Flora Bagenal
stands mute

In June 2021, the UK’s Channel 4 Television screened “The Anti-Vax Conspiracy,” produced by Dinah Lord of Caravan Media, Eamonn Matthews of Quicksilver Media, and Flora Bagenal (above), which I’ve complained to the network extensively plagiarised my investigation of Andrew Wakefield

OPINION BY BRIAN DEER
April 3, 2022

FLORA BAGENAL didn’t apologise. When notified of my complaint alleging that she and executive producers Dinah Lord and Eamonn Matthews of Caravan Media and Quicksilver Media plagiarised substantial material from my investigation of vaccine research cheat Andrew Wakefield, she never claimed honest mistake or said, “Sorry.”

The sordid tale of what these people did is set out at this website in two opinion pieces from me. Flora Bagenal’s role is discussed most fully in the first: focused on Dinah Lord and Caravan. Lord had attempted to gain rights over my work — and when she couldn’t get them from me or my agents just took what she wanted and left my name out.

The second concerns Eamonn Matthews of Quicksilver Media, who not only previously sabotaged journalism of mine that the programme exploited, but he saw the plagiarised material entered for an award from the UK Association for International Broadcasting.

Flora Bagenal, I assume, knows what plagiarism means. For many years, my website has contained a legal page which, among other things, explains the special significance for investigative journalism:

“In the battle to preserve an economic base for original journalism, including the necessary expense, skill and labour invested in what are sometimes long inquiries, it’s vital that copyright is protected. This protection must deny others any right to reproduce the material published on this website, or material by Brian Deer published elsewhere, other than, say, as a single copy of a single item for personal offline reference. Plagiarism has become an endemic problem. Journalists, writers, academics, or others who plagiarise Brian Deer’s narratives, research [including documents obtained] or insights may face civil action and/or public criticism.”

In a period when anti-plagiarism products are on widepread sale, an idea has gotten around that plagiarism is confined to word-by-word lifting, since that’s what such crude products zero-in on. But this misconduct is more commonly the theft of ideas and insights, formats, designs, and inspirations.

As the same page at my site reminds visitors, which certainly includes Flora Bagenal:

According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, to “plagiarize” means:

• to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own
• to use (another’s production) without crediting the source
• to commit literary theft
• to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source

“In other words, plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both stealing someone else’s work and lying about it afterward.”

On the same page at this website, I further quote plagiarism.org:

“Any ‘facts’ that have been published as the result of individual research are considered the intellectual property of the author.”

Flora Bagenal’s behaviour

To understand what I say Flora Bagenal did and didn’t do, the starting point is my commentary on the behaviour of Dinah Lord of Caravan Media, who first tried to obtain my findings legitimately and then resorted to what I say was unethical. So here I’ll just summarize my complaint against Bagenal, and not repeat what I’ve written elsewhere.

Flora Bagenal, working with executive producers Eamonn Matthews and Dinah Lord, I say:

(1) Plagiarised reporting, ideas, formats, information and even text from my investigation of Wakefield (who featured approximately every sixty seconds throughout the programme), while concealing their provenance so as to mislead viewers. Bagenal and the others took key material derived from my book, The Doctor Who Fooled the World, my Sunday Times and British Medical Journal reports, and this website, exclusively gathered by me over nearly two decades, and withheld any acknowledgment whatsoever.

(2) Misled contributors to the programme to falsely believe that I’d declined to participate in “The Anti-Vax Conspiracy” (and so providing cover for her to place my journalism into their mouths) when, as Bagenal knew or ought to have known, I’d been told nothing about it before broadcast. The first I knew of “The Anti-Vax Conspiracy” was when I was alerted on Twitter during transmission.

(3) Ignored a written warning from the editor of the British Medical Journal, Dr Fiona Godlee, that she, Dr Godlee, was not credible to recount the findings of my investigation, and that Bagenal should speak to me about the matters she wished to raise.

(4) Was sufficiently indifferent to accuracy and/or the need to honestly investigate Wakefield’s misconduct that Bagenal either (a) didn’t care that an account she caused to be broadcast in the programme about Wakefield’s signature research paper I exposed as fraudulent was untrue, or (b) never even read this paper — the foundational document of the case against against Wakefield.

(5) By placing my reporting, ideas, and approaches into the mouths of sockpuppet contributors, created the impression that Wakefield’s exposure was an achievement of the medical establishment, brought to light by the programme, when in fact, as Bagenal knew, or ought to have known, all of the programme’s purported revelations about Wakefield’s misconduct were products of my investigation. No contributor or programme maker (including Bagenal, Lord, and Matthews) played any part in the detection of Wakefield’s fraud. Matthews, in fact, obstructed it.

(6) Misled TV audiences (including judges for an award given by the UK Association for International Broadcasting, which has told me looked at the programme “just as a viewer or listener would” before awarding it the title of “international investigation of the year”) into believing that she and Channel 4 had conducted a journalistic investigation into the Wakefield fraud when they hadn’t.

(7) Withheld dates, timelines and context from the programme so as to conceal from audiences that the central facts in respect of Wakefield’s misconduct were published (by me) more than a decade before the broadcast.

My investigation, I should add, was entirely my copyright. The “intellectual property” was mine. And I’ve created a page illustrating some of what was done by Bagenal, Lord, and Matthews, so readers can make up their own minds.

Flora Bagenal, I’m assured, has had these matters put to her. But so far there’s been no response. Maybe she laughs it off, thinking she can scrape what she likes. So, if I ever get an answer, I’ll report what that is. But, so far, Flora Bagenal plays dumb.