www.bbc.co.uk...
The 9/11 conspiracy theories are pretty well known by now. The BBC addressed them earlier this month with a documentary, The Conspiracy Files, shown
within the UK.
BBC World logoUntil now, I don't think we've been accused of being part of the conspiracy. But now some websites are using news footage from BBC
World on September 11th 2001 to suggest we were actively participating in some sort of attempt to manipulate the audience. As a result, we're now
getting lots of emails asking us to clarify our position. So here goes:
1. We're not part of a conspiracy. Nobody told us what to say or do on September 11th. We didn't get told in advance that buildings were going to
fall down. We didn't receive press releases or scripts in advance of events happening.
2. In the chaos and confusion of the day, I'm quite sure we said things which turned out to be untrue or inaccurate - but at the time were based on
the best information we had. We did what we always did - sourced our reports, used qualifying words like "apparently" or "it's reported" or
"we're hearing" and constantly tried to check and double check the information we were receiving.
An image of the website hosting the alleged BBC World footage3. Our reporter Jane Standley was in New York on the day of the attacks, and like
everyone who was there, has the events seared on her mind. I've spoken to her today and unsurprisingly, she doesn't remember minute-by-minute what
she said or did - like everybody else that day she was trying to make sense of what she was seeing; what she was being told; and what was being told
to her by colleagues in London who were monitoring feeds and wires services.
4. We no longer have the original tapes of our 9/11 coverage (for reasons of cock-up, not conspiracy). So if someone has got a recording of our
output, I'd love to get hold of it. We do have the tapes for our sister channel News 24, but they don't help clear up the issue one way or
another.
5. If we reported the building had collapsed before it had done so, it would have been an error - no more than that. As one of the comments on You
Tube says today "so the guy in the studio didn't quite know what was going on? Woah, that totally proves conspiracy... "
Now you may find the Alex Jones Rebuttal here.
www.prisonplanet.com...
[edit on 28-2-2007 by crijack]