BBC Suspends Phone-In Competitions After Shows Found To Have Given Awards To Fictitious "Callers," Sometimes BBC Personnel

Seems a little silly in the scheme of things -- what is a fake call-in competition compared to fake news from Iraq or Lebanon? --<but maybe it takes something this dumb, this arrogant, and this deliberately deceptive to wake the British public up to the BBC's games.

An editorial review revealed viewers had been misled in shows including Comic Relief and Children In Need, some of which featured fictitious winners of phone-in competitions.

Mark Thompson, the BBC director-general, said the failures within the corporation and by its suppliers, have "compromised the BBC's values of accuracy and honesty".

"There is no excuse for deception," he said.

"I know the idea of deceiving the public would simply never occur to most people in the BBC."

Ahem.

...

In the Comic Relief programme, a caller who successfully answered a question in a competition for a celebrity prize was actually a member of the production staff.

What could possibly go wrong with a state-operated media monopoly designed to propagandize and anaesthetize its viewers?

posted by Ace at 03:04 PM

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