Fred Skulthorp has written an excellent piece in the Critic about Marianna Spring, the BBC’s ‘Disinformation Reporter’, pointing out that at least one colleague of hers has reservations about her reporting. Here’s how it begins:
Last Wednesday morning, the German police announced to the world they had foiled a far-right plot to take over the country. The apparent leader of the coup, a minor Aristocrat called Heinrich XIII, was arrested alongside 25 others including a celebrity chef.
That night Marianna Spring, the BBC’s ‘Disinformation Reporter’, took to News at Ten to tell the nation:
Whilst this group predates the pandemic, its audacious plot and its commitment to it perhaps goes hand in hand with the rise of disinformation about COVID-19 and the violent rhetoric that has accompanied that … The legacy [of the pandemic] and the conspiracy legacy that it leaves remains, and it can embolden these fringe groups in a way that just didn’t happen before and that’s really quite frightening.
The COVID-19 disinformation angle was a curious one in a story that has since emerged to be far more complex. Indeed, in deploying Marianna as the lead correspondent on the story, the BBC appeared to be the only ones especially keen to push it.
The group, unsurprisingly, believed some barmy things about not just the pandemic but pretty much everything else currently on the news agenda. Membership of the Reichsbürger, the dissident movement from which the coup emerged, had also risen by 4,500 to 21,000 since 2017.
The rest of her take was just bizarre — not least her implication that prior to the pandemic, mad people have never believed mad things and acted them out. At best, it was the sort of half-baked journalism hardly befitting the News at Ten. At worst, it was a tabloidy attempt to invoke a wider sense of paranoia about further violence in the wake of the “conspiracy legacy of the pandemic”.
I wasn’t surprised by the whole affair. I’ve followed Marianna Spring’s career at the BBC with acute frustration. I don’t doubt she has some talent as a reporter, but I have increasing concern about the way she has been managed at the corporation over the pandemic — and I am not alone.
The ‘Disinformation Unit’ she pioneered now has a deserved reputation both inside and outside the organisation for being a de-facto mouthpiece for the Government during those years. Watching Spring assert on the evening news that the events in Germany were more or less a consequence of “pandemic disinformation” made for uncomfortable viewing. Not least because Marianna and her team’s definition of “disinformation” has in the past appeared to implicate everyone from Peter Hitchens to an NHS doctor. What did she mean by it this time?
Worth reading in full.
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Journalists are tasked with holding the powerful to account on behalf of the powerless.
Increasingly the BBC in general, and the disinformation unit in particular, appear to be punching down instead. Overplaying the ‘threat’ from relatively minor and fringe groups whilst protecting the Government narrative.
I always assume that “disinformation” is what the government and the BBc doesn’t want people to believe, and therefore has a good chance of being true.
I didn’t know the propaganda unit of the UK establishment had a just one disinformation reporter.
I thought most of them were involved in propaganda and disinformation in one way or another.
Yes well I think we all know now that both mis/disinformation only applies to anyone who opposes and challenges the Official Narrative. I don’t think I’ve ever heard both of these terms as often in my life as in the last 3 years and it is ongoing.
Having never really drilled down into the difference between these two terms I thought this article by The Ethical Skeptic was handy. I usually require a lie down after reading one of their substacks so good luck! 🙂
https://theethicalskeptic.substack.com/p/disinformation-vs-misinformation-ebf
The job of people like Marianna Spring, insofar as it includes tracking down and ridiculing fringe eccentrics in order to undermine the less eccentric mainstream dissidents, is made easier by the use of honeypot sites. The technique is to set up a site which initially, and deceptively, supports the holding of sceptical views (the more fringe the better) but then tries to “convert” the accumulated sceptic back to the “only true way”, at a carefully judged moment. A quick glance reminds me of the way that fringe cults sometimes target people with mental health problems by initially appearing to support their supposedly off-the-rail emotive thinking; then, when a suitable degree of dependency and control has been achieved, the new recruit is hit with the carefully constructed “only” path to redemption. The tears of those who publicly scream that polar bears are extinct or that covid is an unprecedented contagion are real enough and sincerely felt (mostly), but in reality are the product of propaganda and gullibility.
I’m sure none of these techniques is unprecedented; surely they go back to mid-twentieth century politics, or even antiquity. It’s just that during the “Climate Emergency” and especially during the “Covid Emergency” they became well funded and well managed to optimize the intended result: to marginalise climate- and covid-sceptics.
The other technique appears to be to promote stories that are plausible to the sceptic, but are in fact just made up, a fact that is revealed later as it is debunked to great ceremony. It makes the sceptics look stupid, whereas all that is happened is that TPTB have used a con to trick them or send them off down rabbit holes.
And then discrediting by association.
Ie, the response to anyone countering the narrative can then be ‘oh, you’re one of the mad people that believe in xyz’, at which point the discussion closes and you can’t respond with a much more considered argument.
Age 26y and studied French and German at Oxford.
A protégé of Emily Maitlis.
I gave up at that point……
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marianna_Spring
Oh dear. With such a crap CV she probably realises that she has done very well out of touting garbage.
Maitlis? For crying out loud.
Need to amend or I may be erased 😱 . Marianna studied French and Russian.
Just to be clear.
“The focus of my job is to humanise disinformation and explain its impact to viewers, listeners and readers”
Spring describing her role in March 2021
🤷🏻♀️
“The focus of my job is to humanise disinformation and explain its impact to viewers, listeners and readers”
Spring describing her role in March 2021.”
Before venturing in to the study of French and Russian she should have devoted some time to mastering English.
How do you ‘humanise’ disinformation? Give it a name and an address and arrange to go down the pub with it? Invite it for Christmas? What about MIss Information and young Master Information? Do they get to be ‘humanised’ too? Bonkers.
Once upon a time a 26 year old Arts graduate would realise that they know nothing about anything, and exercise humility.
Nowadays, to be female, a graduate, and be an employee of a public broadcaster means to be overflowing with hubris and arrogance.
An eloquent summation Dr.
The hubris to believe that a 26 year old arts graduate knows more than the square root of FA about science. Truly, she is an employee of the Ministry of Truth. Nemesis will follow.
It’s the Oxford effect. Go to an esteemed uni and come out thinking you know all about everything. If you’re female, pretty and have been to Oxford, you can pretty much say any old tripe and be taken seriously by organisation’s like the Beeb. You then start to believe that what you say is the truth.
Doubtless there are some honourable people at the BBC trying to entertain and inform and remain true to the spirit of being a politically neutral broadcaster. But as an organisation it has been thoroughly captured by the political left and it is irretrievably compromised. Look at their news and current affairs output, their sports coverage, their “entertainment” and it is all infused with woke left wing propaganda. It’s a political campaigning organisation, not a broadcaster. They are doing it with our money, and after decades of Tory government nothing significant has been done to address this issue. It’s a disgrace. The only acceptable outcome is for it to be disbanded. Why do we need a state broadcaster? It’s an absolutely terrible idea.
Marianna Spring is no doubt a reprehensible individual, but she is one of many, and is ultimately just carrying out the de facto policy of the BBC and those who are happy for the BBC to continue in its present form. I got this from her colleague Michael Wendling when I complained about biased coverage of an early anti-lockdown protest. It’s a perfect illustration of how assured they are in their belief of superiority:
“Of course those who believe in conspiracy theories are not going to call their beliefs conspiracy theories, and are going to call themselves mainstream, moderate people.
We viewed footage of the speakers and spoke to people who were there.
We have no obligation to give a platform to erroneous ideas. We don’t, to take an extreme example, broadcast the manifestos of mass murderers alongside police statements so that people can “make up their own minds”.
I’m not saying the people there were violent. Some of them were (as the story reflected) were drawn by legitimate concerns. But the speakers (Mr Icke and others) were not expressing mainstream views that would benefit from airing and debate.“
‘Marianna Spring’ – I remember her posting on our local social media group years ago – probaby posted on them all – asking for views with which she was obviously planning to make into some sort of ‘anti-conspiracy-theorist- ‘piece’ for the BBC. She’s either not what she seems, or is incredibly naive. To be exposed to the information that must have come her way and still be spouting the same nonsense?
In all the time I have been a DS member I cannot recall much in the way of obvious “disinformation” as the wokeists would have it, with the possible exception of some 77ers who infected these pages for a time. The vast majority of members have a good angle on what is happening and explain their positions clearly and usually supported by evidence or provide opinions that do not really require questioning.
Would that Spring and the BBC could match the quality of the DS team and we the supporting members.
(Sycophancy piece ends).
As usual TY is outwardly at least rather more charitable than I would be.
The BBC hates me and people like me, they hate freedom and freedom of speech, they hate Britain and they hate the British people. They are the Enemy, and Spring is certainly one of their more enthusiastic collaborators. She is actively trying to bring harm to me and my family and I wish to see people like her utterly defeated.
With you 100% tof.
Is this bot Catfishing?
https://nypost.com/2022/11/01/marianna-spring-tries-to-understand-us-politics-by-creating-fake-americans/
It would be funny if the material her fake accounts attract is produced by other journalists also using fake accounts.
Marianna Spring is very dodgy! UK Column has been on to her for sometime. Everyone should watch UKC’s news (Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 1 pm and available afterwards). Instead of MSM news!!
The BBC is dodgy. She may be one of the more enthusiastic members, but she’s just following the party line.
Seconded.
I think the safest assumption to make is that if it is “disinformation” it is, in fact, “malinformation” which is correct information which has been disseminated at the wrong time.
On Friday I watched this weeks question time to listen to Peter Hitchens. He was very good but a stand out thing was how Fiona Bruce kept apologising to Jacob Rees Mogg. At least three times he was being creative with facts and Bruce was over board in her apologies for having the cheek to correct him.
it is clear to me, that BBC journalists are tasked with not upsetting the Government spokesperson of the moment.
I remember just how wise and experienced i was at 26 years old!!! how can a 26 year old inform people about what is or isn’t disinformation, she’s only just been born!
In Germany, nobody had ever heard about Reichsbürger before the SPD suddenly started talking about them. This so-called plot was composed of 22 OAPs who had been meeting since November last year in order to discuss popular conspiracy theories (the deep state and stuff like that) and politics. Since then, they had reportedly almost agreed on a political system for governing Germany (no details on that) and one of pensioners was a hobby/ sport pistol shooter who had a legal pistol at home (hence, the plot became an armed plot).
Discussing politics is semi-legal in Germany as it may amount to fighting against the free and democratic order which is a crime. But the German supreme court has historically taken a much less liberal view of what does and doesn’t constitute terrorism than the SPD. They have generally required credible real-world actions for such an alleged fight to be considered a fight and not just someone expressing opinions somebody else really doesn’t like. The SPD considers this more of a thought-crime and as repeatedly (and so far, without any success) sought to get people formally punished for that. How the courts will decide in this case remains to be seen.
Also involved here: This alleged plot enabled the government to get an opposition (AfD) MP it heartily disliked arrested on terrorism charges which also meant she could be suspended from her job as judge, something a government (of Berlin, presumably) had already tried to achieve through a disciplinary action later found illegal. Everything Totally Democractic In Germany[tm].
“Arch-propagandist BBC calls out disinformation spreaders!”
I suppose this is not a surprise considering they are a lickspittle for government. Anyone who thinks otherwise needs their ‘heid felt’.
(70 year-old ex BBC R4 news addict.)
PS The civilian foreigner, William Joyce, an unsavoury character by all accounts, was hanged in Wandsworth Prison as revenge for being a propagandist.
Disinformation is what Governments deliberately do to deceive.
Misinformation is what others do out of error, misunderstanding or hearsay with no intention to deceive.
The BBC does not even hide that it is the Government Disinformation Unit… and none but a few are deceived by its disingenuousness and duplicity.
She’s a symptom of the inane reporting at the British Bullsh*t Corporation and the reason I ditched my licence 2 years ago. Devoted GBNews watcher now.