Friday, July 20, 2007


All programmes fake it, claims top TV producer !

A top television executive claims that TV's "culture of deception" extends across all programmes - even the news. (NWN:Surprise,surprise ! )

David Cox, former LWT head of current affairs and now an independent producer for the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, said it "goes on all the time. We're bad boys".

Cox confessed to manipulating the truth on news reports himself, saying: "Any kind of TV, even news and current affairs, have built into them the idea of a fabrication which is justified and necessary... but it can easily shade into what becomes in some cases a lie.
When the pressure is on, you've got to meet a deadline, there's this blurry border and it's easy to cross the line.""

He also dismissed BBC director-general-Mark Thompson's take on the crisis, involving faked phone-in competitions on Children in Need, Sport Relief, Comic Relief and the Liz Kershaw Show on BBC 6 Music.

Cox, whose credits include BBC2 debating series Nation, said: "This springs from something deep, not - as Mark Thompson would have you believe - that this came about suddenly... There's a culture of deception in TV since it was created."


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