Marianna Spring, the BBC’s Disinformation and Social Media Correspondent, will be a familiar name to many readers of the Daily Sceptic, not least for her far from impartial coverage during the Covid pandemic.
Spring has now turned her attention to the response on social media to the disappearance of Nicola Bulley. For several days Spring’s article on the topic was given a prominent position on the BBC News home page.
A lot has happened since the mother of two’s disappearance. There are many different issues which a writer for our state broadcaster might have discussed in relation to the Bulley case. Speculation online has been rife. Some have allowed their imagination to run riot. And a small army of self-styled amateur detectives and nosey-parkers descended on the village, to the annoyance of both the police and residents.
But what – it could have been asked – were the various and perhaps unique factors in this specific case that led to so much speculation and rumour? Why are a small proportion of people driven to put forward or believe conspiracy theories? What inner need do such theories perhaps satisfy? And in what way did the online response distract the investigation, as the police have claimed?
But instead of examining such issues, as is often the case with Marianna Spring we find her operating yet again in her default position. Whichever subject she is writing about, be it Covid, climate, Ukraine and now about the response to the disappearance in St. Michael’s on Wyre, each of her articles uses the same formula. They all follow a similar pattern and have a single aim. Spring’s message is nearly always that there are legions of malicious actors, whether state-sponsored or otherwise, who want to deceive us and who are inflicting significant damage on society. In short, be afraid.
Yet you don’t have to look too deeply into what she writes to see that her conclusion rarely follows from her premises and is not supported by the facts. What she says does not add up. And, in following her formula, the reasonable opinions of a large number of people who are sceptical of the orthodox views held by politicians and most of the media are not only not given a fair hearing, they are ignored. Or worse, they are dismissed, even smeared. This is achieved by subtly and falsely associating them with what is in fact a very small number of people who hold bizarre and questionable views.
How does this formula work in practice? In her article about Nicola Bulley, Spring briefly acknowledges the difference between, on the one hand, speculation, and on the other, ‘conspiracy’ thinking, such as believing that those who were interviewed on camera may be crisis actors. But then she proceeds to do two things. The focus is almost entirely shifted to the relatively small number of people who are conspiracy theorists. By directing readers’ attention in this way, and laying the emphasis on this diminutive group, it helps create the impression that the number of people who believe such things is larger and more of a problem than is likely the case. This is what Spring does, again and again, whatever the topic.
And because the number of people who believe in and who spread outlandish conspiracy theories is extremely small, as is even shown by the figures Spring quotes in her article, it is therefore at odds with the message of alarm she wishes to impart. We therefore find that she has to resort to conflating two groups of people: those who speculate, or who are simply curious, of which there are many, with those who are card-carrying conspiracy theorists and trolls. Therefore, in the case of Nicola Bulley, while Spring emits her message of alarm with all the usual rhetoric and hyperbole, she mentions, in the same breath, speculation and conspiracy theories both together as if there is little or no difference between the two.
This was also largely the approach used during Covid. The reasonable views of many sceptics were ignored, misrepresented or effectively silenced by the BBC’s so-called disinformation reporters, who chose to simplify what was in fact a wide range of nuanced opinions. It often felt like the debate – if it could be called one – was portrayed as being between virtuous lockdowners on one side and selfish Covid deniers on the other – two polarised groups, of which only one could be right. Almost every day I see the same thing happening with other issues, such as with the war in Ukraine, and with those who challenge commonly-held assumptions about climate change.
Apart from anything else, Marianna Spring’s articles often strike me as poor journalism. Spring has a large audience and works for a prestigious organisation, despite the BBC’s declining popularity, so I think it fair to make this criticism.
It is hard to say to say whether Spring overstating the threat from conspiracy theorists is intentional or not. As with others in the media, Government and elsewhere who share her outlook, it is probably a bit of both. I suspect there are occasional brief moments of awareness in which there is the realisation that the facts don’t support the claims being made, but these thoughts are quickly dismissed because they undermine the message.
One doesn’t need to be a hardboiled cynic to think someone with her job title perhaps has an interest in taking this approach, to constantly try to justify her position. In Spring’s world there is a battle taking place, between the good citizens, who – like Marianna herself – are well-informed, well-educated and honest, and the mad and the bad, who wish to manipulate and spread lies. Her role is to help protect the gullible and unsuspecting public from their evil intent. It’s a nice little story. It gains the respect of your colleagues and bolsters one’s sense of self-worth. It pays quite well too.
David Hansard blogs here.
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