Recent revelations regarding UK television’s abuse of premium phone lines go back even further to at least to 2002. Moreover the ’fraud’ becomes conspiratorial as it extends beyond ITV to include the Press Association, Mark Austin and national newspapers.
On Wednesday May 29th 2002 I was writing copy for the BBC when a miracle occurred. ITV’s Survivor programme was being broadcast ‘live’, with presenter Mark Austin asking viewers to phone in and vote for the winner either Detective Constable Jonny Gibb, 31, or school teacher Susannah Moffat, 28 (my two children were keen viewers and were always voting).Three minutes into the programme and my computer screen flashed with Press Association copy (I still posses the copy) titled ‘Policeman wins £1m prize money’.
The detailed PA copy told of how Jonny Gibb had won the Survivor programme. Yet on the screen before me the programme continued being transmitted as live. Indeed for a further 40 minutes tens of thousands of innocent people continued to pay their money and vote. Infuriated I contacted newsrooms at The Sun, The Daily Mail and The Daily Mirror who all said they knew it happened all the time. Such a response was obvious as most newsrooms subscribe to the PA for a significant amount of their copy.
Indeed as a BBC journalist ‘lying’ was routine. On at least three occasions I was ordered to make up audience feedback so as to ‘sex-up’ regional news features. And a regional radio presenter explained to me how radio quiz shows were routinely rigged to retain audience figures. But we all now know about similar scandals. Yet the bigger question is surely why now? Despite numerous attempts I couldn’t get anybody’s attention over the issues. Maybe media avarice for unscrupulousness grew to the extent it started eat itself. Or perhaps it’s a case of there being more Jayson Blair’s than we care to acknowledge. Whatever its the reason journalism is all the worse for this. © Copyright Chris Thompson (unless otherwise stated). You may republish if you include an active link to the original and leave this notice in place.
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