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9 responses to “Does Roy Greenslade know what ‘justice’ means?”

1. 

   Willard Foxton

   June 17, 2011

   I think you’re totally wrong here Quentin.
   If you read what the Trust said, they found that they could not prove “beyond reasonable doubt” that the 18 second clip was authentic.
   They didn’t find it was faked. What happened was they couldn’t prove it was real. There’s a massive difference there, especially in hidden cam doc footage.
   Of course, the other 28 minutes of the documentary, including 11 interviews, were all proven to be true, but award winning in their potency. Primark fired suppliers over it, who were actually slavers. You don’t get a presumption of innocence when you admit your guilt.
   I have it on decent authority that the trust is going to see a judicial review over this, particularly on the ground that the whole doc cannot be shown again; equally, it’s awful PR for Primark. Why remind everyone that you used child labour less than three years ago?

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2. 

   qlangley

   June 17, 2011

   Thanks for the comment, but you are mistaken.
   Greenslade himself quotes the BBC Trust report as saying:
   “Having carefully scrutinised all of the relevant evidence, the committee concluded that, on the balance of probabilities, it was more likely than not that the Bangalore footage was not authentic.”
   It is not merely, as you suggest, that the evidence for the allegation fell short of ‘beyond reasonable doubt’. The Trust concluded that that footage was probably not authentic.
   You cannot ask the BBC to stand by journalism that it believes is probably fake on the grounds that it just might be true.
   The BBC cannot make allegations against you, or me, or David Cameron, or Primark, that just might be true. That is not a defensible standad for journalistic ethics.

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3. 

   Willard Foxton

   June 17, 2011

   Well,
   I think you’re playing Primark’s game here Quentin.
   They did employ child labour, in sweatshops in both the 3rd world and the UK.
   This whole thing has come up from a Primark investigator saying he couldn’t find any evidence either way. On the standard of “the planitiff’s agent says he can’t prove it wasn’t true, and look at this wealth of evidence that says the practice definitely occurred”, that sounds to me like there was no proof either way, and as usual, the trust is hanging journalists out to dry.
   They have interpreted “balance of probabilities” as “the journalist has to prove beyond reasonable doubt”, which is utter nonsense.

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4. 

   qlangley

   June 17, 2011

   Think what you like, Willard. I have no brief for Primark. As you will note from both the content of the blog and the headline, I was commenting on Roy Greenslade’s disgraceful interpretation of journalistic “ethics”.
   I don’t know what basis, if any, you have for claiming there was no proof either way. The BBC Trust concluded the balance of evidence was that one section of the documentary was faked.
   Now, let us accept, for the sake of argument that (as you say) other things alleged in the documentary were true. Well, that’s not good enough. When the BBC makes a documentary, it is ALL supposed to be true, not just most of it. You cannot publish something that says Ed Miliband is the son of a Marxist, is a child molester, and that he betrayed his brother, and then claim this is okay because it is two thirds true.
   What Greenslade is claiming is that anything a journalist says should be presumed true unless there is clear evidence, beyond reasonable doubt, that it is false. In other words, that it is okay to make any old allegation about anyone if, well, hey, it might be true. That is not a reasonable basis for journalistic ethics.
   I find no evidence for your unsupported assertion that the BBC has confused the “balance of probabilities” with “beyond reasonable doubt”. The Trust has concluded that a section of the documentary was probably fake. Quite rightly, the BBC is unwilling to stand by “journalism” which it considers to be probably false.
   As for the question of whether journalists should be able to stand up their stories, obviously they should. They should have evidence. What should be the standard of proof? That is a legitimate area of debate. But, plainly, it has to be AT LEAST, the balance of evidence. It has to be, at least, more likely than not that it is true. The fact that something MIGHT be true, even though the evidence tends to suggest otherwise, is not a basis for ethical journalism.

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5. 

   Willard Foxton

   June 17, 2011

   Quentin,
   when I say “playing primark’s game” I was pretty sure you weren’t on brief from Primark – you dress to well for that, for a start. All I was saying was you are taking their point of view.
   I must take issue with the Ed Miliband point; it’s probably the most exaggerated, ludicrous reductio ad absurdum on the entire internet:). To take the example though: if Miliband was serially proven and convicted as a child molester, and 15 seconds of footage in an hour long documentary was unattributable, that writes off the whole (award winning) work.
   My point is, Primark absolutely admit they were using child labour, and that is the really reprehensible thing here. The journalists arguments and primarks arguments both lacked any proof; the trust chose primarks. That’s the root of my assertion that the trust is hanging people out to dry. It’s not like they don;t have form for it.

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6. 

   qlangley

   June 17, 2011

   I am not taking Primark’s point of view. That is just your invention. I am not commenting one way or the other on Primark’s employment practices, of which I have no knowledge.
   I am commenting here on media ethics, and particularly Roy Greenslade’s indefensible views.
   No-one has suggested that any valid points in the documentary are rendered invalid by a single piece of faked evidence. But it does undermine the whole piece of work. It goes to the integrity of the whole project. When people lie to you, it makes you less likely to trust them in the future. That is why the BBC is right to seek to defend its own reputation. That’s the reputation here that I care about, not Primark’s.
   Your assertion that the Trust is simply taking Primark’s word is unsupported. The Trust investigated the matter and found that the evidence suggested this element of the programme was faked. And it shouldn’t have been. Not any of it. The BBC should not be in the business of promoting fake news.
   Greenslade’s position is that if there is a possibility that the news is true, the BBC should stand by it, even it thinks it is probably fake. That’s disgraceful.
   Your position seems to be slightly different. You seem to believe the BBC should not have concluded that the footage was faked, because you deny that the evidence suggests this. You have offered no reasoning or evidence for this view.

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7. 

   Willard Foxton

   June 18, 2011

   To quote directly from the report:
   “The Committee agreed that it was important to note that investigations such as these were in the public interest. The investigation in the programme had obtained clear evidence that work was being outsourced from factories in India in contravention of Primark’s own ethical trading principles. It also contained other footage of young children working on Primark clothing in a refugee camp just outside Tirupur, which Primark conceeded was genuine.”
   The evidence the trust used to justify the finding against Panorama came from 4 video interviews which were provided by Primarks own investigators.
   The interviews were sourced from India, and provided with the co-operation of the boys employers in the garment factory. They were not subject to cross-examination, and thus their evidence was effectively unchallengable, not to mention obtained under circumstances likely to lead to a presumption of undue influence in a court. The trust has put far too much weight on Primark’s own (highly dubious) report.
   The trusts handling of the evidential process, is serious breach on natural justice. That, to my mind, is deeply problematic, very harmful to the BBC’s reputation in its own right and will have a serious chilling effect on investigative journalism. Greenslade’s position is that both sides should be held to the same standard; that seems perfectly reasonable.
   Quentin – you say “No-one has suggested that any valid points in the documentary are rendered invalid by a single piece of faked evidence.” – but that is EXACTLY what the trust is doing by insisting that the programme is not to be sold or repeated. Primark are crowing that they have “cleared their name”, which is utter nonsense.
   I think, the trust is opening itself to a Judicial review because of the way it interpreted Primark’s evidence; that Primark is opening itself to a libel action by making some pretty ballsy claims about Dan MacDougal.
   I think Greenslade’s view on the ethics of this is absolutely fair enough – his argument is that if both sides were held to the same standard of proof, Primark would have lost the case.

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8. 

   qlangley

   June 18, 2011

   You say that you have a problem with the fact that Primark’s interviewees were not subject to cross examination. Nor were any of Panorama’s. If that is a basis for dismissing the evidence then every aspect of this edition – and every edition – of Panorama should be dismissed as a breach of natural justice.
   The Trust is absolutely not suggesting that all parts of the Panorama investigation need to be dismissed, as the section you quote reveals very clearly. No-one is suggesting that.
   Greenslade’s view is most certainly NOT that both should be held to the same standard of evidence. He is suggesting a standard which presumes that all journalists are truthful even if the evidence suggests otherwise.
   In a circumstance in which the Trust has concluded that the evidence suggests a section of the documentary was faked, Greenslade is saying the BBC should stand by it unless it can be shown beyond reasonable doubt that it was faked. He dismisses the balance of probabilities as a standard of evidence, even though it is the one journalists use all the time and is the standard for defamation cases.
   In other words his view is that if there is any chance at all that something is true, even if it probably isn’t, then the BBC should stand by it.
   Apart from the fact that this is obviously ridiculous, if the BBC tried to adhere to that standard, it would destroy its own reputation. No corporation can reasonably stand by journalism which it has concluded is probably faked, even if they are mistaken in reaching that conclusion, as you seem to believe.

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9. 

   qlangley

   June 18, 2011

   Perhaps this is the best summary:
   Trust’s position: one section of the documentary was probably faked.
   Q’s position: in those circumstances, the Trust was right to disown that piece of journalism.
   Greenslade’s position: in those circumstances, the Trust was wrong to disown its journalism.
   Your position: the Trust was wrong to reach that conclusion.
   Your position may be right or wrong, but is morally defensible. Greenslade’s is a disgrace.

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