It’s been a week since the Panorama documentary on Primark aired, so I think enough dust has settled for me to comment on what happened afterwards. But first, here is a clip of our five minutes of fame. We were featured again at the end, but you get the idea…
On the plus side, I think Isabelle, Abi and I come across as having a good knowledge of our subject. I’m grateful to the Panorama editors for picking out bits of footage that make us seem fairly intelligent, even if we were just ‘frenzied fashionistas’. I thought the documentary addressed a difficult subject in a very interesting way, opening it up for discussion across the industry.
The problem is, I was contacted about this documentary through work, in a professional capacity. I was asked to give my views as a fashion insider, not as a ‘fan’ of Primark. I wasn’t expecting to be lumped in with the teenagers on YouTube who post video diaries. The videos I shoot are part of my job and I was contacted through that channel, as a professional. We even filmed in the same location.
This is where it gets tricky. Despite all this, Catwalk Queen, Hippyshopper and / or Shiny Media were given no credit on the show. Our full names were given, yes, but your average TV viewer is not going to google a name to ‘check’ if someone has a website.
Three of us took three hours out of our workday to film, yet we were offered no fee and given no credit. It’s no surprise my bosses were a bit pissed off. Not only did our company get nothing from this, but my head was on the chopping block too, for being naive enough to think that the BBC would credit the sites or the company without us having to ask.
The aftermath began when Ashley, a director of the company I work for, wrote a rant about the whole affair on the Shiny Media blog. The story was picked up by various other blogs, and eventually by the Media Guardian. Eventually, we got an apology from the editor of Panorama, which I was very grateful for. It was definitely a turn up for the books. You see, after placing a tiny link to Catwalk Queen on the very bottom of a page on the Panorama website (after I chased it up – this was discussed) subsequent emails from my colleague Abi were ignored.
So to Sandy Smith I say thank you for recognising that a mistake was made. I hope this is a lesson to all of us for the future. To bloggers – don’t be afraid to ask for credit, a fee or both. To the BBC – don’t underestimate or undermine bloggers. They have more power than you realise.
