From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

BBC Disinformation head Marianna Spring is a fierce defender of the BBC’s institutional climate bias, and a critic of anti-Covid lockdown conspiracy theorists.

When the BBC’s disinformation correspondent lied on her CV 

Marianna Spring admitted she made an “awful misjudgement” when playing up her role in coverage of the Russia World Cup for the BBC

6 SEPTEMBER 2023 5:21 PM 

We all make mistakes when we are young, and sometimes they grow in irony as time passes. Case in point: Marianna Spring, the BBC’s disinformation correspondent who, I can reveal today, was once caught red-handed lying in her CV to win a job.

…

Five years ago, in 2018, Spring was looking for work as a Moscow stringer for US-based news site Coda Story. In her application to editor-in-chief Natalia Antelava, she included a CV in which claimed to have worked alongside BBC correspondent Sarah Rainsford on the corporation’s coverage of the football World Cup held in Russia.

The entry in her CV read: “June 2018: Reported on International News during the World Cup, specifically the perception of Russia, with BBC correspondent Sarah Rainsford.”

This claim was, unfortunately, pure disinformation. In reality, she had merely met Rainsford in a couple of social situations. The claim was a lie.

…Read more: https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/how-the-bbcs-disinformation-correspondent-lied-on-her-cv/

The New European claims she learned her hard lesson, and now upholds the highest standards of journalistic integrity as BBC’s disinformation correspondent.

Here’s a sample of Mariana’s writing;

Covid denial to climate denial: How conspiracists are shifting focus

Published 16 November 2021
By Marianna Spring
Specialist disinformation reporter, BBC News

Members of an online movement infected with pandemic conspiracies are shifting their focus – and are increasingly peddling falsehoods about climate change. 

Matthew is convinced that shadowy forces lie behind two of the biggest news stories of our time, and that he’s not being told the truth. 

“This whole campaign of fear and propaganda is an attempt to try and drive some agenda,” he says. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s climate change or a virus or something else.” 

Originally from the UK, Matthew has been living in New Zealand for the past 20 years. The country is one of several that have aimed to completely stamp out Covid-19 through strict lockdowns. 

Troubled by the New Zealand government’s approach, he turned to social media for news and community. The online groups he joined – opposed to vaccines and masks – exposed him to completely unfounded conspiracies about sinister global plots behind the Covid-19 pandemic.

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The White Rose network

It’s part of a larger pattern. Anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine Telegram groups, which once focused exclusively on the pandemic, are now injecting the climate change debate with the same conspiratorial narratives they use to explain the pandemic.

The posts go far beyond political criticism and debate – they’re full of incorrect information, fake stories and pseudoscience.

…Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-59255165

Thank goodness for people like Marianna Spring, who after allegedly lying on her CV, went on to help us understand conspiracy theorists who criticise the urgent need for government enforced Covid lockdowns are just like conspiracy theorists who oppose renewables, and deny we are in the midst of a climate crisis.