarter, that’s the nearest thing to a plausible “conspiracy” explanation I’ve heard. My only rider to that is, why would the reporter have mentioned “some sort of chemical” in the preamble if it was taboo? Or perhaps it was just the actual construction “chemical weapons” that was taboo at that time?
If that’s the case, I don’t think it’s great practice, but it’s not exactly the Gunpowder Plot either. If we were simply arguing whether or not that had happened, I’d be comfortable going either way.
Whatever the motivation, leaving both versions up there on the web site, both as part of pretty short extract clips promoting the full programmes, doesn’t really suggest a nest of conspirators with a great secret to hide.
The thing is that the BBC have lost any trust that they might once have had with many of the public, especially in Scotland, we do right to be wary at least, trust has to be earned and the BBC gave up trying to earn our trust long ago.
About 9 or 10 years ago, I was up all night on the UK 9/11 truth forum when the BBC Jane Standley videos broke. I actually had the full length footage (over an hour long) and although the clock was not overlaid on the video, there was plenty of evidence at what time it was. NY is 5 hours behind us and WTC building 7 collapsed at approx. 5:20pm NY time (10:20pm UK time). In the video, the BBC pundit clearly refers to the attacks being “Just over 8 hours ago”, combined with the ‘on the hour’ BBC peep peep music, we know what time it was. I had a hard drive failure a few years back and still kick myself that I lost that original footage (others still have copies though, that is certain). There is no way that it was simply a ‘cock up’ that Jane Standley reported the collapse of WTC 7 (Salomon Bros Building), before it happened, as it was clearly visible and in shot over her left shoulder the whole time… and up to 5 minutes before it happened… then literally just as it was about to happen for real, a sudden loss of the feed from NY. That night woke me up to the absolute evil that Orwell warned of. Thanks for the links to these reports Stu… there are even regular posters on here who will still struggle to get their heads around just how furked up the establishment media machine really is… even despite being aware of the bias.
Jim, I don’t disagree at all. It’s just that this post doesn’t seem to be a particularly good example of a reason to distrust them – or maybe any reason at all to distrust them.
We’ve got so much more to complain about, and directly relating to Scotland too. What does a long argument about an audio glitch in a TV programme about Syria achieve? Not a lot, except a reputation as being “a site of right-wing conspiracy theorists”. Which saddens me, I have to say.
I’ve learned in the last couple of days from you guys and Derek Bateman more about how the BBC works and the editing stuff stuff than in the previous year or two. Enjoyed this debate very much and I don’t think it’s going to cause anyone to go off in the huff either because we know that if groupthink directs the debate here we might as well call it a day and change our names to Blair MacDougall
When did you ever see debate this lively on a unionist blog. 🙂
Oh God, not WTC7 again. That has been argued to death so often I’m losing the will to live.
@Morag
re your “rider” ……… the reporter may have mentioned “some kind of chemical”, as they thought that that was the only thing which could have caused such horrific injuries? Just thinking out loud here ……..
Just watched Alistair Carmichael on Scotland Tonight – is this it, is this their new man – hawd me back
Sneddon, I don’t know. I’m close to “going off”, although not in the huff, because I’m really tired of this conspiracy mindset, and in particular people jumping in with 9/11 conspiracy theorising all the time.
When I thought it was just a group of people in the comments, I could handle it. But if RevStu is going there too, as he seems to be in this post, I don’t think I can take it. (OK, not 9/11, but similar themes.) I admire him enormously, both his thinking and his writing, but aspects of this particular post and the resulting thread are really causing me some pain.
Choosing selected pieces of an interview, for purposes of brevity, conciseness or impact is well understood, happens all the time … No big deal. In these cases, visual wipes, pauses or transitions are shown on screen to indicate that the flow of a conversation has been altered from the raw footage and this is part of honest disclosure. Often there will be a pre or post VoiceOver from the interviewer as explanation containing context, interpretation or caution …again this is honest disclosure.
What we have here is NOT that. Someone decided to take advantage of the (literal) masking effect where you couldn’t see the connection between spoken word and lips moving. They have edited reality, but presented it AS REALITY by not using the common, usual visual cues to let the audience know that editorial decisions about flow have been taken. I don’t find this acceptable. They are not presenting the honest flow of conversation from this person.
At best this is censorship (removing sensitive words) at worst this is deliberate, conscious manipulation of fact. Neither is acceptable, in my humble opinion.
it may have been done either ‘innocently’ or without intent to mislead and cause harm. The fact still stands that it is wrong (in my opinion) and is a step too far.
Morag, I’m not claiming this as conspiracy, so hopefully I’m not adding to your frustration … But it perhaps appears to be indicative of someone working within a culture where Fact is not treated as a sacred thing. That’s still shameful, is it not?
re your “rider” ……… the reporter may have mentioned “some kind of chemical”, as they thought that that was the only thing which could have caused such horrific injuries? Just thinking out loud here ……..
I’m not really of one opinion or the other on that. The 4-minute versions aren’t playing well for me so I don’t want to spend the time going back to re-watch.
I just note that the overall thrust of both versions is essentially identical. Both versions speak about something like napalm or thermite being used. The earlier version certainly includes the phrase “some sort of chemical”, even though “chemical weapons” has been snipped.
Dr. Hallam was simply speculating, quite freely by her own admission, about what might have caused the injuries. “Some sort of chemical weapon, maybe napalm, something like that,” is what she says, and then goes on to emphasise than in the chaos she’s just guessing.
In the first version, “chemical weapon” has been snipped. Taking it out doesn’t alter the sense at all. The reason is unclear, but it doesn’t seem to be for the purpose of misleading anyone.
Maybe you’re right, and that someone originally thought the term was too emotive or inflammatory and snicked it out as one might a swear-word. But then a month later, in retrospect, there was no reason not to leave it in.
That’s the most plausible explanation yet. We could have a real debate about whether that snip was justified at the time for that reason, and there could be arguments either way, but I still don’t see it as misrepresenting the situation or manipulating the story.
And then again, there’s both versions right there, courtesy of the BBC, to allow everyone to see the difference. Some conspiracy.
Morag,
been reading the threads on and of this evening, I wouldn’t take this in the way you are. On this matter a lot of people disagree with you, on other matters a very large number of people agree and commend your input – no worries really
Tough one this. Because the Dr. is wearing a mask, it allows the editor opportunity to change the words as we can’t see her mouth move – that much is obvious.
What I do know that’s certain is that she actually said the words ‘maybe napalm’. It’s her voice. (I don’t see the BBC hiring in a voice actor to copy her speech ! ). What was said at precisely what time is hard to tell, but I can ascertain that she used the words ‘maybe napalm’ in relation to this attack, or to other suspected chemical attacks.
It could have been said a few seconds before or after the clip we see, but with the consistency of tone in her voice (ie at a suitable level of stress) with what is occurring around her, I think it’s reasonable to assume she said those words there. I don’t think she said the words say two days later in a quiet sit down interview reflecting on events when a journalist with an agenda has more scope to lead a participant.
Whether you find that underhand or not is up to you, but with 20 years broadcast experience behind me I can tell you this is standard practice.
What you have to understand is that all tv programmes are edited, they have to be. For a 30 min tv programme like this, you may shoot 5 or 6 hours of material. It has to be edited.
This sequence may take up 2 mins of the overall programme, so the editor and director will look through the footage and see what footage they want to use. That means picking out the best soundbites and the best visuals and putting them back together in a way that gives a good general concise and informative picture.
Sometimes sequences are re-edited, because you have to get a 30 second piece out for a news bulletin being broadcast in 1 hour whilst also making the 30 minute programme for next week, in which case you obviously have more time for editing. That explains different clips using the same footage existing.
Maybe this information is useful to help you decide.
The one clear factor that does remain unchanged is that she is unsure if it is definitely a chemical attack and I can see from the footage that it’s chaos and that she is speculating as she is not studying a victim. If I wanted to really manipulate that piece I would take out the ‘maybe’ – so it becomes ‘it’s napalm’ and I would overlay that audio with picture of her at a bedside looking at a child’s wounds (still wearing he mask for added dramatic effect and to hide her mouth.)
When it comes to manipulation, this could have been a whole lot worse.
Morag, I’m not claiming this as conspiracy, so hopefully I’m not adding to your frustration … But it perhaps appears to be indicative of someone working within a culture where Fact is not treated as a sacred thing. That’s still shameful, is it not?
If that was really true, I’d agree with you. However, we don’t know that’s the case, in this particular instance. We don’t know why these two words were removed. Firestarter’s suggestion seems by far the most plausible to me. That at the time of the original broadcast, someone judged the words “chemical weapon” to be inflammatory and unwise to broadcast. So snipped them out almost as one would snip out a “fuck” before the watershed. Because Dr. Hallam was wearing a respirator at the time, the snip wasn’t obvious as it would have been if the line was on her face.
Would we be getting all upset if a six o’clock version of an interview had a momentary pause in it, and then we discovered that the ten o’clock version had “fuck” in there? Shouting about fact not being sacred and fraud and so on? I doubt it. Yet this could be no more sinister than that.
I’m still far, far more outraged about the BT leafleting episode.
Everyone one knows the WTC7 was eaten from within…they found the traces of the termites but they are covering it up.
Thank you Tartanfever, you have put what I was trying to say a lot better than I could.
By the way, did anyone actually go look at the Babylon 5 episode The Illusion of Truth, which I referenced a lot earlier? The manipulation in that is very crude, deliberately so to make the writer’s point. (Delenn’s dress changes during what is supposedly the same interview, for example.) It shows just what can be done – though to be honest in the 22nd century I think it would be a lot slicker.)
Morag… for crying out loud! The obvious defence a liar has is to label someone a ‘conspiracy theorist’. It is no different to labelling Salmond or the late Hugo Chavez as a dictator. It is a classic method of attack to discredit someone and any intellectual position they hold.
Morag, I do not buy into ideas easily and am certainly no whacko (which is exactly what your cheap argument is designed to infer). Here is another video for you… Oh, and its number 5 on the countdown that I am specifically referring to.
link to youtube.com
Get a grip Campbell!
Only Jesus Johnnies and the like ever thought the BBC were anything other than a crowd funded state propaganda machine.
The world goes on while you and your sycophants languish in BBC analysis.
Move on from the Establishment man’s detraction.
Sorry O/T again but after listening to Alistair Carmichael on STV tonight – he must have gone to the Johan Lamont school of Gibberish for dummies – have no idea what the mn was trying to say
Ah, but the termite remains provided a DNA tag, and so point to their possible origins. Is this why they are covering it up, whoever they are?
Morag, I have every episode of Babylon5 and the films (yes, even Legend of The Rangers) which I have watched innumerable times. The obvious partner episode is ‘Deconstruction of Falling Stars’ or maybe we should refer to it as Project Fear …
@HandandShrimp
Termites? Are you some kind of crazed conspiracy theorist/deranged entomologist/Craig Murray? Speaking with my mycological hat on it was definately genetically accelerated super-intelligent dry-rot and I’ll post interminably long opinions and grind everyone into boredom-dust just to prove I’m right.
Would we be getting all upset if a six o’clock version of an interview had a momentary pause in it, and then we discovered that the ten o’clock version had “fuck” in there?
No, because we’d know why it was done and that standard procedures were followed for entirely mundane reasons. Should we then assume that every editing decision is also a standard procedure and done for entirely mundane reasons. Has ‘chemical weapon’ made it onto a list of ‘not before the watershed’ words and phrases, such that we can be unsurprised not to hear it in the 6pm news? Or is it a highly politically-charged phrase in the context of Syria, but one which an independent, unbiased news source ought not to shy away from? If she’d said “fucking chemical weapon’, by all means blank the first word. But there’s no legitimate reason to cut the last two.
Handshrimp & Bloodnook… Your posts dont disclose your positions, but your making fun of events which resulted in the murder of over 3000 people is slightly distasteful.
@ MajorBloodnok
I forgot to mention about our recent ‘quiet’ meeting on Calton Hill (if the BBC were to be believed). I’m sure you’re a splendidly agreeable sort of chap, but I was a little disappointing at the decided lack of Tweed about your deportment.
Still, I suppose one can’t hold that against a chap .
I just lost a long post due to a wireless glitch. Maybe it’s just as well.
I’m completely tired of this. I’ve tried to debate the evidence, but it’s going nowhere.
I worried, a couple of days ago, when someone on Twitter called WoS “a site for right-wing conspiracy theorists”. At that time, the reference could really only apply to certain prolific posters below the line, who regularly post all the usual memes we see with that sort of thinking. And you can’t blame an open-moderated blog for what appears below the line.
This is different though. This time it’s above the line. I thought at first that RevStu had simply posted without thinking it through. Not much more than an hour from his first tweet of “Yikes” on being linked to the Murray blog, and this post appearing. Fast work for someone who had to ask how to save BBC video clips, but not much time for reflection and analysis.
However, his comments below the line have hardened up. The respirator mask is being presented as a deliberate ploy to allow the interview to be edited. I’m being accused of being “wildly disingenuous” and being “eager to crush any hint of a conspiracy theory”.
That hurt. A lot. It hurt because I really like a conspiracy – when the evidence stacks up. I mentioned the x-ray film from earlier, showing definite fabrication of atrocities, though not by the BBC. It hurt especially badly because in little over 12 hours I will have Aljazeera on my doorstep. And what I am going to say to them is going to get me traduced as a conspiracy theorist, in public, by rather a lot of people including Frank Mulholland and Magnus Linklater. I can take it, and indeed I signed up for it. I can take it because I have the evidence on my side.
I am sick and tired of people picking up on minor anomalies and inconsistencies that they don’t even have a coherent narrative to explain, and insisting that it’s all a “false flag” and a huge conspiracy.
I have a huge admiration for Stuart, both his writing and the way he thinks. This has been my favourite place on the internet for a long time. But if the blog is going down the rabbit hole, as this post rather indicates, I’m out.
“The respirator mask is being presented as a deliberate ploy to allow the interview to be edited”
Oh, don’t talk such pish. It’s NOT being presented as any such thing. Why on Earth would the Dr participate in such a fit-up? The editor has simply taken advantage of the fact that she IS wearing it to get away with buggering around with the audio.
The thing that’s annoying me is that I’ve said OVER AND OVER, totally unambiguously and explicitly, that the actual specific content of this particular clip is not significant or sinister, but in your eagerness to squash a perceived conspiracy theory you keep acting as if I’ve done the exact opposite.
What’s troubling is that the BBC has cut up and rearranged what someone has said, but presented it as a continuous unedited clip.
If you’re not uncomfortable with that, don’t complain when the media lies to you.
This is a hugely dismaying thread in all sorts of ways, so I’m going to give folk until 10am to have their last say and then lock it.
Well I’ve read through this whole thread…and now I definitely want to move on. Little knowledge gained (unusually for WoS threads)
Morag
At first I thought it had been edited to support Military Intervention but having read all the posts I have come to the conclusion its no big deal. This Blog will not have gone unnoticed and Im sure there will be some “Black Ops” going on to try and get us to fall out.
So don’t let the BASTARDS get to you
There you go I suppose that is another conspiracy theory!!!!
Good Luck tomorrow, can you post and tell us when its on the telly!!!!
I have a friend who was the victim of a conspiracy (it was no theory) by the Brit Establishment (probably MI5) in the eighties. He was targeted because he had the temerity to be a republican, a socialist and a nationalist. He and his comrades were winning support in the East End of Glasgow and were beginning to form a serious threat to the Unionist Establishment in that area. Remember this was at the height of the ‘Troubles’ in Ireland and the Brits were paranoid that Scottish ‘extremists’ might create a second front.
Of course there was no terrorist threat, no terrorist activity, no chance of a second front and no connection with paramilitaries in Ireland. The ‘comrades’ were socialists, nationalists and republicans, but above all, they were democrats. Their ‘revolution’ employed the tactics of debate and persuasion. No bigotry and no violence. Yet the Brit Establishment decided that my friend, who some considered to be the leader of the group, was a threat and had to be destroyed.
He was put under surveillance (a fact confirmed to me by one of his work colleagues and someone who had no political connection to my friend or his group). He was arrested on trumped up charges and imprisoned in Barlinne Prison in Glasgow. His career was put on hold (almost ended) and his marriage put under severe pressure. Needless to say, his friends were also ‘looked at’. He was eventually released without charge, ‘they’ had absolutely no evidence.
My friend was among you and me who were on the March and Rally for independence in Edinburgh. He is now in his seventies, still ‘fighting’ the good fight, not for himself but for the children of Scotland. Please do not tell me that there is no such thing as conspiracy in this oh so democratic Britain.
I think the whole thread has been an absolute car crash. I think Stu enthusiastically but in my view unwisely leaped on something that was a great deal less than it seemed.
I should probably have stayed out of it, because I knew where it was going from past experience, but I also worry quite genuinely that if this strong tendency to “right-wing conspiracy” theorising BTL rambles away unchallenged it will give the best independence blog on the internet a bad reputation. Stu has enough to contend with, without that.
However, Stu is now for the first time that I can see espousing this mindset above the line. This post had nothing to do with Scotland or the independence debate. There is plenty in the BBC’s output in relation to the referendum and Scottish affairs in general to criticise, and criticise robustly. Like the BT leafleting, and the stuff NNS has been highlighting. But after a cursory mention of the new SSfS, we’re all talking about two dropped words in a programme about Syria, which didn’t even affect the meaning of the interview, and which the BBC is so unconcerned about it has actually posted them both in quite neat little 4-minute clips so we can check.
It really upsets me to see WoS go in this direction, and the more so to see far more than the usual handful of “right-wing conspiracy theorists” eating it up like candy.
If there’s one thing this site (i.e posters) can’t be accused of …….. its that it lacks passion! Usually that passion is directed towards one common goal , one common aim, and one common enemy. It seems that passion can bubble over the top at times, and spill out in other directions. Chuck in the fact that its the written word, devoid of the nuances and inflections of speech and its easy to see why sometimes things get a bit “overheated”. I don’t post much, but I read and value every post that’s made … WoS has been (and continues to be) a revelation to me, and no doubt to countless others. Just sayin 🙂
Bill C, I don’t know who you think is saying that there is no such thing as conspiracy. Did I say any such thing? No, I said the opposite.
I said that the problem of real conspiracies is being compounded by people who jump on little anomalies and inconsistencies and blow them into “false flag!” and similar buzz-words. I said that it’s unwise to embrace every half-baked assertion that some anomaly or another is evidence of a deliberate cover-up or misrepresentation.
Okay I’m going to sign off with this: First clip pause at 11sec (“sort of”); second clip pause at 14sec (“sort of”), now look at the two pictures, they’re different but trying to look the same, like a game of spot the difference. This has been filmed twice but with ending up two sets of dialogue, one with chemical weapons, and another with napalm sans chemical weapons. Chemical weapons was removed in a cut for some reason, then she was asked to ‘perform’ again at the gate for a retake, this leads to the mismatch of films. For some reason one film was shot then reshot with the clipped dialogue dubbed in, and it’s deliberate, especially the way she sheepishly looks at the camera when she says napalm in a the second clip. The first clip was more succinct and urgent in her delivery IMHO.
So to conclude, we have two films with two dialogues, first one original (chemical weapons), second one a reshoot with dubbed dialogue (clipped, napalm). The reason why? It was done deliberately because of the change in dialogue where chemical weapons was replaced by napalm. The BBC story I linked to earlier shows a video of a child seemingly been burned by napalm being treated in hospital talking about his school being bombed. Is this to change public/political opinion for military intervention where the chemical weapons line failed?
Oh dear … glad I was not involved in tonights discsussion. Big fallout of the big hitters ? Seems a lot has gone on and not sure if progress has occured. Had hoped to hear we were going forward with some poll info but heyho.
Back to time out in Barca!!
What, ‘right-wing’ just because I made my “Brother Number One” banner for the march? Wait a minute, weren’t the Khmer Rouge nihilistic Marxists with a dash of nationalism and xenophobia thrown in for good measure. Now who might have been amongst their supporters?
How Thatcher helped Pol Pot
By John Pilger
Global Research, April 11, 2013
New Statesman and Green Left Weekly
link to globalresearch.ca
@Morag – with all due respect, I was not having a pop at you or anyone else on here. As far as I am concerned, most folk on here only have one goal, i.e. to see our country achieve self determination. What I am saying is that we should never underestimate the task before us and the enemy within us.
Dcanmore – sorry but what you have just suggested – that this is a ‘re-take’ – involves asking all people you see running around, trying to organise injured civilians, ambulances etc to do it all again.
Did the director stand up on a box with a big loud hailer and shout ‘CUT ! – back to your positions and we’ll go for take 2. This time with more feeling !’
I regret to say this is probably the weakest story I’ve ever read on this site and some of the comments reflect that.
It’s two completely different takes. The guy in the hi-vis vest is supposed to be the visual qualifier if that makes sense. Only problem is he’s a pish actor and doesn’t do the same thing twice (arms by side in one shot & arms behind his back in the other.
Whether it’s a conspiracy or not is anyone’s guess. All I’m saying is that it’s been done for a reason. If it was genuinely shot again because someone flashed their arse in the background or something then I didn’t notice it. I reckon their was a different reason for it.
I won’t be losing any sleep over it.
Night all
Not a great read on WoS tonight – Sad, from a trooper abroad.
Dcanmore, you’re right that the video part isn’t quite the same in the two versions. However, I don’t think it’s two separate audio takes. Her voice is identical in the two versions. It’s the same sound-track. The only difference is that the words “chemical weapon” were snipped out for the original broadcast.
As Albalha and Tartanfever both pointed out, these things are all the product of editing. Tartanfever explained about different versions being put together for different programmes. The raw footage is the same, but the final versions are put together differently for different purposes.
The differences in the video clip seem to be no more than that. Because the doctor’s lips can’t be seen to move, one or other (or both) version hasn’t cared too much which precise few seconds of the segment where she is interviewed appears behind the sound-track. Hence the slight mis-match in the behaviour of the people in the background and the exact positions of the people in the foreground.
There’s nothing in this that I can see that can’t be explained as part of the normal editing process, apart from the oddity of the two missing words, and that seems pointless. Why go to the trouble of manipulating something like that, to achieve nothing – to leave the sense of the interview absolutely unchanged?
Firestarter suggested it could be that these words were deemed too inflammatory to broadcast first time round, so they were snipped. I agreed, and likened this to snipping a sweary-word before the watershed but leaving it after the watershed. (I was then jumped on with declarations that “chemical weapon” wasn’t on any profanity list. Hey, it was an analogy.)
The video is only a slightly different time in the same interview. It’s probably as far apart as these two photos of the James Connolly Society banner, just a few seconds but enough that some people had moved. Not worth getting the sound and the picture to match exactly when nobody’s lips can be seen.
Sigh. Can’t we talk about something important?
Oh no, we’re back to it being “acted”. There’s no reason to believe that. They just haven’t used the exact same video moment both times because there’s no need to synchronise with lip movement.
Oh no, the BBC staged the whole thing, left in obvious clues it was all a “black ops” “false flag”, and then left both clips sitting handily on their web site so people could play “spot the difference” with them.
Aye, right.
I’ve read through this whole article and have to say – the bottom line for me is that there was a change in words, undeniably so and I will not be party to mass delusion through misinformation. It’s covert propaganda and as always, that depends on who’s calling the shots.
I’m also seeing, in my opinion, some kind of self-delusion running through these comments, which I suppose is a perfectly normal human trait and why shouldn’t our merry bunch be anything but normal with all of our very own little niceties? C’est la vie!
But, as far as I’m concerned, good old auntie Beeb has a long list of little troubles and that’s only those that we know about. Over and out.
Why waste time defending the indefensible? We all know what the BBC are doing in Scotland that’s all that matters.
O/T, Rev Stuart
have you tried link to infradead.org
I think you were asking about this on twiiter, I don’t do twitter, although I do sometimes scan the web page. I use this all the time to “record” bbc programs I like. Failing that get a TV card for your computer.
Jesus adieu – ????
Personally think the website needs a poll (and soon) but wont bug anyone anymore on the matter. Cant be doing with the infighting.
No Morag, I meant it’s the same audio used for both video takes, first one is original and the other is dubbed in, with the clipped part as you said. Sorry if I didn’t make that clear.
Tartanfever… if you can’t see there were two different shoots in those videos then look again, pause the top one at 11sec, second one at 14sec, both dialogues “sort of”, the guy in the hi-vis vest in the first clip has his arm behind his back, in the second clip it is by his side. Yet the dialogue is the same apart from removal of ‘chemical weapons’. It is not the same film. Rabb has also picked this up in his last post.
Anyway I’ve finished with it. Goodnighty all.
Morag, are you just wilfully ignoring the analysis I posted above, the audio isn’t simply chopped around to move words, there is a foley recording with the wrong audio fingerprint for the video, of a car horn inserted at the point of the speech edit in the Napalm video to mask the chop. This paste is visible as higher harmonics in a spectral analyzer (indicating a different microphone or video recorder captured the horn).
I have 30 years in audio and I know a paste over when I see one, I’m just wondering if it’s an innocent attempt to tidy a bad edit or was it a more serious effort to pass off the edited video as the genuine article.
Please don’t try to normalise this kind of editing for the blog’s readers as though it is the usual fare, it’s very rare for a location news recording to be edited in a layered fashion, in fact the norm is quite the opposite, usually the sound guy’s work is removing distracting sounds like, ahem, car horns, from the piece, not adding them in…..
BBC appears to be manipulating news content to make a political point in support of British Government policy regarding a foreign country.
They are guilty of that behaviour almost daily, especially with regards to people in Scotland advocating independence.
Nothing new here so move on.
BBC Scotland did some clipping and pasting with an Ally McCoist video to totally reverse the meaning of what he said, then made some lame excuse that it was a mistake, before apologising.
They are not to be trusted. Also, the BBC Trust is a misnomer, which has been confirmed with recent events.
Divide and conquer. Classic Brit tactic. Wise up!
Tartanfever… if you can’t see there were two different shoots in those videos then look again, pause the top one at 11sec, second one at 14sec, both dialogues “sort of”, the guy in the hi-vis vest in the first clip has his arm behind his back, in the second clip it is by his side. Yet the dialogue is the same apart from removal of ‘chemical weapons’. It is not the same film.
That’s absolutely true, several people pointed it out earlier. I don’t think it’s relevant, I think one of the clips has used video from a few seconds later to run with the sound. Probably the second edit, which is much more of a collage of different clips whereas the first runs the interview with Dr. Hallam at greater length both before and after the disputed section.
I think the editor who was doing the collage version just didn’t take care to get the right snip of the interview film, because there was no obvious visual cue requiring it to match exactly.
It’s all just an editing effect, different decisions for different purposes. And these two words snipped out the first time, which is the actual anomaly but seems pointless as a misdirection exercise.
Rev,
Any chance of limiting posts per person to say three or four in any one article per day?
For example, I am irritated by Morag’s high volume of comments because they are often pointless, repetitive & frequently so far off topic they are comical. Above are references to conspiracy theories regarding the collapse of NYC World Trade Center buildings.
Is the BBC biased? Discuss …
“I know someone with a verruca.” “My cat has a sore leg.” “Cheese is best served chilled in Egypt.” “Eggplant isn’t a by-product of chickens.” “I used to work in a paper shop but it blew away.”
It’s this type of school playground chatter that ruins an otherwise good website.
@G H Graham – Hmm?
Sorry there is no other terminology I know to use other than the blunt fact that we are discussing the integrity of an organisation that covered up institutionalised rape and peadophillia within its ranks for four decades.
Ok guys. Time out from all the bickering. I read this blog for information not childish squabbles and nit picking!
Rev Stu,
apologies before hand if this is formatted messily but doing this on iphone
I very, very seldom comment because I live on the other side of the planet so read things in a different time zone.
However, I have to say that this has been the most disappointing thread I have ever read.
Please, everyone, keep your eyes on the prize, and avoid such familial spats. it does nothing for the credence of this site!
Again, apologies, Rev Stu if this formatting is rubbish due to using iPhone.
The whole point of Revs article as I read it, was to show how the BBC could and would change a story as it saw fit.. Even to the point of changing what someone said.
This is an important issue for a lot of Don’t Knows who still trust the BBC.
Perhaps Morag needs to think before she jumps on these comments and starts to wag her finger at people, as she does this far to often.
Spelling? Grammar? So what!
I’m not a big conspiracy theorist myself, but a lot of people do believe that the 9/11 thing was faked by the US.
I tend to think that it’s the complete dishonesty and lack of moral integrity that we experience at the hands of out politicians, that gives a lot of the fuel for the fire of these conspiracies.
People are scared of what our politicians are doing, they want to talk about it, even on Wings.
Lets not be too quick to ridicule these people with comments like ‘Don’t..Just Don’t’
If it’s good enough for Drop The Dead Donkey…
Jesus I’m glad I work late on Mondays , I lost the will to live just scrolling through this
Just been thinking more about conspiracies, and realised I probably owe my friend from my previous job for my response to his conspiracy.
He was one of the first people to share the 9/11 – inside job conspiracies with me, to which my response was something like; ‘So what you are trying to tell me is that a democratically elected government conspired to kill thousands of it’s own people? You do understand that this would need the help of at least a couple of hundred people. do you actually believe that all these people would go along with this, or at least keep their mouth shut if they didn’t agree with it, just to enhance their own careers?’
I thought my friend Steve was mad and when he asked me to ‘look into it and decide for myself’ I didn’t think I needed to bother, such was my confidence that no Western democracy would ever kill it’s own people for political ends.
Now we have a government in the UK, that has killed more than 17,000 people at the last count, for purely political ends.
they claim it’s to help with debt repayments, but they refuse to tax the big corporations and have given huge tax breaks to the rich, so that’s a lie.
they want to pursue a political philosophy and are prepared to kill thousands of British people to get there.
The conspiracy concerning 9/11, is that the USA wanted to introduce draconian laws that were never going to be accepted by the American public, so they needed a disaster like 9/11 to convince the public that these ‘Patriot laws’ were necessary.
All I can say is that although I’m still not convinced, I am a lot less sure that Western democracies, would not kill it’s own citizens for the pursuit of it’s own political aims.
It’s all getting a bit kreepy, as the elite seem to be getting away with murder.
Its two completely different clips. The woman has said two pieces to camera at different moments and said something slightly different each time.
You need to watch them again a little more closely. The pictures, background, people are different – not just the dialogue.
I gave up last night and recently have pulled back on reading all the comments. Too much like hand to hand combat.
it was almost as though a Troll had managed to derail the thread.
Then again it just be me?
@BTP-
No, not just you. I gave up too. (Hey, that rhymes…)
WoS’ Judean Popular Front moment…?
Regarding 11/9 – the only conspiracy I subscribe to is the one which asserts that the US government knew what was going to happen and chose not to stop it. They have form in this area – Pearl Harbour anyone?
i have to say though that I don’t come to WoS for that. This about Scotland, not Syria. I need no further evidence of BBC news manipulation than the fact that a few weeks ago 20,000 peaceful people held a march and rally in their capital city and the BBC didn’t even turn up.
‘Nuff said.
What’s troubling is that the BBC has cut up and rearranged what someone has said, but presented it as a continuous unedited clip. If you’re not uncomfortable with that, don’t complain when the media lies to you.This is a hugely dismaying thread in all sorts of ways, so I’m going to give folk until 10am to have their last say and then lock it.
I don’t consider the thread dismaying. If everyone commenting on this site nodded in agreement with each other all the time that would be weird and scary.
The clips are what they are. What the doctor says was manipulated. I don’t see it as some huge conspiracy, but a potential example of the BBC/editors of the story tweaking the ‘evidence’ to suit the narrative it wants to portray. The question of motivation / whether that’s right or wrong is up to the reader to decide.
For middle east reporting, my Iranian colleagues (all moderate Mousavi camp), say that the BBC lie and twist stories about Iran all the time to suit what the current UK/western government narrative is, rather than what’s actually the case. This has caused them considerable dismay. After being here in Scotland, in terms of the referendum, they’ve concluded it’s little different to state TV in Iran.
“I don’t consider the thread dismaying. If everyone commenting on this site nodded in agreement with each other all the time that would be weird and scary. “
The disagreement isn’t dismaying, nor even the heated feelings. It’s the content of the disagreement that is (particularly the deployment of straw men), and the fact that the thread’s had more comments and more pageviews than the 5,000-word “Unionist Commandments” piece I sweated blood over.
Ah, the LIHOP position Gordon!
I found the jump to MIHOP was a very small one… one I made some years ago.
@ A4E
i have no idea what those acronyms stand for.
“i have no idea what those acronyms stand for.”
That makes two of us. Anyone?
On topic. This was tweeted into my timeline this morning;
link to actualidad.rt.com
“On topic. This was tweeted into my timeline this morning;”
Nice spot. And, y’know, here’s a translated version we can all actually read 😀
link to translate.google.com
Rev,
Mission accomplished I would say. Lot’s of differing opinion but the overriding lesson is to keep one eye open on the media at all times.
It’s definitely sharpened my focus on them for the inevitable black ops fight by the state for their blessed union 🙂
I share your disappointment Stu.
Let’s move on folks, too much battering heads off walls here.
@revstu @Bubbles
I didn’t know either, anyway quick search tells me it relates to 9/11 and they mean
MIHOP Made it happen on purpose and LIHOP Let it happen on purpose
Ah well learn something new everday.
Rev,
Your disappointment that this stushie has drawn attention away from more important posts is understandable.
Unfortunately, any post which even hints at subject-matter unpalatable to Morag is going to get the same treatment – during the time that she was commenting yesterday, (approx 11 hours) there were roughly 170 comments. Just over 20% of them were by Morag, and a lot of them were chunky posts which couldn’t have been done in less than five minutes.
A very conservative guesstimate would be that Morag spent the fat-end of three hours commenting on this thread yesterday – that’s estimated actual writing time.
Why? What was achieved? The ‘usual’ “right-wing conspiracy theorists” (er, that would be, me and Cameron?) were trashed, newcomers were barked-at, and the integrity of this site was questioned.
And, crucially, Morag ignored two perfectly reasonable posts from someone who sounds like he knows his onions when it comes to this specific subject – audio guy.
His posts at 9.30pm and 1.34am have been ignored.
Little over an hour until this thread is locked. If Morag doesn’t respond to audio guy‘s comments before then, some will draw their own conclusions about what she’s really doing here.
That’s me said my bit. I’m out.
mis sinceras disculpas señor
If Morag doesn’t respond to audio guy‘s comments before then, some will draw their own conclusions about what she’s really doing here.
I really resent these demands. What do you think I’m really doing here? I read these comments, and interpreted them as being part of the same re-editing process that led to the video clip being slightly different.
Well that was interesting for the most part (almost). What i know is that I have not trusted the BBC for a long time and I see no reason to change my mind now.
Now off for my morning walk. TTFN (Ta Ta For Now)
The clips are what they are. What the doctor says was manipulated. I don’t see it as some huge conspiracy, but a potential example of the BBC/editors of the story tweaking the ‘evidence’ to suit the narrative it wants to portray. The question of motivation / whether that’s right or wrong is up to the reader to decide.
I agree with that completely. Two words were removed, which didn’t change the sense of what the interviewee said. It shows that interview footage is edited, which we knew. Were they “tweaking” the story to suit a narrative? Maybe. But they didn’t change the sense of what was being said.
It’s up to the reader to decide. I don’t see it as a huge conspiracy, but at the most the expression of someone’s feeling that these two words, which were speculation of course, might inflame the situation or something like that.
Is that reprehensible? I don’t know. I just don’t go for the knee-jerk “black ops false flag” response to it.
@Morag-
‘I really resent these demands.’
No-one’s demanding anything. After dominating this site for a whole day, insisting that you were just interested in establishing ‘facts’, you were given facts and asked a pertinent question by audio guy and chose to ignore it – here it is again if you can’t be bothered locating it:
‘Morag, are you just wilfully ignoring the analysis I posted above, the audio isn’t simply chopped around to move words, there is a foley recording with the wrong audio fingerprint for the video, of a car horn inserted at the point of the speech edit in the Napalm video to mask the chop. This paste is visible as higher harmonics in a spectral analyzer (indicating a different microphone or video recorder captured the horn).
I have 30 years in audio and I know a paste over when I see one, I’m just wondering if it’s an innocent attempt to tidy a bad edit or was it a more serious effort to pass off the edited video as the genuine article.
Please don’t try to normalise this kind of editing for the blog’s readers as though it is the usual fare, it’s very rare for a location news recording to be edited in a layered fashion, in fact the norm is quite the opposite, usually the sound guy’s work is removing distracting sounds like, ahem, car horns, from the piece, not adding them in…..’
If you don’t know what the man is talking about, perhaps you could ask him to clarify? Or if you DO know what he means, please have the decency to respond so that the rest of us can make sense of it.
Cheers. Have a nice day.
The disagreement isn’t dismaying, nor even the heated feelings. It’s the content of the disagreement that is (particularly the deployment of straw men), and the fact that the thread’s had more comments and more pageviews than the 5,000-word “Unionist Commandments” piece I sweated blood over.
OK, I can tell when I’m not welcome.
I wasn’t intentionally employing straw men, I was giving my sincere interpretation of what you said. If that was mistaken, sorry. I’m still struggling with the dichotomy of “the alteration didn’t change the meaning of what was said” and all the inferences of underhand manipulation and skulduggery.
I was also unhappy about the concentration on this thread rather than the one about Robertson’s speech, or in particular the cabinet reshuffle. I recognise that this was partly my fault, perhaps I should just have let the usual consensus that the whole thing was acted and scripted and organised by the NWO carry on without comment.
However, do you really think it was wise to go from first sight of this issue on another blog to throwing up your own post on it, in little more than an hour, without thinking the thing through at all? It was obviously the sort of topic that might generate more heat than light, and it doesn’t even have anything to do with Scotland.
Taking time to analyse exactly what had been done, realising that the BBC was so unconcerned about the different edits that it was happy for both to be on the web site for everyone to play “spot the difference” at their leisure, followed by an email to the BBC to ask for their explanation of the discrepancy, might have been quite an illuminating article.
If you throw up hasty posts about issues that are obviously going to be contentious and have only a tenuous connection with Scottish politics, these posts are liable to take attention away from your substantial posts. It happens.
@Alba4Eva
Well he started it. Wah.
@CameronB
Well, I was hardly going to disclose that I was wearing Harris tweed longjohns, now was I? (maybe later).
…. please have the decency to respond….
One minute you’re complaining (probably justifiably) that I’ve been dominating this thread, and the next you’re demanding even more input.
I believe the anomaly audio guy pointed out is related to the speech and the background noise being separate, and that the re-edit has put the speech against a different segment of background noise as it has put it against a different segment of the video clip.
If there is some more sinister agenda going on here than simply the omission of two words which didn’t change the sense of the interview and which were restored when the interview was re-broadcast a month later, I am not picking up on it.
Just how sinister the two-word deletion is under those circumstances is open to debate, but I’m not seeing anything I would regard as proof that anything more than an injudicious bit of editing happened.
I tend to think that changing someone saying ‘Chemical Weapons’ to that same person saying ‘something like Napalm’ is hugely significant, as Napalm isn’t a chemical weapon and it was a chemical weapon attack on his own population, that was the supposed justification for USA/UK launching a military attack on Syria.
The expose of the broadcast media, manipulating news to show that Syria was using chemical weapons, destroyed the UK governments credibility and went a long way to making sure that the UK government had to vote against this war.
I don’t think the changed audio that is ‘edited in’ is a small matter and I don’t think we can be described as right wing conspiratists for pointing this behaviour by the BBC out to the wider public.
The original article was very important and people need to stop pursuing personal agenda’s on Wings because it always ends up destroying a perfectly good comment thread.
When I say personal agendas against individuals, I mean against the original author of the BBC expose, as well as any agenda against Morag, if one does exist.
This thread is now closed.
Nobody is “unwelcome” here, and no commenter is valued more or less than any other.
And hey, we might have had a bit of a kerfuffle, but unlike the commenters on Craig Murray’s site at least nobody said “Zionist” at any point, so let’s feel good about ourselves.
Gordon… Let it happen on purpose & made it happen on purpose 😉
Perhaps it is time to reinstate the old practice where the leader of the country leads his men to war and not rely on others to do it for him….get yer boots on Cameron, no you wont need that body armour
David Cameron.
Happy to send brave men into foreign wars, in the pretence that it is in Britain’s interest.
But too cowardly to debate Alex Salmond, even though he says it’s in Britain’s interest for both Scotland and the RUK to remain in the Union.
Crapper Cameron.
link to craigmurray.org.uk
i’m sure you already have this, but it is as you scroll through the comments that you begin to realise the cynical, disinterest in truth and journalistic integrity disolayed by BBC. This doctor is the daughter of one of the heads of the Syrian opposition coalition; her impartiality is, at best, suspect, and the fact that this was “omitted” from the report whiffs of set-up and propaganda.
what could possibly persuade us thst the same standards and integrity apply in coverage of the Referendum debate, and the same tactics are being used.
Follow up on this matter here: link to bbcpanoramasavingsyriaschildren.wordpress.com
[…] I read about unreliable BBC coverage of an event in Syria – check out the footage posted here – if it hasn’t disappeared already. At least it helps a little to know the BBC lies […]
Presentation discussing this material here: link to off-guardian.org
[…] I read about unreliable BBC coverage of an event in Syria – check out the footage posted here – if it hasn’t disappeared already. At least it helps a little to know the BBC lies […]
[…] I read about unreliable BBC coverage of an event in Syria – check out the footage posted here – if it hasn’t disappeared already. At least it helps a little to know the BBC lies […]