When a Russian woman recently gave birth to quintuplets, it made news around the world. But BBC viewers who watched the footage of the babies might have thought something was a little odd. Why were the babies crying, even though they had respirators in their mouths? It turns out
the cries were dubbed in:
The BBC has admitted that it added the sound of crying to a report yesterday on the birth of a set of quintuplets. It is the latest in a series of rows over fakery to hit the corporation in recent months...
Footage of the infants was distributed by the hospital, but it was silent. Yet when the BBC ran the story on its website, the images were accompanied by the sound of babies crying, even though the quintuplets had respirators in their mouths...
Other television networks broadcast the clips without the sound of crying...
A BBC spokesman said: "We received the film without sound and, although we do not believe viewers were materially misled, we should not have added sound to these pictures."
Comments
on a related note, when Star Trek was broadcast, and still on the videos, in the opening credits the studio dubbed in the "whoosing" sound as the Enterprise flies past because it wsa more believable. The test audience didn't understand, at least not very well, that there is no sound when a spaceship flies past you in space.
I assume you're speaking sarcastically since it's quite common for the BBC to do nonsense. (Like fixing contests for little kid shows.)
The notion that the BBC is a model of integrity has baffled me for years.