BBC to issue global apology for documentaries that broke rules [View all]

[Newsjock]

Source: The Independent

The BBC will today apologise to an estimated 74 million people around the world for a news fixing scandal, exposed by The Independent, in which it broadcast documentaries made by a London TV company that was earning millions of pounds from PR clients which it featured in its programming.

BBC World News viewers from Kuala Lumpur to Khartoum and Bangkok to Buenos Aires will watch the remarkable broadcast, available in 295 million homes, 1.7 million hotel rooms, 81 cruise ships, 46 airlines and on 35 mobile phone platforms, at four different times, staged in order to reach audiences in different time zones. The BBC will apologise for breaking "rules aimed at protecting our editorial integrity".

The Independent exposed last year in an investigation into the global television news industry how the BBC paid nominal fees of as little as £1 for programmes made by FBC Media (UK), whose PR client list included foreign governments and multinational companies. The company made eight pieces for the BBC about Malaysia while failing to declare it was paid £17m by the Malaysian government for "global strategic communications". The programmes included positive coverage of Malaysia's controversial palm oil industry.

... The Independent has revealed FBC, which was run by the former Financial Times journalist Alan Friedman and the CNN presenter John Defterios, was also making editorial programmes that featured FBC clients for the global business broadcaster CNBC, which suspended its FBC-made show World Business. Other FBC clients included the governments of Greece and Kazakhstan and companies like Microsoft. FBC also tried to suggest in its promotional literature it had "cultivated" key opinion formers, such as economist Jeffrey Sachs, as "ambassadors". Sachs totally rejected the claim.

Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/bbc-to-issue-global-apology-for-documentaries-that-broke-rules-6719997.html