- That ballot-stuffing takes place in Russia is not seriously in doubt
- however, BBC News used footage of the same two women ‘ballot stuffing’ in two different elections to substantiate claims of extent Russian vote-rigging
- coincidence or otherwise, revelation reflects poorly on BBC editorial practices
- BBC fails to respond to question whether it knew it had done so, or to concerns its choice was inadequate to support claims
Last month, the BBC showed footage of alleged ‘ballot stuffing’ in the Russian presidential election, which returned Vladimir Putin to office with a share of almost 77%. The footage, taken by CCTV, was described as showing one of ‘hundreds’ of locations across Russia – apparently captured by the Russian ‘Central Election Commission’ (CEC) – where such tampering with the election process had taken place.
The footage shown includes a striking coincidence – because it appeared to show the same two women stuffing ballots that the BBC had shown in a similar feature in the Russian legislative elections in 2016:
This may, of course, genuinely be a coincidence – but based on the banks of CCTV screens shown behind the BBC’s Russia correspondent Steve Rosenberg, it’s certainly a remarkable one as the CEC monitoring appears to have been extensive, as supported also by the ‘hundreds of violations’ line in the voice-over of the 2018 clip.
The SKWAWKBOX asked the BBC:
The footage you showed on today’s news bulletins of ballot stuffing (see https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09vl2d0/bbc-news-at-one-19032018 from 12 mins) appears to show the same two women stuffing ballots shown in the BBC footage of ballot-stuffing at an earlier presidential election embedded here https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/leaked-videos-clinton-voter-fraud/.
Did the BBC realise it was showing the same two women as in the last presidential election? Which other footage of such stuffing from the 2018 Russian election did you have and not show? Do you recognise the potential concern that such limited footage of alleged vote tampering is not adequate to support the implied widespread tampering alleged in your programming?
The BBC’s response did not address most of the specific questions raised. A BBC spokesperson said:
We stand by our report that there have been multiple violations and cases of rigging during Sunday’s Russian election, reported and confirmed by Golos, an election watchdog independent of government in Russia. The video footage shown on BBC News of rigging has been verified by our own user-generated content team for accuracy.
The SKWAWKBOX, of course, did not challenge the reality of vote-tampering in Russia, but rather the BBC’s reliance on video showing the same two women in different years – along with a handful of other clips showing similar behaviour – to substantiate the claim and how this might appear to sceptics.
The 2018 video was originally shown on the 1pm BBC News broadcast of 19 March 2018 (and possibly later programmes). This is no longer available on iplayer, but is still available on YouTube. The 2016 footage was taken from a 2016 Snopes article.
The SKWAWKBOX needs your support. This blog is provided free of charge but depends on the generosity of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal. Thanks for your solidarity so this blog can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.
If you wish to reblog this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Hahaha! Great stuff, Skwawky! 😀
They’re gonna go round schools, teaching kids how to spot ‘fake news’? are they?
I’d like to appeal to parents to withdraw their child(ren) from these planned classes on the grounds that:-
1/ The bbc and it’s employees don’t have a very good record when it comes to children’s safety, do they?
2/ The bbc are indeed, hypocritical purveyors of fake news rather than any sort authority on what constitutes it (See #1 for proof).
Thing is, the Russian result is compounded by the fact that opposition leaders were telling people not to vote at all, like that’s a good idea, and we have no idea how many did as a result or what impact that actually had.
But as usual there’s double standards in the press; every story about Putin’s reelection was followed by the implication that there was vote tampering with pretty flimsy evidence. But Sisi (installed through a coup) wins 96% of the vote in Egypt and everyone is conspicuously silent (and May couldn’t have enthused about it more if she tried).
If one is suspicious, then the other absolutely has to be, yet one is ignored completely.
Don’t know why I’m surprised, really.
All the bbc ever shows is repeats….Another reason to prevent your kids being brainwashed into believing that the beeb is ‘value for money’. They’re selling you (over)used goods and (over)charging new prices for them.
…Oh, and the perpetual harrassment of the legally licence free. According to the bbc you’re a liar if you don’t require a Tv licence.
The BBC, a once supposedly honourable impartial broadcaster, but after the news of it employing so many paedophiles it must have been a prerequisite for employment, and their impartiality having been so lost that they now resemble nothing more than a Tory rag, I now see them as an on air Daily Express/Mail . . .
Sad times for us all . . .
Lazy.
Richard Dennis