BBC Verify: Economical With the Truth?

We’ve all been there. Your dream job is up for grabs, yet your CV stares back at you, unremarkable and unworthy. What is one to do? A little embellishment couldn’t hurt, right? I mean, it’s not as if you’re going to get the job anyway. If you do, you’ll just have to show them what a great decision they’ve made!

I know plenty of people who have literally built careers around the assumption that no one checks what is written on a CV. In one particular case, the gilding extends to a degree (unearned), a master’s (unqualified for), and fake references, all of which resulted in a series of higher and higher profile roles, in which the candidate evidently performed to a satisfactory level. Having not met ‘Miss X’ for a number of years, I’d assume by now her CV includes a Ph.D., a directorship, and an inevitable CBE, but I’d have to fact check that.

Such willing deceit is a sign of the times, but thank God for BBC Verify whose sole raison d’être is to fight back against such ‘fake news,’ as their mission statement makes clear:

The point of the team is to verify video, to fact-check, to counter disinformation, and to analyse really complex stories so we can get to the truth of what’s going on. Why does this matter? Well, mistruths can cause really serious harm to society and to the people in them. And so, we want to show you our workings, and really help you understand how we get to the bottom of what’s happening.

Which paragon of integrity have the BBC entrusted to run the show? Marianna Spring, the source from which all truth flows. With a job title like BBC Disinformation Correspondent, one would assume Spring was whiter-than-white; touching up nothing other than her makeup. But then, one would be mistaken.

Yes, in a past life Spring was more than happy to cut corners, as revealed by The New European last week. Back in 2018, Spring was attempting to land the role of a Moscow freelancer with the U.S. news site Coda Story. Presumably to convince editor Natalia Antelava of her suitability, Spring chose to include the following résumé entry:  “Reported on International News during the World Cup, specifically the perception of Russia, with BBC correspondent Sarah Rainsford.”

But this was nonsense. In reality, Spring had never worked with Rainsford. She had, only met her casually. Unfortunately, Antelava had not received the memo that you should take CVs at face value, and decided to investigate the matter with Rainsford, who promptly put her straight. This led to the following cringeworthy email exchange, which is all the more enjoyable given Spring’s professed penchant for honesty and integrity:

Spring: “I’ve only bumped into Sarah whilst she’s working and chatted to her at various points, but nothing more. Everything else on my CV is entirely true. There’s absolutely no excuse at all, and I’m really sorry again. The only explanation at all is my desperation to report out in Moscow, and thinking that it wouldn’t be a big deal, which was totally naive and stupid of me. I’m really sorry again for this awful misjudgement on my part.”

Antelava: “Telling me you are a brilliant reporter who exercises integrity and honesty when you have literally demonstrated the opposite was a terrible idea. I am sure if you use this as a lesson, things will work out.”

Perhaps that should be BBC Verify’s motto: “Apart from the lies, everything else is true.”

The quicksand upon which BBC Verify sits can be traced to its modus operandi: a willingness to break the rules whenever it suits. Spring is unabashed, for instance, in her attempts to understand last year’s U.S. midterms by the creation of fake social media profiles—a practice banned by most social media companies. In other words, Spring was attempting to counter ‘fake news’ by creating fake news herself: false profiles, which aimed to understand the debate by analysing how social media algorithms react to different political archetypes.

“We’re doing it with very good intentions because it’s important to understand what is going on” said Spring. That’s just the point. Like Spring’s CV, anything can be justified if the intentions are good. One can’t help wondering whether the BBC have really thought this through. Perhaps no one is sufficiently beyond reproach to undertake such a fact-checking role, but Spring is clearly far from the ideal candidate.

But then, this should not come as a surprise. The gulf between the facts and the ideological position of the fact-checkers is palpable. One reason might be the extraordinary lack of self-awareness from those who elevate themselves above the debate. Take last week’s Guardian encomium on Spring, and her podcast: “Marianna in Conspiracyland,” a “plunge into the world of Covid hoaxers and anti-vaxxers, the cranks who would once have seemed harmless.” Spring is described in the following terms:

An extremely energetic, personable young woman. In a screwball comedy about a newsroom, she would be the one described as a dynamo. She is screen-ready–her earrings match her necklace, which matches her trousers, which match her shoes–but seems completely without vanity, the way athletes do. All that emanates from her is drive, curiosity and focus, and the zeal of authentic public-spiritedness. In your crankiest, most contrarian mood, you would still find it impossible to dislike her; it would be like trying to dislike the Lionesses.”

The very next sentence reads, “Yet of all the online abuse directed at the BBC and its staff, 80% is aimed at her.”

Make your mind up!

The notion of fact checking is fraught at the best of times. With a company as clearly left-wing as the BBC however, it is imperative that those in charge are whiter than white if BBC Verify is to be taken seriously at all. Otherwise, where does it end? You’d have the corporation misreporting on political figures it disapproves of, continuing to cover up historic sex scandals, and then overreacting to lesser offences to compensate for such cowardice. Oh, wait. Never mind.

I am firmly of the opinion that ‘fact checking’ is just a popular euphemism for censorship. But at the very least, if the BBC really wants to go down this road then perhaps it should get its own house in order first.

This piece first appeared in The European Conservative, and is reproduced by kind permission.

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