The BBC’s so-called “Disinformation Correspondent” Marianna Spring has added yet more controversy to the corrupt “fact-checking” industry as she was caught lying on her resume.
Spring is facing claims that she filled her resume with “disinformation” about her experience in order to advance her career.
According to a report from the Daily Mail, about five years ago Spring was trying to get work as a freelancer in Moscow for U.S.-based news site Coda Story.
When Spring applied to the website’s Editor-in-Chief Natalia Antelava in 2018, she said she had worked alongside BBC correspondent Sarah Rainsford.
She said they worked together on a story covering the “perception of Russia” during the 2018 soccer World Cup.
An article in the New European said Spring reportedly gloated on her resume: “June 2018: Reported on International News during the World Cup, specifically the perception of Russia, with BBC correspondent Sarah Rainsford.”
According to the New European, however, Antelava, a former BBC journalist herself, is said to have rebuked Spring after checking out the claim.
Spring is said to have sent an email apologizing for her “awful misjudgment.”
She is said to have written: “I’ve only bumped into Sarah whilst she’s working and chatted to her at various points, but nothing more.
“Everything else on my [resume] is entirely true.”
The young journalist added that she was a “brilliant reporter” and in their emails also admitted there was “no excuse”.
Spring said her only explanation was her “desperation to report out in Moscow.”
She added that she thought it “wouldn’t be a big deal,” which she said she now believes was “naïve and stupid.”
In the email exchange published by the New European, Antelava told her: “Telling me you are a brilliant reporter who exercises integrity and honesty when you have literally demonstrated the opposite was a terrible idea.”
The Coda Story boss, who is understood to have not proceeded with the job application, is said to have added: “I am sure if you use this as a lesson, things will work out.”
Spring, who has a BBC podcast called “Marianna In Conspiracyland,” became the BBC’s “Disinformation and Social Media Correspondent” last August.
She is part of the BBC Verify team of so-called “counter-disinformation experts.”
Spring is considered to be the BBC’s chief “fact checker.”
READ MORE: WEF Demands Powers to Regulate Public’s Speech Online
