According to the Daily Mail, Blue Peter admit ‘competition winners’ were child actors:
In the latest deception, children were asked to apply to the Blue Peter website for an opportunity to go to the show’s studios and interview Dead Ringers impersonator John Culshaw.
Six children were chosen, but after the show it emerged two had been picked from a local drama group to liven up the slot.
Each child was asked to come up with a question and joke with John Culshaw as he impersonated a number of celebrities.
It is understood that the show’s producers enlisted the help of the actors to make sure the item went according to plan.
“It would have been preferable not to have given viewers the impression that all the children in the item had contacted the programme through the website.”
“In recent months we’ve taken a number of measures to ensure we get these things completely right, including the introduction of special training, so that viewers can continue to have complete confidence in the programme.”
That last paragraph is revealing – it doesn’t say much for the BBC and its staff that they need to ‘take a number of measures’ and introduce ‘special training’ to ensure basic honesty when it comes to something as straightforward as not deceiving their viewers.
This story has also been covered by The Times, Blue Peter had child actors pose as viewers, The Telegraph, Blue Peter in new fake scandal over ‘viewers’ and the Grauniad, Blue Peter in third TV fakery row. Curiously, BBC Views Online went with the BBC’s defence of itself up front, Blue Peter plays down ‘fake’ row, whilst the story wasn’t mentioned at all on the BBC Ten O’Clock News, nor in what I saw of the One O’Clock or Six O’Clock News programmes.
After the first Blue Peter fakery incident, where an alleged phone line problem led to a visiting child posing as a competition winner, Mark Thompson blamed “blind panic on the studio floor“. That defence isn’t even plausible for the subsequent rigging of the vote to name a Blue Peter cat, nor this latest Blue Peter deception. Clearly there is something else at work other than ‘blind panic’.
Earlier this year the BBC ordered its staff to come clean about any other deceptions that they were aware of. In July the BBC claimed they had audited over a million hours of output going back to January 2005 and had uncovered six further instances of dishonesty, with the implication that six instances of cheating out of a million hours wasn’t too bad.
The reality is that the BBC’s ‘audit’ relied on the honesty of BBC staff to come forward and admit their dishonesty – hardly the most rigorous of investigatory techniques. The latest Blue Peter deception was revealed not by the BBC, but by one of the BBC’s child actors spilling the beans while chatting with one of the genuine competition winners. So much for the effectiveness of the BBC’s audit.
According to the Telegraph report:
Sources close to the programme said the child actors were contacted because the show had simply not received enough interesting questions from viewers.
…which, if true, sounds strange – that out of thousands of competition entries the BBC could find only four that were capable of being used on the show. Sufficiently strange that, without any further details about who won the competition and who the child actors were, would it be too much of a stretch to wonder if the real reason for selecting the fake competition winners was some kind of misguided attempt to ensure the winning group reflected the BBC’s idea of vibrant multicultural Britain? Call me a cynic, but given the political correctness of the BBC we all know and love, that wouldn’t be much of a surprise.
Who decided that not enough children from the web site came up with interesting questions? The same clueless BBC types who decided that the viewers choice of cat name wasn’t good enough? Just how do you decide that Cookie is an unsuitable name for a cat? How did these people ever persuade themselves that they were more expert at cat naming than their viewers? Had they been sent on a cat naming course by the BBC at the licence payers expense and were eager to use their new competence?
Don’t send these people to Salford. Just make them redundant.
None of the children had come up with questions relating to Palestine or “Christian fundamentalism” in the US, so they had to be ‘guided’.
The key point the BBC made was that it believed that this sort of deliberate deception was run of the mill standard practice and necessary for the smooth running of the sow. If this is the case why don’t the simply say – “remember kids this is fairy land and nothing you see is remotely close to the truth.”
I see this as symtomatic of a fundamental belief set in the BBC – deception – even apparently inncoent deception – is an essential tool to them to deliver their “narrative”. If they are willing to do this for a kids show (mind you get em young eh) what of all the other audience paticipation events. Question time always seems to be a carefully selected auidience to me, in fact evey single audience participation ebvent must have had the same logic applied: How can we select an audience that delivers our narrative.
I didn’t see the Blue Peter prog but can someone tell me if the “mix” was indeed genuienly reflective of the wonderful vibrance of modern “Britain”?
I think the media class as a whole has a contempt for the public, the white bit of it at least. For them, deceiving “the proles” was completely natural, and certainly not considered to be wrong.
I don’t think it’s the white bit of the public the BBC don’t like.
It’s a certain part of the white bit, or perhaps – parts
It’s certainly not bleating about how white, university educated, former student radicals and unreformed marxists are over-represented at the BBC.
There’s a particular type of affirmative action I’d love to see.
Shug,
well put – as we all kow the BBC
“Is a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people.”
However my point in this case is the absolute contempt for reality shown by BBC management. What is their objective in running fake competitions and then presenting pre scripted fake winners? Goodness knows Blue Peter has been doing this for 40 years so they should have an idea of the quantity and quality of the response. Mind you it is not beyond reason, when you look at the scraps of info that we get from time to time, that all their competitions have been faked!
I think the issue is a combination of four factors – none of them nice.
1) Pure incompetence
2) An arrogant disregard for the viewership “they’ll never know”
3) Critically the propaganist approach “this is what the proles really need to hear”
4) Custom and Practice (didn’t they fire Vanessa Feltz for this years ago?)
Blue Peter is perhaps a trivial example but it provides an insight into the mindset of Beeboids. Looking at its’ output, I think it is reasonable to extrapolate this behaviour across the BBC board and conclude that they manage perception at every turn because they are not neutral – MMCC for example:
“the BBC’s coverage of the issue abandoned the pretence of impartiality long ago”.
The BBC has, as all Marxists do, problems with facts that are inconvenient to the portrayal of its chosen narrative. These un-facts are the first victims in any BBC production.
The game is surely up for the BBC.
Any organization that loses such credibility and trust should also lose the right to exist.
“Sources close to the programme said the child actors were contacted because the show had simply not received enough interesting questions from viewers.”
Really? Or is it the BBCs thinly disguised contempt for the Great Unwashed in general?
Time for this expensive waste of space to breathe the fresh honest air of commercial competition.
Would the BBC be so kind as to tell us what would have been “interesting”?
A £3.5 billion revenue seems like a sufficiently big number to place the onus on the BBC making programs interesting – not the viewer.
The real problem with the BBC is that we don’t need it to inform,educate or entertain us.
We can do that for ourselves, just as we could pre-1922. We always could. We never needed the BBC. They needed us, and still do.
Pete | 10.11.07 – 9:58 pm
we don’t need it to inform,educate or entertain us.
We can do that for ourselves
Not much evidence for that round here.:)
“not received enough interesting questions”
Hmm, that excuse sounds awfully like a lie, designed to help disguise the original lie.
Sadly I doubt we’ll ever discover the truth. The BBC’s new policy of ‘honesty’ will not actually extend to telling the truth.
Reith:
“Not much evidence for that round here”
Ad hominems again Reith.
Then lets hear some of your wisdom on how the BBC could improve things and deliver better value for money.
It would appear you don’t have any original commentary to make, but simply prefer to scorn people.
“we don’t need it to inform,educate or entertain us.
We can do that for ourselves
Not much evidence for that round here.” Reith
Thank you for confirming yet again how useless we, the paying public all are when compared to the mighty BBC Beeboids…you really are a daft chap at times aren’t you? When you avoid questions and make stupid remarks or personal attacks rather than debate the real issues, or concentrate on a tiny tiny point to the exclusion of the elephant in the room you really do show how low the once mighty BBC have fallen.
Just how do you decide that Cookie is an unsuitable name for a cat? How did these people ever persuade themselves that they were more expert at cat naming than their viewers?
I don’t get it either. What’s the difference between “Cookie” and “Socks” for a cat’s name? Was it because the food fascists were afraid that “Cookie” would promote over-consumption of sweet things amongst children? Or was “Socks” considered a better name because it was Bill Clinton’s cat’s name? What politically correct reason could there possibly be behind this bizarre episode of deceptive cat-naming?
C’mon then Reith. Lets hear some insights from you, a BBC employee, on how the BBC could be improved.
You don’t have any do you? Your modus operandi is to interject with snide comments and then run away. Pathetic!
Yet another Andy
Reith feels the BBC is perfect and is in no need for improvement (but more extorted public money is of course always welcome and expected).
Susan | 12.11.07 – 12:58 am |
We’ve been round this loop before. ‘Cookie’ is, apparently, street slang for female genitalia. Under those circumstances it is not too hard to see why they changed it to ‘Socks’, the choice that came second (allegedly) and a common name for a cat with white paws. Clinton has nothing or very little to do with it IMHO.
The fuss over this story is convenient for the BBC for two reasons
1. They can portray (and have) people who are concerned about this deception as being obsessed with trivial issues.
2. The can link the image of the type of people, that they themselves are creating in the public’s eye, with any further deceptions that come to light.
It’s spin. They want people who complain about such issues to be seen as pathetic, obsessed whingers so that no one will complain in future.
“Cookie’ is, apparently, street slang for female genitalia.”
There is no way your average insular middle-class BBC producer/researcher is going to know this in a billion years. If it isn’t repeated in fashionable restaurants in Islington or regurgitated through broadsheet newspapers they don’t stand a chance on picking up obscure street slang. My comment on ‘Spooks’ on another thread being a derogatory term for black people is a perfect example of this. And that’s a show that’s run for what – five seasons?
I would have said knowing the BBC, it’s more than likely they thought ‘Cookie’ could possibly offend minorities on some assimilation with colour. They certainly would NEVER have backed it up with research. Just better to err on the side of extreme caution.
‘Socks’ is of course neutral but supposedly slang for filthy and messy rooms. In which case a perfect term for the state of Broadcasting house at the moment.
On an earlier version of the Blue Peter story, a spokesman was quoted as saying that their approach had ‘fallen within established BBC guidelines’, so that’s alright then, it passed their own bias test, I feel much more reassured now.
Sorry but I can no longer find a link to this…
Reg Hammer have you seen urban dictionary? Essential reading for any middle-class lefty attempting to indoctrinate the nation’s yoof through the medium of cat-naming. Plus, they could just drop an email to 1Xtra to make sure.
Andrew – you are a cynic.
PS The Fat Contractor makes several good points 🙂
Reg Hammer | 12.11.07 – 3:21 pm |
I’ve never heard ‘Spooks’ as applied to black people. Out of interest, what’s the deriviation do you know? It seems an odd word to use in that context.
I’ve asked around amongst my slaves in the sweat shop and none of them have heard it used in that context either. Could it be regional?
It is however used by the Police to describe the intelligence service personnel so I assume that’s why they use it for the show.
Fat Contractor:
Probably is regional. From where North London reaches Middlesex. I remember the posters going up for that show, how people used to drive past and smile.
I very much doubt it’s on any urban dictionary. Most people from that neck of the woods wouldn’t know how to operate a keyboard without smashing it with a hammer.
Sarah Jane:-
I notice a distinct lack of BBC suck-uppery from your recent posts. Are there two Sarah Jane’s or have you been sacked?
Fat Contractor:
Just looked it up on the web, and it’s NOT regional. It’s American slang.
Here it is in all it’s glory on the Wikipedia entry for – surprise, surprise – “Spooks” the BBC TV Drama.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spooks
“…The series is screened on A&E, a speciality cable channel, under the title MI-5. This is partly due to the fact that the word “spook” is an old (American) racist slang term for African Americans, and the network did not wish to risk the possibility of causing offence”
Lucky it wasn’t British Muslims the term referred too, or the BBC would have spent millions re-branding, renaming, recalling posters and what-not.
Yes I too consulted urbandictionary.com and saw some unflattering meanings for “cookie”.
The problem with this is that there are some tens of thousands of slang words on urban dictionary and “street” people do not tend to have such huge vocabularies. Another problem is that you can find dirty meanings for just about any word – just try it. Try “kangaroo”, for example.
Reg – I was being a bit sarky in that post, but in general, I try to be as honest as possible when replying.
I have always been pretty clear about my openness to alternatives to the license fee.
I am only 20% beeboid in any case, the other 80% is rural conservative 🙂
(Yet another) Andy | 12.11.07 – 8:21 am
C’mon then Reith. Lets hear some insights from you… on how the BBC could be improved.
You don’t have any do you?….. Pathetic!
Reith feels the BBC is perfect and is in no need for improvement
Dr R | 12.11.07 – 2:39 pm
Huh? ?????!!!!!?????
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/3806932189968243464/#374629
Reith
http://www.haloscan.com/comments…8243464/ #374629
Not much evidence for that round here.
“…The series is screened on A&E, a speciality cable channel, under the title MI-5. This is partly due to the fact that the word “spook” is an old (American) racist slang term for African Americans, and the network did not wish to risk the possibility of causing offence”
As an American I can only say that’s a new one on me. I guess I don’t move in the right circles. However I must say the logic of this particular slur completely eludes me. If anybody should be ‘spooks’ it’s us pallid folk.