The BBC Fiasco

The story begins when BBC Panorama reporter John Sweeney set off to do a story about the Church of Scientology. This apparently did not go well and the Scientogolists who were trying to work with Mr. Sweeney came to a point where they felt that he was working on a preconceived story and was not about to do anything else.

Not willing to have an unfair report done on them like was done by Panorama 20 years prior, they decided to turn the cameras on Mr. Sweeney and do their own documentary to expose the tactics of a unscrupulous reporter, working for the largest news gathering organization in the world.

This is where it got interesting.

After being subjected to a day of abusive questioning by Mr. Sweeney at Celebrity Centre, members of the Church were getting fed up with Sweeney’s continuous anti-Scientology slurs. So, while on a tour at the Citizens Commission of Human Rights museum, “Psychiatry: An Industry Of Death” Sweeney was cleared up on just what it meant for someone to be “brainwashed”. Jan Eastgate and Tommy Davis both pointed out in no uncertain terms that brainwashing included torture and clearly illegal conduct. He told that his continual use of the word “brainwashing” was actually defamatory.

But when Tommy told Sweeney that he had been soft in his interview on Shaun Lonsdale, a convicted sex offender, who had was being paid to harass members of the Church in Clearwater, Florida, it was at this point that Sweeney blew a gasket and let lose with his now famous rant.

Sweeney is known for his confrontational “reporting” style in order to try and evoke a reaction which he can capture on camera, but this time the tables had been turned on him.

Still hoping to get a fair shake from the BBC, members of the Church attempted to meet with executives of the BBC to address Sweeney’s conduct and violations of the BBC’s standards. The BBC, not known for being able to accept criticism or admit when one of their shows is being biased, did nothing to satisfactorily address these complaints, so the Church went ahead and completed a documentary exposing and began showing preview clips to interested journalists, and other opinion leaders.

The week before the BBC aired their show on Scientology, they released a trailer which someone posted on YouTube.

This prompted Scientologist John Wood to put up the clip of Sweeney completely losing it while in the middle of the interview with Scientologist Tommy Davis. This clip as seen here quickly became a YouTube favorite and create quite a buzz which then prompted media interest.

The BBC evidently received a lot of backlash and tried to quell this by posting theit own footage on YouTube. This showed and upset Tommy Davis and John Sweeney having a heated discussion. Watching this clip, however, Tommy is clearly upset due to the slurs that Sweeney has been using to depict his religion and again shows more of the religious bias with which Sweeney was approaching the story.

Someone else then put up a clip of Sweeney complaining about the “morons” at the BBC who collect a salary which can be seen here:

This was followed by the posting of a very lame apology by Sweeney.

The Church of Scientology staff who were involved in the meetings with John Sweeney rapidly put together a very informative documentary about their dealings with the BBC Panorama crew and reporter John Sweeney and started distributing just before the Sweeney’s show aired. You can watch this documentary online or order a copy from BBC Panorama Exposed. Or you can watch just the indroduction Panorama Exposed.

John Sweeney’s rant has prompted numerous humorous take offs which can be seen here:

Banorama

 

Dalek got into the action