Scots broadcaster Lorraine Kelly's ITV talk show is being investigated after receiving over 100 complaints over a "misleading" photograph of the Himalayas aimed at highlighting how lockdown has changed the earth for the better.
The broadcast regulator Ofcom is probing the 'debunking' of the use of two pictures of famed mountain range featuring in a David Attenborough-fronted documentary claiming one was clearly "photoshopped".
The concerns surrounded shots of Himalayan pollution levels as the Scots journalist chatted to Mike Gunton, the executive producer of the BBC Natural History Unit documentary The Year Earth Changed narrated by David Attenborough.
The 'before and after' pictures were aimed at showing how once people could not see the range due to smog - but after lockdown there were clear views.
While the Scottish presenter praised Mr Gunton and described the documentary, shown on Apple TV+ as "fascinating", others were not quite so impressed.
Some had pointed out that as different pictures were shown side-by-side - the "exact same people" were spotted in both images.
It formed part of an Earth Day feature on the documentary which Ms Kelly said showed how that "the world was almost healing itself" due to the Covid-19 lockdown.
Mr Gunton responded: "Well that is certainly what we hoped to show."
The controversial pictures were shows as Ms Kelly introduced what she described as "one of the most remarkable sequences" was seeing the Himalayas before and after.
"Before, people in Pakistan, couldn't see them, you can see the split screen there, that was before when it's just smog basically and then, look at that, crystal clear views. It's remarkable isn't it.
Mr Gunton responded: "It was. "I mean, obviously it's quite exciting, we are trying to as much science as we can about what the science has discovered but I like this, this is just an ordinary man in the street seeing something that he had never seen.
"Nobody had seen that in living memory, and I just think it was quite sort of spiritual. It's almost like Mother Nature saying I can't breathe, I can't breathe. but now I can, let me show you what you're missing.
"This is the most iconic thing on the planet, the Himalayas is the most remarkable place and you can't see it, but just, just let it, let the world breathe a bit better and you can."
Asked what he hoped people would take from the documentary, he said: "I think really it's that a lot of the challenges that nature is facing is as a result of lots of incremental actions that we have had.
"And yet, I think this shows that actually you can do lots, because sometimes you think how on earth can I do anything but actually the things you can do, just small changes to your life, can actually make significant difference."
One viewer complained: "If those pictures of the smog and Himalayas are genuine, why are the two men in the bottom both there? If months apart, they wouldn’t be in the exact same place?"
ITV said the images that were used are taken directly from the documentary.
"The before and after was screen grabbed to show the difference, as it is shown via animation in the documentary," ITV said.
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