Talk:Philip Hayton/Archive 1

Latest comment: 14 years ago by TheRetroGuy in topic WTC7 Controversy Section

WTC7 Controversy

This should be mentioned:

Members of We Are Change UK interview ex BBC World presenter, Phil Hayton who along with Jane Stanley announced the Collapse of WTC 7 23 minutes before it collapsed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzMlFFQ2oqQ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.96.24.33 (talk) 17:28, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

WTC7 Controversy Section

I'm not sure I agree with the inclusion of this section (see below) since most of the information in it comes from blogs and speculative pieces, and everyone knows how unreliable these can be (albeit some of the blogs are on the BBC website and one would hope these are at least reliable). I removed this section earlier this evening after it was added by an anonymous user (I also removed the above comments in the WTC7 Controversy section on this page), but the section was restored by a registered user. As anybody can make any claim they want and the BBC doesn't appear to have the coverage, I believe we need a discussion to establish consensus. At the very least we need more reliable sources. Therefore I've removed the section again and posted it here so that any interested parties can have a discussion on the subject and reach a consensus. Thanks TheRetroGuy (talk) 22:16, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

WTC7 Controversy

On September 11 2001 Hayton reported, as did CNN and ABC, alongside co-reporter Jane Standley, the collapse of the Salomon Brothers Building (World Trade Centre 7) approximately 26 minutes before it actually did.[1][2][3] Richard Porter of the BBC reported on his blog on February 27 2007 that they "no longer have the original tapes of our 9/11 coverage (for reasons of cock-up, not conspiracy)."[4] and comented on it further when people were not satasfied with their answer[5][6][7]

Porter later stated on March 2 2007 that they didn't keep the tapes:

"I should also mention the missing tapes. As you’ll see from the details above, the absence of the BBC World tapes hasn’t made much difference to our ability to look back at what happened. We have all the tapes of other BBC channels (and I now know that quite a few of you have your own copies of BBC World, which is an interesting discovery… ). Some of you find it hard to believe we didn’t keep the BBC World tapes… but we had several streams of news output running simultaneously on the day, both on radio and television as well as online and we have kept all the tapes from BBC News 24 and Radio Five Live, as well as all the BBC One bulletins. Obviously I wish we’d kept hold of the World tapes alongside all the others, but we didn’t… and I don’t know whether they were destroyed or mislaid. But as a result of this week’s events, I have asked our archivists to get hold of copies of our original material from the organisations which do have them. And just to be clear, the BBC policy is to keep every minute of news channel output for 90 days (in line with the Broadcasting Act in the UK). After that we are obliged to keep a representative sample - and we interpret that to mean roughly one third of all our output. We also keep a large amount of individual items (such as packaged reports or “rushes” - ie original unedited material), which we use for operational reasons - such as when we come to broadcast fresh stories on the subject. We do not lack a historical record of the event."

Then, a year later on July 2nd 2008 Mike Rudin commented on finding the tapes:

The mystery of the missing tapes didn't last that long. One very experienced film librarian kindly agreed to have another look for us one night. There are more than a quarter of a million tapes just in the Fast Store basement at Television Centre. The next morning I got a call to say the tapes had been found. They'd just been put back on the wrong shelf - 2002 rather than 2001. Not so sinister after all.[8]

In April 2008 We Are Change UK video interviewed Hayton on this matter[9][10][11] where he stated "... that's potentially very interesting. I'm sorry I can't enlighten you. I didn't realise... this is completely new to me. I don't know how its passed me by but it had." After accepting to receive some information on this by 'Truthers' Hayton states "I sense you think there is a conspiracy here, you might be right."[12]

Extended content

References

Comments

Having watched the video and read the related material, I get the sense this is yet another 9/11 conspiracy theory among many others (controlled explosions, the CIA did it, etc, etc). Just one of many. Importantly Hayton has no recollection of it himself and the BBC have no footage. Are we expected to believe that the BBC are involved in some sort of international conspiracy? If it did happen then it was most likely a mistake. There were a lot of events going on simultaneously that day and it was difficult to keep abreast of things. Also note the absense of a time stamp on the Youtube footage. TheRetroGuy (talk) 10:25, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Updated with info on finding the tapes. Not always a timestamp on the News as the now found tapes show. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.96.24.33 (talk) 10:57, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
Not quite sure how to proceed with this. Some of the information checks out but I'm concerned about the controversial nature of the topic and some of the references being from blog postings (though as I said before I'd hope the BBC would be accurate). In any case I've asked for some editor assistance as I don't have a lot of experience in editing controversial topics. See this discussion. Thanks TheRetroGuy (talk) 11:32, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
Just a thought but in the nine years I've been watching the News Channel there's always been a timestamp. TheRetroGuy (talk) 12:19, 1 September 2009 (UTC)