For those who missed it, yesterday evening's BBC One news special (no longer on the iPlayer) featured the same protest as the 'CNN fake news' one. I was watching it live when it happened.
Here are a few screengrabs showing the sequence of events:
Clive Myrie's live commentary ran as follows:
I should say that in the last few seconds a group of people have turned up here at our location. They are holding up pictures, saying 'Isis will lose, love will win'. Showing their feelings. Clearly Muslims, showing their feelings and disgust at what happened last night. And some flowers have been laid on the ground there as well. An impromptu show of solidarity for the people here and for those caught up in last night's events.
As you can see from the buildings in the background, the BBC's location was right next to where CNN was filming. So Clive Myrie and the BBC were evidently just a few feet away from CNN when the latter were 'faking' the protest.
For a rounded report on whether CNN really were faking the news here, there's a report from News.com.au (part of News Corp), which gives several sides of the argument.
CNN themselves are saying that police let the demonstrators through the cordon to show their signs. and that CNN, BBC and AP "simply filmed them doing so".
The US media website Mediaite has this not-wholly-supportive take:
For a rounded report on whether CNN really were faking the news here, there's a report from News.com.au (part of News Corp), which gives several sides of the argument.
CNN themselves are saying that police let the demonstrators through the cordon to show their signs. and that CNN, BBC and AP "simply filmed them doing so".
The US media website Mediaite has this not-wholly-supportive take:
For those not familiar with live news production, it is actually not that uncommon for hosts and producers to arrange protesters or pedestrians behind reporter to provide a varied background.
Sources familiar with this live shoot tell Mediaite that the protesters (‘Muslim Mothers’) were already very near the location and the police simply allowed them to move behind Ms Anderson and crew.
That said, there is reason to fairly critique this as ‘editorialising’ the shoot and not just reporting the news. And in a climate where CNN is feeling a lot of criticism — most of which is unfounded — from the conservative corners of the internet, this footage won’t help their cause.
