Thread by @aaronjmate

BBC podcast "Mayday" tries to repair the reputation of Syria's White Helmets & their late founder. It also tries to discredit the OPCW whistleblowers. It does so with glaring falsehoods & omissions. Host @chloehadj pledged to answer my Qs, but hasn't yet: thegrayzone.com/2020/11/30/que…

I have outlined here just some of the major falsehoods, leaps of logic, and omissions in @chloehadj's series. If the BBC stands by this reporting, then I expect that it will welcome the opportunity to answer my questions.

cc @richkradio @bbcpress
thegrayzone.com/2020/11/30/que…

It would take several articles to document all of @chloehadj's journalistic lapses. Here are a few glaring ones:

.@chloehadj strongly, and falsely, insinuates that OPCW whistleblower "Alex" collected a $100,000 reward from Wikileaks for leaking information. She aired this innuendo without doing the minimal journalistic step: asking Wikileaks if it's true.

.@chloehadj's series has a huge conflict of interest. Her topic is the White Helmets (WH) & its late founder, James Le Mesurier (JLM). Her *researcher* is a longtime employee of UK gov't contractor ARK -- which branded the WH, marketed it, & employed JLM. She never mentions this.

.@chloehadj claims that the OPCW inspectors' concerns were addressed. Yet she omits multiple, critical facts, including: the censorship of the inspectors' initial report; the exclusion of toxicology experts; the sidelining of the inspectors who went to Syria.

Here is perhaps @chloehadj's most incredible omission: her own BBC colleague's reporting! @Dalatrm says the hospital scene -- where the White Helmets, Chloe's topic was active -- was "staged."

Yet Chloe, on a BBC podcast about the White Helmets & Douma, completely omits this:

There's a lot more, detailed here: thegrayzone.com/2020/11/30/que….

Again, if @chloehadj manages to respond to my questions as she promised to, I will update this article with her answers.

One of the most bizarre aspects of @chloehadj's podcast is her use of "Leon", a purported OPCW source, to attempt to refute the whistleblowers. Chloe claims Leon "works for the OPCW." But it's unclear in what capacity & if Leon had any role in the Douma probe he's commenting on.

Leon uses the filler word "like" a lot, sounding like a young guy, not a veteran scientist. He refers to the Douma team as "They" -- suggesting he wasn't a member. And he recycles the same laughable claims as @bellingcat tried in their recent hoax. (thegrayzone.com/2020/10/28/dra…)

Weirdly, @chloehadj & "Leon" try to justify the infamous, unusual meeting between the Douma team & a US delegation in July 2018. US officials tried to convince the team that a chlorine attack happened. Inspectors were disturbed. "Leon" assures Chloe there's nothing to see here.

The irony here is that @chloehadj casts herself as a foe of state disinformation (in this case Russian & Syrian). Yet via her multiple omissions, falsehoods, & defense of US interference in an OPCW investigation, her podcast is an elaborate exercise in what she claims to oppose.

I encourage people to judge for themselves. Listen to @chloehadj's episode on Douma: (bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0…)

And then here are my questions, which lay out what I think are some of the key flaws in her reporting: (thegrayzone.com/2020/11/30/que…)

I look fwd to @chloehadj's answers.

Update: The BBC has given me its "Response" to my questions. Here it is in full (personal info redacted):

1/ "There was no conflict of interest between the wider work of a freelance cameraman and the work he did for us as a researcher on this series."

2/ "This series is the result of thorough journalism and meets the BBC’s editorial standards. A number of your points are based on inaccurate interpretations of the contents of the series and we would suggest listening again for clarification."

3/ "As appropriate, we approached individuals where allegations were raised, inviting them as well as others to respond to what is reported in the programme. We stand by the investigation and our journalism." [end]

I replied with several follow-up questions, including a request for the BBC to identify the "inaccurate interpretations" (even just one) that it claims I made. I will update should they respond.

This "response" came from a BBC spokesperson. I still have not heard anything back from Mayday host/producer @chloehadj, who had previously committed to "answering something in writing." I look forward to those answers in writing.

I have updated this story with an observation that I didn't include in my questions to @chloehadj, but that I think is notable. Chloe's purported OPCW source, "Leon" sure likes to say "like" a lot. Does this sound to you like an experienced OPCW inspector, or a young man?

Here's the audio of that quote from "Leon"' -- it's an actor speaking, but @chloehadj says it's Leon's exact words.

Does he sound, like, credible?

Update: I have been in contact w/ @chloehadj, by phone & messaging, and can confidently deduce that she will not be answering any of my questions. Not one.

You can draw your own conclusions as to what that means. (I think she can't defend her reporting). thegrayzone.com/2020/11/30/que…

I hope @chloehadj proves me wrong on this, and answers the questions that I have laid out (with considerable effort, and in great detail).

.@chloehadj & @BBCRadio4 have yet to address the issues I raised w/ their reporting. Nor will they offer even one example of what they called my "inaccurate representations." (thegrayzone.com/2020/11/30/que…)

Here is their response, & then my 12/1 reply, which they haven't responded to:

Update: BBC Mayday host @chloehadj has gone from attacking the OPCW's Syria whistleblowers (& refusing to answer basic questions about her reporting thegrayzone.com/2020/11/30/que…) to simply pretending that these whistleblowers don't exist.

In this interview with @RSAMatthew (bridges-to-the-future.simplecast.com/episodes/when-…), @chloehadj discusses chemical weapons allegations in Syria & dismisses those who question them.

Missing from her account? The OPCW's own dissenting inspectors. Listen to how she erases them from the story:

In case this deliberate omission of the OCPW whistleblowers by @chloehadj wasn't obvious enough, she repeats it later on. Chloe attempts to attack a group of UK academics who have questioned Syria chemical allegations, while again failing to even mention the whistleblowers:

Irony is that the name of this episode with @chloehadj & @RSAMatthew is "When 'Fake News' Becomes Real." They purport to challenge state propaganda while in effect practicing it themselves, through a very classic tactic: erasing, or memory-holing, countervailing information.

To recap. @chloehadj:

-attacked OPCW whistleblowers & ex-OPCW chief José Bustani, recycling state-funded Bellingcat's debunked claims,

-declined my request for an interview, claiming she was "burnt out" and was about to take leave. She did agree to answer questions in writing,

-Once I submitted those questions in writing, she refused to answer a single one, so we published them here: thegrayzone.com/2020/11/30/que…

-Now she reappears and gives a friendly interview defending her reporting while omitting any *mention* of the OPCW whistleblowers she attacked.

- Almost forgot: in this interview and in her podcast, @chloehadj also omitted any mention of her *own BBC colleague's reporting* that the hospital scene in Douma was staged -- by the White Helmets, the topic of her entire series. Pretty big omission too!

I wrote to @chloehadj today to ask her why, in an interview defending her OPCW/White Helmets reporting, she omitted any mention of the OPCW whistleblowers and her own BBC colleagues' damning findings. I don't expect a response to this one either.

*own BBC colleague's

Update: to the surprise of no one, @chloehadj has not responded to my latest questions about how she went from devoting an entire episode of her BBC podcast to attacking the OPCW whistleblowers... to now pretending they don’t exist, and erasing them from her account of the story.

I plan on writing about this latest iteration of @chloehadj’s curious journalistic approach to reporting the OPCW scandal, so if she does manage to respond I will be sure to include.

After somehow forgetting that the OPCW whistleblowers exist, @chloehadj is back to acknowledging them -- and back to distorting what they have said & omitting critical facts. In other words, this BBC "journalist" continues to be a UK state propagandist. bbc.com/news/stories-5…

In a lengthy article based on her whitewashing podcast series about the UK state-funded White Helmets, here's how @chloehadj summarizes the OPCW's Douma cover-up scandal:

Just as she did in her podcast, @chloehadj distorts the whistleblowers' claims and omits a number of countervailing facts. I pointed out the podcats' flaws in questions to her that she has never answered (thegrayzone.com/2020/11/30/que…), because she's a propagandist.

Grounds for OPCW whistleblowers rejecting final Douma report is not US pressure. They noted that US pressure happened. But reason they've reject the report is because of *science*. This is laid out, for example, in this April 2019 letter to OPCW chief: thegrayzone.com/wp-content/upl…

April 2019 letter raises concerns that @chloehadj consistently omits in her "reporting." Starts w/ fact that team's *original report* was doctored, & attempts were made to replace it with a bogus report that baselessly suggested Syrian gov't guilt. Chloe never mentions this. Why?

.@chloehadj also omits other inconvenient facts, including the suppression of toxicologists' conclusion that the observed symptoms were inconsistent w/ chlorine; the levels at which chemicals were found; and the fact that chemicals could have come from benign sources.

Because she can't refute the OPCW whistleblowers, @chloehadj not only excludes their concerns but now invents a new one.

This is a complete fabrication: "They questioned whether the limited amount of gas that had apparently been dropped would have killed people where they lay"

I challenge @chloehadj to show where whistleblowers said this. She won't be able to.

OPCW whistleblowers' argument is not based on the purported "limited amount of gas" -- it was about whether there is sufficient evidence to prove that chlorine gas was used in the first place!

This is is also a distortion: the engineering study was about more than "more damage"; but other factors including how a canister managed to crash through a roof, bounce off a floor, and land on a bed; ballistics; and the crater size versus the size of the cylinder.

In her podcast, @chloehadj spoke to an anonymous, purported OPCW source "Leon" who tried to dismiss the whistleblowers findings w/ laughable claims that I pointed out here (thegrayzone.com/2020/11/30/que…).

Now in her article, Chloe doesn't mention "Leon" at all. Why not? Where's Leon?