Reality Check for Marianna

  

One more post on this year's Pick of the Year with Marianna Spring and Clive Myrie...

As I listed earlier, the first part of the programme rehearsed the usual subjects covered by the BBC's Disinformation Unit, with social media getting it in the neck over misinformation as usual.

However, here comes another preachy passage from later in the programme when they discussed the 24 November migrant tragedy in the English Channel when 27 people drowned.

They'd already played a clip of a Thought for the Day by Bishop Nick Baines where Bishop Nick had said, “The difference between the fallen Westerners in Afghanistan and the drowned Easterners at Calais is that we label the latter, question their choices and forget their identity”, and Clive had said “the feelings were summed up” by this TFTD, without outlining quite whose feelings were “summed up”. [I'm assuming he thought he and Marianna were speaking for everyone], when this was said:

Marianna Spring - It always strikes me whenever I see these stories in the news just how bad it must be for you to leave where you call home. Because why would you ever choose to. It's the place where everyone you love usually. It's the place you know. It's the place you so desperately want to stay. And in that terrible tragedy where so many people were killed off the coast of the UK a large number of them were from Afghanistan. And we've all seen what's happened there over the past 6 months, especially, and the Taliban takeover and what that means for lots and lots of the people who live there, who are fearing for their lives.

Marianna Spring describes herself as an “award-winning specialist reporter covering disinformation and social media” with BBC News and BBC Trending, but she was peddling a bit of disinformation of her own there. 

It's simply untrue that a “large number” of people killed in that terrible tragedy “were from Afghanistan”. Most were Kurds.

FACTCHECK - 16 Iraqi Kurds, 4 Afghans, 3 Ethiopians, 1 Iranian Kurd, 1 Somali, 1 Vietnamese, 1 Egyptian died on 24 November 2021 in the English Channel disaster.

Maybe she should fact-check herself?

Marianna and Clive tell us what to think

Sticking with this year's Pick of the Year with Marianna Spring and Clive Myrie I want to quote you three short discussions from it, just so you can get a sense of just how preachy it was.

You'll hear them moralising about the racism that followed the Euros [how much was there really?], asserting that woke is a good thing and that some things  - such as taking the knee - aren't up for debate -  and that the slogan 'Black Lives Matter' isn't really up for discussion either.

On racism after the Euros:

Marianna Spring - I think the biggest conversation about online hate happened around the Euros. I was actually at the Final watching those penalties and, perhaps a worrying sign of my job or the impact of my job, was sitting there and as I watched Rashford and Saka and Sancho go up to take those penalties and I watched them miss, my first thought was, Oh my gosh, they are going to get so much racist hate on line!

Clive Myrie - And so many people said that. So many people said they knew that was what was going to come, which is such a terrible indictment of our culture and our society at the moment.

On racism in cricket and 'taking the knee': 

Clive Myrie - You know, it's good that these rocks are being turned over and these debates are being had and conversations are taking place. Because, you know, enlightenment is the key to wisdom, and frankly I think a better society.

Marianna Spring - I think as well, in, I mean...A lot of the conversation online has been very polarised, and we talk about cancel culture, and we talk about the culture wars, but actually that reckoning, that awakening, that there are things that are wrong and they are just wrong and supporting standing up against things that are wrong, it isn't up for debate. And a lot of the conversation around taking the knee has been about that really.

Clive Myrie - We as a society should be listening to their reasons as to why they are taking the knee are not placing our own ideas about taking the knee on their heads.

On Black Lives Matter: 

Clive Myrie - Black Lives Matter.

Marianna Spring - It's not controversial.

Clive Myrie - It's not a big deal. When you think about it. And it does not mean that white lives don't matter. It's just making the point that Black Lives Matter too.

Pick of the Year

   

I wonder if Lord Blunkett and Libby Purves and Michael Buerk listened to today's Pick of the Year on BBC Radio 4. I think they'd have been appalled.

If anything show's the station's sharp turn towards 'woke' this is surely it. It used to be a showcase for the width and depth of Radio 4's output across the year, intended to make you laugh and cry and think. This year it was almost entirely political, earnest and preachy. They weren't going to let us think for ourselves either.

It was presented by Clive Myrie and Marianna Spring. They played Radio 4 highlights from across the year that dealt with these subjects [in the order they dealt with them]:

[a] The Capitol “attempted coup”, QAnon, Trump and conspiracy theories

[b] misinformation and vaccine hesitancy

[c] misinformation and climate change

[d] how Facebook is failing to tackle misinformation

[e] feet

[f] climate change and wildfires

[g] migrants and refugees

[h] Afghanistan

[i]'Internet shaming' of women

[j] women's fears about their safety following the murder of Sarah Everard

[k] online hate/racism

[l] racism in sport

[m] taking the knee against racism

[n] Mondays.

It really was as fun as it sounds.

If you recall a comment I quoted a month ago today that said ''I can't help myself, and I know it's silly, but whenever I switch on radio 4 I listen to the first 10 words I hear. Invariably they are about race, gender or climate. Try it.'' If that person had have tuned in to Pick of the Year it would have been an instant 'Bingo!'