{"id":520,"date":"2007-07-12T10:35:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-12T16:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/?p=520"},"modified":"2007-07-12T10:35:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-12T16:35:00","slug":"the-collateral-damage-of-documentary-promotion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/2007\/07\/the-collateral-damage-of-documentary-promotion\/","title":{"rendered":"The collateral damage of documentary promotion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Y<\/span>esterday the BBC<\/span> invited assorted media journos to take a peak at its autumn schedule. According to the Guardian<\/span>, as BBC One boss Peter Fincham<\/span> introduced a clip to promote RDF<\/span> doc series A Year with the Queen<\/span> he announced, \u201cAnnie Leibovitz gets it slightly wrong and the Queen walks out in a huff.\u201d<\/p>\n

We now know this was a cynical stunt by a conspiracy of masonic republicans to undermine the monarchy – and it nearly worked.<\/p>\n

Clearly Fincham is now finished in television – his credibility in tatters. RDF should never be allowed in the Palace again. The BBC should have the word \u201croyal\u201d removed from its charter.<\/p>\n

Actually, I think the Queen will survive this sleight, and so too should the BBC.<\/p>\n

But the corporation might want to look at how documentary-makers treat less privileged individuals when advertising their wares.<\/p>\n

During the Iraq War, Sky News<\/span> reporter James Forlong<\/span> filed a pool piece from a submarine. I was at ITN<\/span> and watched it come in. (Disclosure<\/span>: I worked alongside Forlong in the early 1990s. He wasn\u2019t a friend.)<\/p>\n

Forlong began his piece: \u201cBeneath the waters of the Persian Gulf, the nuclear powered submarine HMS Splendid and the final moments before a cruise missile is launched.\u201d I didn\u2019t clear it for air. It was, self-evidently, an overwritten facility of the thumbsucking variety.<\/p>\n

A BBC documentary team were on the sub, filming Fighting the War<\/span><\/a>. They didn\u2019t challenge the piece at the time, whilst the war was being waged. They saved it up to promote their series.<\/p>\n

The docs team revealed that the sub was in port, and the piece was an exercise – which was pretty much how it looked. Forlong\u2019s script certainly could have been read either way. It contained clear file material of a missile launch. If the sub had been submerged, it would have been beneath the waters of the Persian Gulf. Overwritten is a very long way from fake.<\/p>\n

Forlong, 44, was the hors d\u2019oeuvre<\/span> for the press screening. He was quite literally served up, there and then for public humiliation, his professional reputation destroyed over an error of judgment.<\/p>\n

The documentary series producer was quoted saying: \u201cViewers need to be able to trust the editorial integrity of a news report. People assume that what they see on the news is for real. This sort of thing undermines the journalistic community of which we are part.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forlong resigned from Sky. Despite a decade dodging bullets in places like Somalia and Chechnya, he was quite unhireable. He was married with two children. Unemployed, he hanged himself.<\/p>\n

Trust was restored. The series was promoted. No inquiry needed. All was well with the world.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday the BBC invited assorted media journos to take a peak at its autumn schedule. According to the Guardian, as BBC One boss Peter Fincham introduced a clip to promote RDF doc series A Year with the Queen he announced, \u201cAnnie Leibovitz gets it slightly wrong and the Queen walks out in a huff.\u201d We […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,50],"tags":[15,145],"class_list":["post-520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism","category-journalists","tag-bbc","tag-sky-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}