The BBC’s choice of guests has been under scrutiny for some time now, whether it is the closed loop of right-wing rant merchants chosen as paper reviewers for The Andy Marr Show™, that array of Astroturf lobby groups worming its way on to any and every political discussion, or who gets into the Question Time audience, the suspicion remains that the Corporation’s judgment has been less than ideal at times.
This view was not helped by the appearance on Newsnight of someone called Lynn Hayter. As i News has reported, “A ‘vicar’ who has appeared on Newsnight to voice support for Theresa May also works as an actress. Lynn Hayter, who performs on screen using her middle name, Marina, has spoken out in favour of Brexit and the Prime Minister on the BBC’s flagship news and current affairs programme sporting a dog collar”.
Well, look on the bright side, it wasn’t Bounce the dog, was it? On a serious note, though, Ms Hayter is not really a vicar. Her “ministry”, such as it is, exists only in online form. She hasn’t, as far as is known, been ordained, and certainly not by any Church that would be considered mainstream. Or even fringe. Some were unimpressed.
Andrew Adonis was one of them. “Is it true that @BBCNewsnight engaged actors to put the Leave argument in a recent studio discussion because they wanted the Leave case put more strongly?” he mused. At which point the Beeb, instead of owning up that they had put someone who was not a real vicar on Newsnight, dug themselves in deeper.
This is projection on a jaw-dropping scale ...
Host Emily Maitlis was one of those digging as she responded to Adonis. “Andrew - don't become a peddler of fake news. Not in this day and age. Not when we need our parliamentarians to be better and more trusted than ever. To have got to a place where you could chose to believe that enough to write it - is deeply worrying”.
... while this is plain dishonest
Yeah, right. He’s not peddling anything. He’s asking a question. To which Ms Maitlis’ answer is worryingly evasive. So was the official Newsnight response: “Claims that Lynn appeared on #newsnight as a paid actor are false. Lynn is a pastor and was a genuine participant of our Brexit debate. She carries out work as an extra using her middle name but this is not relevant to the capacity in which she appeared”.
She appeared looking like a vicar. She isn’t one. The outfit she chose to wear suggests an authority she does not possess. So the thought inevitably enters that some kind of deceit has been practised upon the viewing public. That is down entirely to the BBC (Tom Pride has suggested someone should resign over this. I can see his point).
As to the idea she is a pastor, Jim Waterson observed “I'm not entirely sure of the size of her church. It largely seems to consist of her preaching to an unknown audience about how to get rich, while being blessed by a self-declared bishop from Hickory, North Carolina. But you know, each to their own”. Who’s “faking”, Ms Maitlis?
Someone at the Beeb needs to get a grip before this gets worse. Full stop, end of story.
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Her 'get rich quick' church doesn't seem to have gone very well, the domain name is for sale, maybe the beeb was looking for a right-wing Rev Richard Coles (for balance), and she was the best they could come up with?
ReplyDeleteMaitlis: "...we need our parliamentarians to be better than ever..."
ReplyDeleteA bit rich, that, coming as it does from a biro jabbing buffoon in a right wing monopoly propaganda industry that no sane free thinker trusts for a moment. Especially in the current version of "BBC news and politics".
Maitlis - like her fellow dead brains at the BBC, ITN and Sky - is quite incapable of recognising that their "product" is little more than trashy bullshit. Its only function in the real world is as a tenth rate script in an awful Gnome Counties pantomime. History's bad joke. Maitlis and the gang, agog with their own deluded self importance, can't even hear the raucous laughter that greets every distortion and lie they try to sell. They are the stranded dying whales of a new social media age.
The truth is corporate media turns out not news but a series of consumerist lowest common denominator "events", typified by the false toothy grins of "photo opportunities" and the half arsed witterings of "special correspondents". Media have become a septic tank for the social detritus that is "journalists". Ugly jobsworth cowards the lot of them.
Which is why of course such "journalists" blame everyone but themselves for the corruption of British culture. Which is also why there will never be a broadcast or print medium series of How and why British media have been corrupted.
Don't hold your breath for any improvement. There's too much money at stake - and in Maitlis's case, too many ball point pens.
Anon at 11:03 says it all far better than I could. But I will remind readers that Maitlis loves a bit of fake news. Remember her interview on the green with Dennis Skinner in which her conclusion to camera was 'Skinner refuses to join Corbyn's cabinet' A complete distortion he immediately took her to task over and all she could do was stand there and simper that it was 'a joke'
ReplyDeleteI wonder if The Mash Report will get recommissioned given that they are effectively pointing out the ugly truths that the BBC's news team otherwise refuse to acknowledge? Can they really continue with criticism from within as well as without?
BBC guilty of poor research and crap background checks? Yes, of course. They messed up. But to suggest they paid an actor to support May's deal (the only deal we're ever going to get - the alternative is crash out) is nuts. WHy would they pay someone to say that when there are plenty of other people that are more than happy to say it for free.
ReplyDeleteSHe's obviously a pro-brexit right winger so she wouldn't need paying. But of course you didn't directly accuse them of that you just quoted someone "asking a question".
You know who else defends themselves by saying they're just "asking questions"? The likes of Hopkins and Tommy Robinson.
I met this person on the last Star Wars film. We were extras in the same scene. You could tell at once she was an opinionated self-centred and bigoted individual with no grasp of reality. Seemed to think she was the star of the film and should be treated as such. Now she's infamous.
ReplyDeleteIf there's a broadcaster who *ought to be* expected to be ultra-careful, ultra-balanced, fastidious, it's the Beeb. Sad to say that the last few years have shown that to be a false hope. BBC management, ready to let Humphrys go wild, for Mentorn to let rip, are now happy for the normally reliable Newsnight to cover up an embarrassing cockup that everyone on the production team should have seen coming.
ReplyDeleteRegardless of wether she was paid or not,she is not a vicar therefore she was acting.
ReplyDeleteThis is hoe easy it is to become a `fake vicar` Bogus vicar George Gordon jailed for ripping off good causes https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/bogus-vicar-george-gordon-jailed-3010538?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar
ReplyDeleteThe BBC will never admit to being in the wrong and will never apologise.
ReplyDelete