Essay by Eric Worrall
BBC Disinformation head Marianna Spring is a fierce defender of the BBC’s institutional climate bias, and a critic of anti-Covid lockdown conspiracy theorists.
When the BBC’s disinformation correspondent lied on her CV
Marianna Spring admitted she made an “awful misjudgement” when playing up her role in coverage of the Russia World Cup for the BBC
6 SEPTEMBER 2023 5:21 PM
We all make mistakes when we are young, and sometimes they grow in irony as time passes. Case in point: Marianna Spring, the BBC’s disinformation correspondent who, I can reveal today, was once caught red-handed lying in her CV to win a job.
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Five years ago, in 2018, Spring was looking for work as a Moscow stringer for US-based news site Coda Story. In her application to editor-in-chief Natalia Antelava, she included a CV in which claimed to have worked alongside BBC correspondent Sarah Rainsford on the corporation’s coverage of the football World Cup held in Russia.
The entry in her CV read: “June 2018: Reported on International News during the World Cup, specifically the perception of Russia, with BBC correspondent Sarah Rainsford.”
This claim was, unfortunately, pure disinformation. In reality, she had merely met Rainsford in a couple of social situations. The claim was a lie.
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Read more: https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/how-the-bbcs-disinformation-correspondent-lied-on-her-cv/
The New European claims she learned her hard lesson, and now upholds the highest standards of journalistic integrity as BBC’s disinformation correspondent.
Here’s a sample of Mariana’s writing;
Covid denial to climate denial: How conspiracists are shifting focus
Published 16 November 2021
By Marianna Spring
Specialist disinformation reporter, BBC NewsMembers of an online movement infected with pandemic conspiracies are shifting their focus – and are increasingly peddling falsehoods about climate change.
Matthew is convinced that shadowy forces lie behind two of the biggest news stories of our time, and that he’s not being told the truth.
“This whole campaign of fear and propaganda is an attempt to try and drive some agenda,” he says. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s climate change or a virus or something else.”
Originally from the UK, Matthew has been living in New Zealand for the past 20 years. The country is one of several that have aimed to completely stamp out Covid-19 through strict lockdowns.
Troubled by the New Zealand government’s approach, he turned to social media for news and community. The online groups he joined – opposed to vaccines and masks – exposed him to completely unfounded conspiracies about sinister global plots behind the Covid-19 pandemic.
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The White Rose network
It’s part of a larger pattern. Anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine Telegram groups, which once focused exclusively on the pandemic, are now injecting the climate change debate with the same conspiratorial narratives they use to explain the pandemic.
The posts go far beyond political criticism and debate – they’re full of incorrect information, fake stories and pseudoscience.
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Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-59255165
Thank goodness for people like Marianna Spring, who after allegedly lying on her CV, went on to help us understand conspiracy theorists who criticise the urgent need for government enforced Covid lockdowns are just like conspiracy theorists who oppose renewables, and deny we are in the midst of a climate crisis.
Curriculum Vitae (CV) is Latin for “course of life.” In contrast, resume is French for “summary.”
See, it’s not hard to define an acronym the first time you use it. It would have saved me from having to look it up. Is “CV” a British thing, because I had never heard of it before now. Maybe I’m just old, but every job I ever applied for requested a resume, not a CV.
I’ve never been asked for a resume, only ever a CV. It seems to be a UK, Ireland, New Zealand and EU thing, whereas resume’s seem to be very much a Canada and USA thing. No idea about other countries and I had to look this much up.
It would have been highly informative if either The New European, or Eric would have explained what the acronym CV means. To a mechanic it is ‘constant velocity’, to the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) [see what I did there?] it means ‘commercial vehicle’.
I had never heard of Curriculum Vitae before today. I’ve only known resumé. Have only ever been asked for a resumé.
I was taught in class to always provide the definition of an acronym the first time it is ever used in anything written. Not everyone has the same background knowledge.
It is awkward – I can’t remember the number of times I’ve felt frustrated when somebody uses an acronym that must be very common with them but completely unknown to me. This was one time when that situation was reversed, I’ve been using ‘CV’ since school and it’s an extremely common acronym in the UK.
Probably true, and it’s a good thing. Now that so many people realize their elected public servants lied to them during the pandemic, they’re naturally more open to considering that they’ve also been lied to on “climate change”. They also probably realize that the same mainstream press which swallowed and repeated all the COVID lies are no more trustworthy on climate change or any other topic.
This is progress.
The BBC is adept at distributing disinformation on social media.
The original undoctored image by photographer Jakob Gojda of the turtle in its natural, plastic-bag-free environment is here:
https://www.jakubgojda.com/underwater?pgid=j9cyba45-f45e1931-3840-464c-b7e3-fb59cec9c4de
[From Jakob’s ‘Underwater’ portfolio: https://www.jakubgojda.com ]
Absolutely shocking
Is this any surprise? After all doesn’t BBC stand for Blazingly (morally) Bankrupt Company?
Small point.
Did mask wearing have any measured effect on increasing or decreasing the death rate, or the infection rate, in the Covid-19 pandemic?
(FWIW, my reading suggests masks had no measurable effect, but I might be reading the wrong papers, so I do not know the answer.)
If my case is shared by this BBC disinformation head, surely she is spreading disinformation herself by comments quoted above, casting aspersions on that group of people who opposed mask wearing.
Geoff S
Geoff,
There is evidence that wearing a mask is more hazardous than not.
https://thefederalist.com/2020/10/12/cdc-study-finds-overwhelming-majority-of-people-getting-coronavirus-wore-masks/
“Did mask wearing have any measured effect on increasing or decreasing the death rate, or the infection rate, in the Covid-19 pandemic?”
Short answer NO – even N95 masks shown to have little to no effect’. My reading of studies and precis’s thereof indicated that masks as mandated and supplied have “holes” many times bigger than the aerosol delivered virus….to say zilch about the gaps visible….
See point 10 with onward links: https://swprs.org/covid19-facts/
Timeline of other very inconvenient events for those of the “safe and effective” blx here:
https://brownstone.org/articles/what-we-knew-in-the-early-days/
Well, if you want someone to lie and spread disinformation for you, the obvious thing to do is hire someone with experience who been successful.
Apparently she has not been seen on TV since the scandal broke. A holiday in Siberia, or joining Huw Edwards at The Priory?