A brand new series of Have I Got News For You aired on TV recently but the first episode didn’t quite go to plan, forcing the show’s episode to be axed from BBC iPlayer
Have I Got News For You’s recent false claim has since been blamed on “digital natives”. The first episode in the new series of the iconic show included a segment where presenter Victoria Coren Mitchell incorrectly claimed that a contract to roll out the Government’s new ID cards has been handed to Multiverse.
Multiverse is a company run by the son of former prime minister Tony Blair, Euan. Jimmy Mulville, who is the founder of the show’s producer Hat Trick Productions, spoke about the mistake.
Speaking on Insiders: The TV Podcast: “What was interesting was this, and this is why I want to talk about it, is that because we now have generations of younger producers who are coming into the business, and they are digital natives, they’re called.
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“They’re marinated in social media, and I said, ‘where did we get this story?’, and apparently, the story was put on by a freelance journalist, I won’t mention her name, a freelance journalist who put on her Twitter feed this story about Euan Blair and ID cards.
“And the producer said, ‘well, it had nearly three million views that day’, so it must be true, and no one questioned it. I went, ‘ok, and did we verify anywhere else?’, and then faces became very red around the table, and god bless them, they’re a fantastic team, and they felt terrible about this, really, really awful.
“Which is the right response, and so we’ve now got a new rule, we don’t take stories off social media.” He said that “normally” his team would make sure they had a second source before writing the script for the show but this time that didn’t happen.
The post which is referred to in the podcast is still on X which has been viewed almost three million times in total.
Mulville added: “It’s not defamatory in any way, in fact, the lawyers didn’t pick up on it, our lawyers and the BBC lawyers, didn’t pick up on it.
“It’s a low level mistake, but nevertheless, it is indicative, and it was good to spot it, because what you wouldn’t want to do is to make some kind of egregious claim about somebody and it is defamatory.”
The BBC apologised for the mistake after it was broadcast and the episode was removed from iPlayer last weekend. It was then edited and re-uploaded with the incorrect information removed.
Meanwhile, presenter Victoria also went on social media to correct the error herself as well.
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