Auntie claims that it did not mislead viewers of The Frozen Planet.
The BBC has denied misleading Frozen Planet viewers with footage of newborn polar bear cubs filmed in an animal park, rather than in the wild.
I watched this episode and nowhere was there any mention of footage being filmed in a wildlife park. Nowhere.
“The commentary accompanying the sequence is carefully worded so it doesn’t mislead the audience and the way the footage was captured is clearly explained on the programme website.”
So carefully worded that the words, “wildlife park”, “zoo” and “faked” were carefully omitted.
The BBC said the narration “talked in general about polar bears in the wild rather than the specific cubs shown”.
Semantics, semantics. It should have been obvious to anyone with half a brain cell that the failure to specifically mention that footage was of captive animals in an artificial environment would lead to people believing that the footage was filmed in the wild – particularly so when cut with footage of the wild environment and a commentary that talked about a den in the snow. I don’t doubt that such footage would have been incredibly difficult to capture. I accept the statement that it would have been impossible. However, the series was accompanied by scenes of the film crews tackling other extremely difficult shots. So, yes, the BBC did mislead its viewers and subsequent weasel words don’t change that.
So… What else are they lying about? Answers on a postcard, please.
Nothing is ‘real’ on TV. They frame, light and edit moving images to create programmes that educate entertain and amuse.
I’m always amazed that people get hung up about it.
A postcard? We’re talking about an institutionally progressive liberal organisation here, LR. I would have thought a quire or two of A4 would be more appropriate.
@nisakiman, more like a ream.
I have to consider the strain on my in tray.
Probably everything…
In fairness to the Beeb they’ve been doing this kind of thing pretty much since the wildlife unit was created, because you simply can’t get much of the more impressive eye-candy footage any other way. And they’ve always let people think some keen bugger spent six months in a mangrove swamp to grab the perfect 15 seconds of the dreadful spindly killifish dropping from the sky to mate, or whatever. It was DVD extras that first tipped me off to how much of it is done in terrariums in Bristol or other equally artificial environments. Can’t speak for this particular sequence involving the warble gloaming poster child as I haven’t seen it and don’t know what else was being claimed, though I know they’re getting some heat over their usual bias in Frozen Planet (more heat than the frozen planet itself is getting 😆 ) but if it’s the usual thing I’m not too bothered by it.
Of course. The issue here is the way they are trying to wriggle out of it. They quite clearly insinuated that this footage was shot in the wild. There was nary a hint of it being artificial. Now they are using weasel words to try and claim that the commentary didn’t refer to the bear being filmed creating her den when it was clear from the film and the commentary that that was precisely what the viewer was expected to believe. Semantics, semantics, as I said. They got caught. All they have to do is be up front and admit it.
Personally, I believe that the BBC is perfectly willing to lie about absolutely anything to further its agenda.
But I also believe that were you to pay them enough they would happily make whatever type of program you wanted. Because no matter how righteous and superior they want to appear, no matter how much they bang on about lefty values, at the end of the day, it’s all about the money.
As soon as racism, sexism, “poverty”, AGW, etc stop being cash cows, they’ll drop coverage of them without a second thought.
That’s fair enough. Yes, they should just be honest and say that it’s just part and parcel of nature programmes and nothing to be ashamed of any more than special effects in the movies. Instead they’ve resorted to spin as the first option and it makes them look shifty. Okay, shiftier.
I remember thinking at the time that, if anyone actually had been brave enough to stick a camera into the den of a wild polar bear in labour, then surely we’d never hear the end of it.
Of course, there is always the possibility that someone has already tried – after all, no pregnant polar bear is going to turn down the chance of an extra bit of protein.
I read somewhere that this last one was not shown in the states for some reason, I wonder what the reason was.
John Gibson
??????????
This is pure diversion.
The Beeb gets to have its discussion about truthiness and whatnot about a totally inconsequential element of the programme.
It’s not the filming of a polar bear giving birth that is the issue: it’s the flipping CAGW propaganda. Why has no-one raised this?
I haven’t seen the final episode yet. Prior to this, the AGW message has been pretty subliminal. The overt message in the final episode is why they are not selling it to the USA.
They quite clearly insinuated that this footage was shot in the wild.
Storm in a thimble. They didn’t insinuate any such thing, any more than a movie director ‘insinuates’ that someone was really shot in an action movie because he doesn’t put a caption up saying ‘this actor was not really shot’. Anyone with more than one braincell would know that such footage may be doctored. Anyone with more get up and go than the professional BBC hater could check the programme’s web site to find out more details how how the production was filmed, where they would have found out how it was filmed. To call it ‘lying’ is is ridiculous over reaction.
This is a classic case of the cover up being worse than the original offence. The footage shown along with the commentary most certainly insinuated that the bear shown in the den was the same one seen a few seconds earlier. To liken a documentary with a work of fiction is comparing apples and oranges, so can be dismissed.
Yes, sure, at the back of my mind was the usual question about how they got the footage and whether it was set up. That isn’t the issue here; it is the weasel words they subsequently came out with to suggest that they were not misleading their audience. Of course they were. And when challenged, they should have fronted it out and said that this was how it’s always been done given the difficulties involved. Instead we got wriggling and squirming and even more obfuscation as they tried to excuse what happened.
To call it lying is not an over reaction, it is an objective statement of fact. They lied. They got challenged. They should have said, “so what?”
Not everyone has the Internet. Not everyone bothers to go onto the Internet to see how a programme was put together and the makers should not assume that they will. What they should have done is explained it in the ten minute slot at the end of the programme. I doubt anyone would have cried “foul” if they had.