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Original Source: MAIL: 26 NOVEMBER 2007 |
By
VANESSA ALLEN
Last updated at 00:15am on 26th November 2007 |
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A producer quit a BBC programme about Madeleine McCann as he felt the
documentary verged "on the dishonest", it was disclosed yesterday.
David Mills, who was the original producer on last week's Panorama special on
the disappearance, walked out after an angry row with th
programme's editor and then wrote a stinging email to the BBC, attacking it for
losing its journalistic passion.
He said: "So far as I can see, investigative journalism at the BBC is over.
"The broadcast script contains nuances that suggest that the McCanns still
have a case to answer. The BBC should have had the courage to state that this
is simply not so."
Mr Mills, who has a 40-year career as a documentary-maker, asked the BBC to
take his name off the end credits despite working on the programme for weeks.
He said he wanted to focus on the apparent campaign of disinformation put out
by Portuguese police to put pressure on Kate and Gerry McCann, and to criticise
press coverage of the case.
But he said the end programme put across the case both for and against the
McCanns and reached no final conclusion.
In an email to Panorama editor Sandy Smith, he criticised the programme's
"intellectual impoverishment" and said it was "far below the
standard of any work that I or my company would wish to be associated
with".
He said the programme "verges on the dishonest" and was "a
laboured, pedestrian extended news report" which he branded
"shameful".
He wrote: "The real question must be how, without any meaningful evidence,
the Portuguese police and the media in Portugal
and Britain
have been able to convince most people that the couple were involved.
"Yet while the programme drips innuendos against the McCanns, it does not
put a single challenging question to anyone in the Portuguese police or to
anyone in the media. This is truly astonishing."
The incident is one of several controversies Panorama has faced this year
including a report on Scientology by journalist John Sweeney, in which he lost
his temper and turned - in his words - into an "exploding tomato",
and a report claiming that wi-fi technology might be
harmful, which was denounced by some scientists as "irresponsible".
Mr Smith said the decisions about the programme's content were made after it
obtained new footage, including an interview with witness Jane Tanner, and
said: "The original version was just not journalistically as
important."
McCann family spokesman Clarence Mitchell, a former BBC reporter, said the
couple were 'content' with the broadcast version and had spoken to reporter
Richard Bilton and told him they considered it
'fair'.
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