When an investigative current affairs programme like Panorama broadcasts a programme called Euro 2012: Stadiums of Hate 11 days before a major football tournament and which reveals shocking images of racist abuse and violence in the host countries - controversy is to be expected.

Former England captain Sol Campbell's reaction to our footage showing Asian supporters being racially attacked inside a ground due to hold Euro 2012 matches was to urge fans and families to stay away "if you don't want to come back in a coffin". Again, a strong reaction - and at some volume - was expected.

The filmmakers accepted that there would be accusations of "scaremongering" or "sensationalism" from some quarters - particularly in Poland and Ukraine. We were ready and willing to defend this film, as we feel strongly that our reporting was both legitimate and fair.

This investigation was undertaken to assess whether Uefa, European football's governing body, was enforcing its own "zero tolerance" policy towards racism and anti-Semitism in the countries to which it had awarded such a prestigious tournament.

Both countries have had reasonably well-documented problems with racist and violent behaviour around domestic football matches, especially Poland, where a Uefa-funded report revealed that in 2010 there were 133 serious hate crimes inside Polish stadiums.

In Ukraine, a lack of official statistics for racist attacks made the situation harder to assess. But after filming at nine football matches in the two countries and recording violence and/or racism at all of them, and following other interviews, it was felt that there was enough evidence, within weeks of the tournament set to begin, to question whether Uefa's policy was not being properly enforced by the two countries' football associations.

We put our findings to both the Polish and Ukrainian FAs.

The Polish FA did not respond while the Ukrainians told us they couldn't help because they were having problems with their email and that our questions were too detailed for them to investigate.

We also put our findings to Uefa and to Michel Platini, its president. He declined to be interviewed but we received a general statement which we broadcast.

Panorama aired the film on 28 May because we felt that the images we had recorded in April and May would speak for themselves.

To date, as far as we are aware, there has been no public condemnation, criticism or expression of concern by any official in the host countries about the racism, racist violence and anti-Semitism we showed in our film. There has yet to be any expression of empathy for the experiences of either the black footballers or Asian fans featured in the programme.

Panorama has instead faced allegations of bias from both governments.

The programme made clear that we were investigating the behaviour of some football supporters and political hooligans - not the peoples of the countries themselves.

In the film we introduced our main Jewish interviewee who lives in Poland as someone who "believes most Poles happily accept other faiths, but that football hooligans are yet to catch up with wider Polish society".

The same contributor quoted above has since issued a statement saying he was "grossly misrepresented" and that we had "exaggerated" the scenes we had filmed. As you can read here Panorama rejects his accusations in the strongest possible terms. The contributor also said that our film had set back his ability to argue - as he did in the film - that anti-Semitism in football grounds in Poland "embarrasses the whole country". It's unclear how the film might do that when Poland is apparently talking widely about this issue for the first time in many years.

Officials in Poland have criticised Panorama for not speaking to "international security experts" instead of going to Sol Campbell, the black former senior England international, for his reactions. Mr Campbell was in turn labeled "insolent" by Ukraine's Foreign Minister.

Both governments have moved to reassure fans that they would all be safe for the tournament. In the case of Ukraine, this assurance was given without addressing what happened to the Asian fans we filmed being beaten up last month in one of Ukraine's own stadiums.

Until 6 June, Uefa had not commented on the issues raised in the programme.

England Fans, the official England Supporters' Club, travelling to Euro 2012 called the programme unhelpful and some Poles in the UK have expressed concern that they have been labelled as racist.

But amid all of these accusations against Panorama and the BBC, there is a real fear that the key issue has been missed - the overt and frightening racist and anti-Semitic abuse and violence of the kind broadcast by Panorama is both wrong and deeply upsetting to those on its receiving end.

That was the point of the programme. We set out to highlight a wrong.

Were the beatings that the students from India sustained in Ukraine's Metalist stadium somehow "exaggerated"?

Was the fact that they said the police were of "no use" as they walked off bruised and alone into the Ukrainian night somehow "made up"? Were the monkey chants hurled at the black players we filmed in Poland somehow "sensationalised"?

In Britain, we have been through a long and difficult process of trying to ensure that these practices would be stopped at football games. As someone who went to matches in the 1970s and 1980s and who has long-time membership of a Premiership club, I know that the sort of mass, racist chanting which happened back then is largely unthinkable now in English grounds. But we had to go through a lot of soul-searching and some concerted campaigning by the likes of "Kick it Out" before it did.

I am confident now that if any of the racist incidents we recorded in Poland or Ukraine had occurred here there would have been a massive national outcry. The authorities would have asked for our footage and would look to prosecute those responsible.

Uefa President Michel Platini waited 10 days before saying he was "shocked" by what he had heard of our film, but added that there was nothing he could be expected to do.

He said that despite widespread reporting of our findings on the eve of the tournament, he had not seen the disturbing scenes from our programme. Amid the furore, Uefa has not even asked us for a copy.

Despite this, I am hopeful that Euro 2012: Stadiums of Hate will turn out to be positive for the game in the future - and will help contribute towards stamping out racism inside football, perhaps even at Euro 2012 itself - though the complaints of monkey chants against the Dutch squad training in Krakow aren't a great omen.

It's certainly much harder right now for Poland and Ukraine to look the other way when such things happen.

Tom Giles is the editor of Panorama

Some months ago, I reflected on the difficulties of reporting from Syria. The deaths of Marie Colvin and a dozen other journalists in the country so far this year has given us cause to think long and hard about the very real dangers there. But so too does the complexity of the situation on the ground in Syria, and the need to try to separate fact from fiction.

Damascus prides itself on being the oldest, continually inhabited city in the world. It also has the longest history of rumours passing for fact.

I spent three days in Syria earlier this week, talking to all sides involved in the current conflict. Waking up on my first morning, social media was alive with reports that the mobile phone network was down. True enough, I could access the hotel wi-fi but not place a call. On Twitter and Facebook, people claimed the phones had been turned off as the precursor to a major military assault. The truth it seems was more prosaic. It's the high school exam season in Syria - diplomats claimed the real reason was the phone network had been turned off to prevent students cheating. Even in a conflict zone, good grades count for a lot.

In the aftermath of the massacre at Houla last month, initial reports said some of the 49 children and 34 women killed had their throats cut. In Damascus, Western officials told me the subsequent investigation revealed none of those found dead had been killed in such a brutal manner. Moreover, while Syrian forces had shelled the area shortly before the massacre, the details of exactly who carried out the attacks, how and why were still unclear. Whatever the cause, officials fear the attack marks the beginning of the sectarian aspect of the conflict.

In such circumstances, it's more important than ever that we report what we don't know, not merely what we do. In Houla, and now in Qubair, the finger has been pointed at the shabiha, pro-government militia. But tragic death toll aside, the facts are few: it's not clear who ordered the killings - or why.

Given the difficulties of reporting inside Syria, video filed by the opposition on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube may provide some insight into the story on the ground. But stories are never black and white - often shades of grey. Those opposed to President Assad have an agenda. One senior Western official went as far as to describe their YouTube communications strategy as "brilliant". But he also likened it to so-called "psy-ops", brainwashing techniques used by the US and other military to convince people of things that may not necessarily be true.

A healthy scepticism is one of the essential qualities of any journalist - never more so than in reporting conflict. The stakes are high - all may not always be as it seems.

Jon Williams is the BBC World News editor.

Last weekend the news agenda was dominated by reports from Syria of more than 100 people being massacred in the town of Houla.

For about 90 minutes on Sunday, the BBC News website illustrated its story about what had happened with a picture of shrouded bodies in neat rows, with a child jumping over one of the rows.

It's an incredibly powerful picture, bringing home the shocking aftermath of a massacre.

Except that it's not from this incident at all, but was taken almost a decade earlier, in Iraq, by professional photographer Marco Di Lauro, who works for Getty Images.

The picture was first spotted as it circulated on Twitter, the social networking site, on Sunday, apparently sourced from activists in Syria, triggering our process for checking user-generated content.

Efforts were made to track down the original source and, having obtained some information pointing to its veracity, the picture was published, with a disclaimer saying it could not be independently verified.

However, on this occasion, the extent of the checks and the consideration of whether to publish should have been better.

It was a mistake - rectified by the removal of the image as soon as it was spotted - and we apologise for it.

Fortunately, such mistakes are very rare. BBC News has a strong track record of using content from non-traditional sources, and of stopping numerous examples of incorrect material making it to air or online - but it does underline the need to handle such material with great care.

Chris Hamilton is social media editor for BBC News. You can find him on Twitter @chrishams