Dan McDougall

Dan McDougall is a Scots foreign correspondent. A former New Delhi-based South Asia Correspondent for The Observer Newspaper (London) he has filed reportage from over 50 countries including India, China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, The Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. Dan was voted the British Foreign Journalist of the Year at the 2009 British Press Awards held in March at the Grosvenor House Hotel in Central London.

Awards and Commendations

In 2009 McDougall was voted Foreign Correspondent of the Year at the British Press Awards for a series of reportage articles including an investigation exposing the plight of China's Execution Orphans - children left destitute by the execution of their parents in Xian, Central China.

The Judges also commended an undercover investigation by the Scot documenting the lives of the so-called Glotelli - women drug mules who risk their lives by smuggling heroin from the Afghan Border to Moscow in their stomachs. In 2007/8 Dan McDougall was shortlisted for The Paul Foot Award for Campaigning Investigative Journalism for work exposing child refugee workers in the supply chain of the UK Retail Giant Primark and the exploitation of child workers as young as 8 in the Cotton Fields of Egypt's Nile Valley.

He was also commended in The One World Awards of the same year for an undercover Investigation into the international trafficking of African child footballers from the Ivory Coast and Ghana to Paris and the 2007/2008 Press Gazette Magazine Awards, in the British Magazine Feature Writer of the Year category, for a series of articles including a reportage feature on the suffering of Italy's marginalised Roma population.

McDougall's foreign reportage has appeared in magazines, periodicals and newspapers worldwide including The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The Times, The Sunday Telegraph, the Independent on Sunday, Stern Magazine, Periodica El Mundo, El Semenal, Le Figaro, Panorama Italia, L'Espresso, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Ecologist, Marie Claire and Mail on Sunday Live Magazine.

Campaigning Against Child Labor in South Asia

McDougall's investigations into Primark, a UK fashion retailer, were broadcast as part of a Panorama programme for the BBC in 2008. However, in the years following the programme, Primark has successfully proven that the footage used in the documentary was falsified and no wrongdoing occurred.^[1]

In 2007 McDougall's undercover investigations in India exposed a supplier to the US Retail Giant, Gap Inc for employing bonded child slaves as young as 10 and 11. Gap later withdrew tens of thousands of garments from sale prompting the GAP CEO Marka Hansen to make an unprecedented statement on the matter. Issuing a full and frank public apology Hansen stated on CNN: "It's deeply, deeply disturbing to all of us. So I feel violated and I feel very, very upset and angry with our vendor and the sub-contractor who made this very, very unwise decision. It's absolute horror. You know. It's just sickening. There's nothing I can tell you but you know as a mother child labor is absolutely unacceptable for us as a corporation, for me as an individual. I can't think of anything worse."

During the course of his investigations into child labour in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, which have also shamed the major retailers Esprit and Heine Otto, McDougall has been regularly threatened and, an occasion, beaten attempting to force his way into sweatshops. In 2007 the US-based Ethisphere Magazine voted the Scotsman as one of the world's most influential journalist in the field of ethical trading.

Dan McDougall is married to the BBC Journalist and presenter Navdip Dhariwal.

Panorama Apology

On June 16 2011 the BBC announced that it would apologise to Primark after an investigation by the BBC Trust ruled that McDougall had faked footage of young Indian boys stitching items of clothing. The Trust investigated the programme following a complaint by Primark over scenes which the company said were not genuine. In a report, the Trust said it had investigated the programme and found that “On the balance of probabilities, it was more likely than not that the footage was not authentic."

Following the announcement, Primark created a microsite containing a video explaining how it investigated the Panorama programme and submitted its case to the BBC Trust.^[2]

The Trust said it appeared that a 45 second clip used on the programme in which two boys were seen stitching clothing was faked. It said the sequined items appeared to have been purchased elsewhere and given to the boys, and pointed out that the large needles they were filmed using were not compatible with the work being done.

The Trust also ordered Panorama to hand back the Royal Television Society Award that the programme had collected for the Primark expose. ^[3]

In a statement McDougall rejected the findings. He said: “I have rarely seen a finding so unjust in outcome, flawed in process and deeply damaging to independent investigative journalism.”^[4]

References

1. ^ "BBC 'must apologise' over Primark documentary". BBC News. June 16, 2011. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13794227. 
2. ^ "Primark welcomes the BBC Panorama verdict". primarkresponse.com. Primark. http://www.primarkresponse.com/panorama/. Retrieved June 16, 2011. 
3. ^ Halliday, Josh (June 28, 2011). "BBC hands back RTS award for Panorama programme on Primark". guardian.co.uk (London: The Guardian). http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jun/28/bbc-hands-back-panorama-rts-award. Retrieved June 28, 2011. 
4. ^ "BBC 'must apologise' over Primark documentary". bbc.co.uk (BBC). June 16, 2011. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13794227. Retrieved June 24, 2011. 

• http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=43456
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/7461496.stm
• http://frontlineclub.com/blogs/frontline/2009/03/dan-mcdougall-foreign-reporter-of-the-year.html
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/danmcdougall
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/aug/17/familyandrelationships.roma
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/08/fairtrade.ethicalliving
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/jan/06/newsstory.sport4
• http://ethisphere.com/dan-mcdougall/
• http://www.midaspr.co.uk/assets_cm/files/pdf/press_paulfoot08_winners.pdf
• http://www.owbt.org/pages/Awards/awards2008/awards2008_shortlist.html
• http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=42207

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Name	Macdougall, Dan
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