The face of the BBC’s disinformation fact-checking unit allegedly fabricated details on her resumé when she applied for a different media role in 2018, sparking another round of criticism for the millennial presenter.
In what has been described as an “unsurprising” turn of events, legacy media darling and the lead figure for the UK publicly-funded broadcaster’s ‘Verify’ disinformation division, Marianna Spring is once again facing allegations of lying. According to a report last week from The New European, Spring allegedly made up details on her CV when she applied for the position of Russian correspondent for the American news site Coda Story.
The publication claimed that in 2018, the upstart media personality had falsely claimed on her resumé that she had worked in concert with BBC foreign correspondent Sarah Rainsford during the public broadcaster’s coverage of the World Cup in Russia. When investigating the claim, Coda Story editor-in-chief Natalia Antelava reportedly discovered that Spring did not in fact work alongside the BBC correspondent, and had merely met her on a few occasions socially.
Upon being caught out, Spring is said to have sent an apology email to the editor for her “awful misjudgement” while maintaining that she was still “a brilliant reporter”. “I’ve only bumped into Sarah whilst she’s working and chatted to her at various points, but nothing more. Everything else on my CV is entirely true,” Spring added.
In response, according to emails said to have been seen by The New European, Ms Antelava replied: “Telling me you are a brilliant reporter who exercises integrity and honesty when you have literally demonstrated the opposite was a terrible idea … I am sure if you use this as a lesson, things will work out.”
So far, neither Spring nor the BBC have responded to the claims. The apparent strategy of ignoring accusations of false claims from Spring is reminiscent of accusations reported by Breitbart London in June when former UKIP MEP candidate and current host of the Lotus Eaters podcast Carl Benjamin told this publication that Spring had spread fake news about his run for the European Parliament as well as incorrectly claiming that his personal YouTube channel ‘Sargon of Akkad’ had been suspended from the platform on BBC Verify’s flagship podcast Marianna in Conspiracyland.
BBC Declines to Respond to Allegations Its Own Disinformation Factcheckers Are… Spreading Disinformationhttps://t.co/SQvyjbCYLg
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) June 17, 2023
Speaking to Breitbart London following the latest round of accusations, Mr Benjamin said: “I find it wholly unsurprising that Marianna Spring is guilty of lying on her CV, given the other lies she has told on her Conspiracyland podcast.
“That she is prepared to lie so boldly and with the apparent backing of the BBC is the real question here, in my view. Why is she so unaffected by her own untruths? For most people, this would be career-ending stuff, but for Marianna, there isn’t even the slightest hint of a consequence.”
Mr Benjamin said that he has still received no reply from the BBC disinformation correspondent, but added that “she blocked me” on social media.
Rather than addressing claims of spreading false information, the BBC’s disinformation specialist has instead attempted to focus on the impact that “trolls” have had on her mental wellbeing, previously breaking down in tears during an interview with the BBC about her alleged experiences of being trolled online, including by Elon Musk.
Speaking to the left-liberal Guardian newspaper last week, Spring said of the criticism she has received: “It’s very much about me, not my journalism. It’s someone saying: I hope you get run over.”
The millennial journalist has previously used trolls to justify the mission statement of BBC Verify, which she declared would be to expose so-called conspiracy theories and their ties to the “far-right” and “alternative media”. Following the steep backlash to her opening video for the broadcaster’s new disinformation bureau, Spring said that “trolling in response to this – including misogynistic slurs, threatening and hateful messages – are just more proof of why investigating this is so important.”
It appears that her focus on so-called trolls will continue, with her upcoming book, Among the Trolls: Notes From the Disinformation Wars, set for publication later this year.
‘Parody of a Totalitarian Regime’ BBC Disinfo Tsar Says Getting Trolled Justifies Investigating Public https://t.co/NiYJ9EZinD
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) May 26, 2023
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