Amid the scandals that have headlined fraud and journalistic quackery in recent years at the BBC, nothing tops Panorama, the “documentary” show that continues to stockpile a disproportionate share of the broadcaster’s ethical offences.

One would expect this lavishly funded programme and its staff to adhere to the highest of journalistic standards, serving as role models in that regard. Yet Panorama has proven its penchant for portraying staged events as real, passing off lies as truth and betraying long-held journalistic principles. The show itself serves not as role model but as cancerous influence to the rest of the BBC—and all at the expense of British households forced to pay the BBC’s annual licence fees. 

This toxic culture has resulted in blowback that includes complaints, lawsuits and a recent libel settlement against Panorama costing the BBC in excess of £1 million.

And while Panorama has been heavily censured, its “reporter” John Sweeney has now dragged the show to new lows as he throws away public money in efforts to restore his reputation. (See Lies—and Lives—of Desperation.)

One university Journalism Ethics class analysed his 2007 Panorama programme and tallied no less than 180 violations of BBC guidelines and Ofcom (British Office of Communications) codes. That show included at least 10 unethical stunts and fictitious incidents. (See Panorama Exposed video.)

Sweeney’s 15 minutes of notoriety were captured on camera, and thank goodness they were. For only because of that brief film were over 1 million viewers able to see the infamous “exploding tomato.”  That 2007 episode made him a textbook case for journalism classes in, as one journalist said, “how not to handle an interview.” 

One university Journalism Ethics class analysed his 2007 Panorama programme and tallied no less than 180 violations of BBC guidelines and Ofcom (British Office of Communications) codes. That show included at least 10 unethical stunts and fictitious incidents. (See Panorama Exposed video.)

In one of Sweeney’s 2007 videos, he described his “exploding tomato” incident by saying, “I lost my voice, but not my mind.” The incidents below beg to differ. It was the mind that was lost, not the voice.

Then again, if a tomato has exploded, no amount of public money will put it back together.  But Sweeney somehow convinced his bosses at the BBC that he should be extended an opportunity to do just that.

Money to Burn

The first indication of the underwriting of that effort came in summer 2007, when the BBC paid for Panorama producer Sarah Mole to fly to the United States from the UK to try to entice Mike Rinder to become a source. A demoted and disgraced former external affairs staff member for the Church of Scientology, Rinder had served as an assistant to Church spokesman Tommy Davis during the 2007 Panorama programme.  Shortly thereafter, however, he walked away from his Church, his wife and his children—embittered and unable to face that his own incompetence and severe misconduct had brought about his loss of status. (See Mike Rinder: A Walking "Hate Crime.")

Rinder apparently declined Mole’s 2007 proposition.  But with the public treasury at their disposal, Mole and Sweeney had money to burn and in late summer 2009, Mole flew over again. This time, she first made contact with another expelled Church staffer, Marty Rathbun, in Texas.  Rathbun had been removed from all positions of authority in the Church in 2003 for gross malfeasance and violent behaviour, including a near-fatal assault on the aforementioned Rinder. (See Marty Rathbun: A Brief Chronology of Monumental Disasters, The Career of “Kingpin” Rathbun.)

Mole and Rathbun flew to Rinder’s home in Denver. It was apparently during this visit that Rinder agreed to cooperate with the show that he knew was corrupt to the core, forging a deal with the BBC for an “exclusive” interview.

But it was not until December 8, 2009, that Mole emailed Tommy Davis to inform him that Panorama would be filming outside Scientology Churches in London the next day and that “specific allegations” would be conveyed “in due course.” 

That same day, Panorama flew Rinder and Rathbun, accompanied by Rathbun’s wife and one of Rinder’s two girlfriends, to London and put them up at a hotel, spending at least £7000 in the process.  For the two apostates and their companions, it was an all-expenses-paid weeklong London vacation.

Staged Events

As soon as the Church learned of Sweeney’s involvement, Church counsel, aware of his record of biased, fraudulent “reporting” and ludicrously orchestrated events, hired videographers to document his antics.

Twenty-four hours after the foursome arrived in London, the staged events began.  Sweeney, his camera crew, Rinder and Rathbun were filmed in front of several Church properties, including the historic Fitzroy Street office of Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard. A landmark in the annals of the Scientology religion, the office is available for tours by appointment.  Sweeney repeatedly pounded on the front door, playing to the cameras and pretending “the Church” wouldn’t let him in—conveniently ignoring that this wasn’t a Church at all and that the conspicuous sign by the door provided a contact telephone number for anyone who wished to visit the facility.

In response to Mole’s email of December 8, on December 15 the Church sent a five-page letter to the BBC describing the many breaches of BBC guidelines and Ofcom codes in the 2007 broadcast, and seeking to learn the details of Mole’s “specific allegations.” 

A full two months passed before the BBC provided any more details.

Theatrics in Los Angeles

• On February 17, 2010, a new Panorama producer, Katy Stead, emailed Tommy Davis. Included was a letter dated a month earlier, January 17 (but never sent), informing him of the allegations, but again omitting the specifics that would make it possible for the Church to respond. When the email arrived, a Panorama team was already in Los Angeles, filming Sweeney in front of Scientology Churches with a panoply of anti-Scientologists flown to Los Angeles, again at BBC expense.
  
  Sweeney and his crew spent February 17-19 filming in Los Angeles.  One day was consumed with shooting Sweeney as he marched into various Church entrances—over and over for his cameras—and shoved anti-Scientology fliers at parishioners and staff members.  Asked by a Church staffer to refrain from passing out fliers on Church property and to leave, Sweeney then entered another Church building—which he had personally toured in 2007—pretending that he “didn’t know” it belonged to the Church.
  
  After filming at three more locations in Los Angeles, Sweeney and crew next turned up at Golden Era Productions, the Church’s international audiovisual production center, with a handful of apostates as props for the staging of further stunts.  It was vintage Sweeney, with embraces and kisses for his sources, theatrics in front of a gate across the road from the actual entrance to the property, but absolutely no attempt to do what a real journalist would—contact anyone working at Golden Era. 

Truly Insane or Radically Desperate?

• On the evening of February 19, Sweeney drove with his film crew to a Hollywood studio—rented for thousands of pounds with licence payers’ fees—where he was screening his 2007 Panorama show, an event he had promoted in the fliers he had been passing out in previous days.  But he had no intention of seeing anyone there—it was all a stunt.
  
  Not a soul was there but Sweeney and his crew.
  
  Whether truly insane or radically desperate for video footage to justify the expensive junket, or both, Sweeney staged a bizarre scene for his cameras in which he strolled into the empty theater, proceeded to a vacant—as they all were—row of seats, and sat down by himself to watch his own 2007 programme.
  
  That same day, Tommy Davis wrote to producer Stead, informing her that the Church had already made it abundantly clear that it stood ready to provide the BBC open access to Church facilities, as well as interviews, with the simple proviso that Sweeney and producer Mole have no connection to the programme.  There was no response. 

What Sweeney Never Sought: The Truth

• On February 20, Sweeney flew another 2,000 miles—to Clearwater, Florida—to interview Rinder, filming him from the same rooftop location Sweeney had used three years earlier to film another anti-Scientologist, a convicted sex offender and drug abuser.  (That “source” had never once set foot inside a Scientology Church, had never been a parishioner and knew nothing about the Church, the religion, its activities or its personnel. To Sweeney, that made him eminently qualified as someone to interview.)

• Over the next two days, the Panorama team staged predictable shots from Sweeney’s limited bag of tricks: Sweeney bursting out of a van; Sweeney zigzagging across the sidewalk; Sweeney strolling up and down a major thoroughfare, then rushing into an alley to give the appearance he was being pursued; Sweeney pretending to “hide” behind a palm tree.
  
  The one place Sweeney never ventured: into a Church of Scientology where, of course, he would come face-to-face with actual, truthful information about the subject he was ostensibly covering.

• On March 5, the Church wrote to the BBC’s legal department, responding to a March 3 letter from Katy Stead containing wild allegations.  “As you know, the more serious an allegation of fact the greater the broadcaster’s responsibility to be specific and exhaustive about the nature of that allegation,” the March 5 letter stated.  “We request the detailed information because [we] may be able to find documents and/or obtain other evidence which clearly and plainly demonstrate that specific allegations are false.”
  
  Despite repeated efforts, no details were forthcoming from the BBC.  It was not hard to figure out where the false allegations were coming from, however, and the Church wrote to the legal department again on March 9, this time detailing the facts that proved the BBC’s sources to be utterly discredited, unreliable, and grinding an axe.  The letter pointed out that Panorama was once again resorting to the same “cheap stunts, deceit and dishonesty” that disgraced the programme in 2007. 

• On March 17, the Church informed the BBC that not only were its “informants” not credible, they were associated with the hate group Anonymous, whose members had made death threats against Church members, bomb threats against Churches, and committed other criminal offences.  Two specific Anonymous members cited in that letter, Dmitriy Guzner and Brian Thomas Mettenbrink, are currently serving federal prison sentences in the United States for hate crimes against the Church.
  
  That same day, 34 firsthand witness statements were sent to the head of the BBC’s Legal Advice Department, completely refuting the allegations.
  
  Also that day, Tommy Davis wrote to producer Stead, again making it clear that if any reporter other than Sweeney were to be assigned, he would arrange full access to Churches of Scientology and set up interviews.  Davis also provided Stead with an extensive briefing on the Church’s record expansion in recent years and its vast social and humanitarian programmes.

• On May 4, once again digging into public coffers, Sweeney flew back to the United States with his travelling video circus to interview an apostate in Texas, joined by Rathbun and Rinder.
  
  The same day, the Church sent a nine-page letter to BBC Chairman Sir Michael Lyons, describing grave concerns about Sweeney’s demonstrated prejudice and deceitful behaviour and concluding, “This edition of Panorama looks set to be a gross abuse of the BBC’s public service broadcasting remit and a flagrant breach of its overriding duty of impartiality.  It can only add to the clamour for reform of the BBC.”
  
  The Church thereafter made numerous attempts to get the true information into the BBC’s hands and to bring to the attention of responsible executives the seriousness of Sweeney’s violations. 

• On May 6, Tommy Davis wrote to Darren Kemp, Executive Producer, TV Current Affairs, BBC Northern Ireland, detailing Mike Rinder’s absolute absence of credibility.  Included with the six-page letter were 24 pages of documented statements from Rinder that completely contradicted and disproved the assertions he made to the BBC.

• On May 11, the Church sent a 37-page letter with dozens of pages of supporting documents to Valerie Nazareth, head of the BBC’s Programme Legal Advice Department, reiterating Sweeney’s bias and showing the unequivocal unreliability of his sources. 

• On May 13, the Church wrote again to Nazareth, describing specific instances of Sweeney’s fraternising with sources.  Included were photographs of Sweeney hugging Marty Rathbun and another apostate—examples that, as bad as they were, could only begin to capture the outrageous nature of the improper interactions between Sweeney and his “sources.”
  
  The letter noted, “It is already clear that one of Mr. Sweeney’s motivations with regard to the planned programme is a vehicle through  which to try to excuse his appalling behaviour in relation to the 2007 Panorama programme…” The letter reminded Nazareth of the BBC’s Producers Guidelines, and the inherent violation: “‘We need to ensure that our impartiality is not brought into question and presenters or reporters are not placed in potential conflict of interests.’  Plainly and obviously Mr. Sweeney has a conflict of interests.”

• Throughout May and June, the Church continued to seek and to demand specific details of Sweeney’s allegations, only to be met with a stone wall at the BBC.  Incredibly, on June 15, rather than respond to the Church’s requests for specifics, the BBC sent a fresh round of questions and even more spurious allegations.

The BBC continued to demonstrate closed-mindedness, bias and dishonesty that make an utter mockery of what it claims to espouse as its number one fundamental value: “Trust is the foundation of the BBC: we are independent, impartial and honest.”

• Finally, on June 24, the Church filed a formal complaint with Clive Edwards, the BBC’s Executive Editor & Commissioning Editor, Television Current Affairs, for the BBC’s failure and refusal to follow its editorial guidelines and to provide the Church a fair opportunity to respond to the allegations.
  
  “The BBC’s actions are unlawful,” the letter noted.  “They amount to a plain breach of the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines and of the common law duty to act fairly.”
  
  Edwards’ response of June 28 claimed that the BBC did not “entertain complaints about programmes which are yet to be broadcast.”
  
  That, however, was far from the truth.  As pointed out in the Church’s subsequent response to Edwards on July 2, the BBC’s own website specifically allows for other complaints: “There is absolutely nothing to state that the ‘event’ cannot be before broadcast or must relate to any broadcast.”  The Church thus once again demanded that the BBC properly consider its complaint.
  
  Edwards’ response on July 12 was a no-answer: He claimed that the complaints filed against Panorama “have been handled in accordance with the BBC’s complaints procedure.”
  
  Other appeals were made while Sweeney and his film crew continued to pop up at Church locations in July and August to get additional footage.  Sweeney’s crew filmed him walking by the Church of Scientology of London, peering into reception; a Church staff member counted him walking past the front door eight times.  Sweeney was later filmed in front of another London Church. Needless to say, on neither occasion did he attempt to find out anything about his subject.
  
  It was a maddening exercise in bureaucratic frustration, exemplifying how, in one recent year alone, the BBC could be fined £495,000 ($775,000) by Ofcom for its ethical breaches, and how the BBC’s Director General, Mark Thompson, could order all 16,500 programming and content staff to take a mandatory course in honesty entitled “Safeguarding Trust.”
  
  Despite extensive additional information provided by the Church—including details on the July arrest and incarceration of one BBC source, Rathbun, in New Orleans for being drunk and disorderly in public, and for another source, Mike Rinder, conducting a violent attack on his wife requiring emergency treatment on the spot and months of doctor visits—the BBC continued to demonstrate closed-mindedness, bias and dishonesty that make an utter mockery of what it claims to espouse as its number one fundamental value: “Trust is the foundation of the BBC: we are independent, impartial and honest.”

Related: Statement of the Church of Scientology International