Marianna Spring

Last updated

Marianna Spring
Born (1996-02-21) 21 February 1996 (age 28)
Education Pembroke College, Oxford
OccupationJournalist

Marianna Spring (born 21 February 1996) is a British broadcast journalist. She is the BBC's first disinformation specialist and social media correspondent.

Contents

Early life

Spring was born on 21 February 1996. [1] [2] Her father is a doctor and her mother is a family therapist and former nurse. [3] She grew up in Sutton, South London, and has a younger sister. [2] [3] Spring said she developed an interest in journalism at the age of eight, and would watch BBC World News while on holiday. [4]

Spring attended Sutton High School, London, and became involved in a programme run by Newsquest for young journalists, winning an award for best news article of 2011 by a Year Eleven student. [5] Spring was also a ball girl at Wimbledon while at school. [6] She studied French and Russian at Pembroke College, Oxford (matriculating in 2014) [7] and wrote for and edited the student newspaper Cherwell . [8] While there, Spring won the Ronnie Payne Prize for Outstanding Foreign Reporting in 2017, [9] and later spent her year abroad in Yaroslavl (Russia), and Paris, contributing news articles to The Moscow Times , The Local, and Le Tarn Libre. [10] [11] Spring undertook work experience at The Guardian and Private Eye . [8] [12]

Career

After graduation, she applied for various journalism programmes including at the BBC but was not successful. [13] Senior news reporter for The Guardian Alexandra Topping suggested that Spring contact various BBC journalists that she admired. Emily Maitlis replied to Spring and gave her an opportunity to work on Newsnight . [14] She co-produced a segment for the programme, about protesters from across the French political spectrum joining the gilets jaunes , in December 2018. [15]

"The focus of my job is to humanise disinformation and explain its impact to viewers, listeners and readers."

Spring describing her role in March 2021 [16]

In March 2020, she was appointed the BBC's first specialist disinformation and social media reporter, which followed the establishment of similar roles at American news organisations such as CNN and NBC. [16] In 2021, Spring began working as a reporter for the investigative current affairs programme Panorama , and was selected by Forbes magazine as one of their "30 Under 30" in the Media and Marketing category. [17] [18]

She was promoted to correspondent in August 2022. [19] Spring was nominated as Young Talent of the Year at the Royal Television Society's Journalism Awards in 2023. [20] In March 2023, she wrote an article for the BBC News on an increase in trolling and online abuse on Twitter under Elon Musk. [21] Musk responded by mockingly tweeting a screenshot of the article. [22] This led to an increase in abuse towards Spring, who told The Sunday Times in August 2023 that according to an internal BBC monitoring system she had received more than 80% of all online abuse directed at BBC journalists in the first six months of the year. [2] [23] [24]

In September 2023, The New European alleged that Spring had previously lied on a CV when applying for a job in 2018 in Moscow for U.S.-based news website Coda Story . [25] [26] [27]

Since 2022, Spring has been a regular contributor to the BBC podcast and Radio 4 programme Americast, for which using data supplied by the Pew Research Center, she created social media accounts for five "undercover voters" from across the political spectrum in order to report on the content they were receiving. [28] [29] Her debut book, Among the Trolls: Notes from the Disinformation Wars, was published by Atlantic Books in March 2024. [30] [31]

In April 2024, she was a guest on the first episode of the sixty-seventh series of BBC One satirical panel show Have I Got News for You . [32]

Television

Year(s)TitleRoleNotesRef(s)
2021–present Panorama ReporterEpisode: "Vaccines: The Disinformation War"
Episode: "Online Abuse: Why Do You Hate Me?"
Episode: "A Social Media Murder: Olly's Story"
Episode: "Disaster Deniers: Hunting the Trolls"		 [17]
[33]
[34]
[35]
2023The TikTok EffectPresenter [36]

Radio

Year(s)TitleRoleNotesRef(s)
2020How to Cure Viral MisinformationPresenter [37]
2021The Anti-Vax FilesPresenter [38]
2021The Denial FilesPresenterPodcast [39]
2022Death by Conspiracy?PresenterPodcast [40]
2022War on TruthPresenterPodcast [41]
2022–presentAmericastCo-hostPodcast [42]
2022Disaster TrollsPresenterPodcast [43]
2023Marianna in ConspiracylandHostPodcast [44] [45]
2024Why Do You Hate Me?Presenter [46] [47]

Related Research Articles

Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. Disinformation is an orchestrated adversarial activity in which actors employ strategic deceptions and media manipulation tactics to advance political, military, or commercial goals. Disinformation is implemented through attacks that "weaponize multiple rhetorical strategies and forms of knowing—including not only falsehoods but also truths, half-truths, and value judgements—to exploit and amplify culture wars and other identity-driven controversies."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elon Musk</span> South African-born businessman (born 1971)

Elon Reeve Musk is a businessman and investor known for his key roles in space company SpaceX and automotive company Tesla, Inc. Other involvements include ownership of X Corp., the company that operates the social media platform X, and his role in the founding of The Boring Company, xAI, Neuralink and OpenAI. He is one of the wealthiest people in the world; as of August 2024, Forbes estimates his net worth to be US$241 billion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emily Maitlis</span> British journalist (born 1970)

Emily Maitlis is a British journalist and former newsreader for the BBC. She was the lead anchor of the BBC Two news and current affairs programme Newsnight until the end of 2021, and is currently a presenter of the daily podcast The News Agents on LBC Radio.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), formerly Brixton Endeavors, is a British not-for-profit NGO company with offices in London and Washington, D.C. with the stated purpose of stopping the spread of online hate speech and disinformation. It campaigns to deplatform people that it believes promote hate or misinformation, and campaigns to restrict media organisations such as The Daily Wire from advertising. CCDH is a member of the Stop Hate For Profit coalition.

Lisa Joy Millar is an Australian television news presenter and journalist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jesy Nelson</span> English singer (born 1991)

Jessica Louise Nelson is an English singer. She rose to prominence as a member of the girl group Little Mix, who were formed during the eighth series of The X Factor in 2011. As part of Little Mix, Nelson achieved seventeen top-ten singles and five number-one singles on the UK Singles Chart.

Ghada Owais, also spelled Ghada Oueiss, is a Lebanese journalist for Al Jazeera. She was born on November 6, 1977, and attended the Lebanese University, graduating in 1999. Owais joined Al Jazeera in 2006. She speaks Arabic and English.

State-sponsored Internet propaganda is Internet manipulation and propaganda that is sponsored by a state. States have used the Internet, particularly social media to influence elections, sow distrust in institutions, spread rumors, spread disinformation, typically using bots to create and spread contact. Propaganda is used internally to control populations, and externally to influence other societies.

A troll farm or troll factory is an institutionalised group of internet trolls that seeks to interfere in political opinions and decision-making.

The Gateway Pundit (TGP) is an American far-right fake news website. The website is known for publishing falsehoods, hoaxes, and conspiracy theories.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kaitlan Collins</span> American journalist

Kaitlan Collins is an American journalist who is a news anchor on CNN. She is the former co-anchor of CNN This Morning. She has hosted The Source at 9 p.m. since July 2023. She also served as the network's Chief White House Correspondent from January 2021 until November 2022. Previously, she was the White House correspondent for the website The Daily Caller.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laura Loomer</span> American far-right activist (born 1993)

Laura Elizabeth Loomer is an American far-right political activist and internet personality. She was the Republican nominee to represent Florida's 21st congressional district in the 2020 United States House of Representatives elections, losing to Democrat Lois Frankel. She also ran in the Republican primary for Florida's 11th congressional district in 2022, narrowly losing to incumbent Daniel Webster. She has been described as espousing anti-Muslim, white nationalist and conspiracy theorist views.

X may suspend accounts, temporarily or permanently, from their social networking service. Suspensions of high-profile accounts often attract media attention, and X's use of suspensions has been controversial.

India Scarlett Willoughby is an English newsreader, broadcaster, journalist and reality television personality. She is Britain's first transgender national television newsreader and the first transgender co-host of an all-women talk show, Loose Women on ITV.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Taylor Lorenz</span> American technology reporter

Taylor Lorenz is an American journalist. She is a columnist for The Washington Post. She was previously a technology reporter for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, and Business Insider, and social media editor for the Daily Mail. She is particularly known for covering Internet culture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ken Klippenstein</span> American journalist (born 1988)

Ken Klippenstein is an American journalist who formerly worked at The Intercept. Prior to joining The Intercept, Klippenstein was the D.C. Correspondent at The Nation and previously a senior investigative reporter for the online news program The Young Turks. His work has also appeared in The Daily Beast,Salon, and other publications. His reporting focuses on U.S. federal and national security matters, as well as corporate controversies.

The Light is a self-published, monthly British far-right and conspiracy theory newspaper founded by Darren Scott Nesbitt on 27 September 2020, which claims the COVID-19 pandemic was a hoax. The paper has a sister publication, named The Irish Light, which was launched in Ireland by Gemma O'Doherty and John Waters. A free Australian paper The Light Australia, started around June 2023, also is linked to The Light Paper UK.

Business magnate Elon Musk initiated an acquisition of American social media company Twitter, Inc. on April 14, 2022, and concluded it on October 28, 2022. Musk stated he intended to buy Twitter to build X, an "everything app" he had been developing since 2018 to mimic the Chinese app WeChat. Musk had begun buying shares of the company in January 2022, becoming its largest shareholder by April with a 9.1 percent ownership stake. Twitter invited Musk to join its board of directors, an offer he initially accepted before declining. On April 14, Musk made an unsolicited offer to purchase the company, to which Twitter's board responded with a "poison pill" strategy to resist a hostile takeover before unanimously accepting Musk's buyout offer of $44 billion on April 25. Musk stated that he planned to introduce new features to the platform, make its algorithms open-source, combat spambot accounts, and promote free speech.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Twitter under Elon Musk</span>

Elon Musk completed his acquisition of Twitter in October 2022; Musk acted as CEO of Twitter until June 2023 when he was succeeded by Linda Yaccarino. Under Musk, Twitter was rebranded to X. It is one of the top social media platforms and the fifth-most-visited website in the world. Users can share posts containing text messages, images, and videos and interact with other users' content through likes and reposts. X offers additional features such as direct messaging, video and audio calling, bookmarks, lists, communities, a chatbot, and the social audio feature Spaces.

References

  1. ↑ @mariannaspring (21 February 2021). "25 today! And reported for Panorama for the first time this week – a very exciting first quarter of a century (pandemic permitting)" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 31 October 2022. Retrieved 31 October 2022– via Twitter.
  2. 1 2 3 Spring, Marianna (6 August 2023). "The BBC's Marianna Spring: 'It's really normal to really hate me'". The Sunday Times (Interview). Interviewed by Phoebe Luckhurst. Retrieved 6 August 2023.
  3. 1 2 Williams, Zoe (4 September 2023). "The BBC's Marianna Spring: 'The more violent the rhetoric, the more important it is I expose it'". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 September 2023.
  4. ↑ Anderson & Spring (2021), 2:00.
  5. ↑ Wood, Heloise (27 January 2014). "Young Reporter scheme helps schoolgirl win place at Oxford University". News Shopper . Archived from the original on 31 October 2022. Retrieved 14 April 2021.
  6. ↑ Fox, Claire (30 June 2010). "Sutton school girl meets the Queen". Your Local Guardian. Retrieved 8 July 2023.
  7. ↑ "Alumna Marianna Spring Features on Forbes '30 under 30' list". Pembroke College. Oxford. 20 April 2021. Archived from the original on 13 July 2021. Retrieved 5 November 2022.
  8. 1 2 "Our amazing alumnae". Sutton High School. Archived from the original on 22 May 2022. Retrieved 14 April 2021.
  9. ↑ Brindley, Lynne. "Master's Notes". The Pembroke Record 2016–2017. Oxford: Pembroke College. p. 4.
  10. ↑ "Undergraduate Linguist Marianna Spring Becomes News Reporter for The Moscow Times". Pembroke College, Oxford. 5 February 2016. Retrieved 14 April 2021.
  11. ↑ "Undergraduate Marianna Spring Awarded Ronnie Payne Prize for Outstanding Foreign Reporting". Pembroke College, Oxford. 23 February 2017.
  12. ↑ Hancock, Charlie (1 January 2022). "In Conversation with Marianna Spring". Cherwell.
  13. ↑ Anderson & Spring (2021), 7:03.
  14. ↑ Anderson & Spring (2021), 7:43.
  15. ↑ Clayton, James (8 December 2018). "Gilets jaunes: Are nationalists infiltrating the 'yellow vests'?". BBC News. Retrieved 16 April 2023.
  16. 1 2 Spring, Marianna (21 March 2021). "My crazy first year down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole" . The Sunday Times . London. Retrieved 8 December 2022.
  17. 1 2 "Panorama: Vaccines: The Disinformation War". BBC. 20 February 2021. Archived from the original on 19 July 2024. Retrieved 14 April 2021.
  18. ↑ "Marianna Spring". Forbes. Retrieved 14 April 2021.
  19. ↑ @mariannaspring (9 August 2022). "Delighted I've been promoted from reporter & I'm now the BBC's first Disinformation and Social Media Correspondent!..." (Tweet). Archived from the original on 8 November 2022. Retrieved 13 November 2022– via Twitter.
  20. ↑ "RTS Television Journalism Awards 2023 in partnership with Wolftech and Dataminr". Royal Television Society. 3 October 2022. Archived from the original on 19 July 2024. Retrieved 12 February 2023.
  21. ↑ Spring, Marianna (6 March 2023). "Twitter insiders: We can't protect users from trolling under Musk". BBC News. Archived from the original on 19 July 2024. Retrieved 10 August 2023.
  22. ↑ Kanter, Jake (6 March 2023). "Elon Musk Says He's 'Laughing His A** Off' At BBC Claim That Trolling Has Gotten Worse On Twitter". Deadline Hollywood . Archived from the original on 19 July 2024. Retrieved 6 August 2023.
  23. ↑ Swerling, Gabriella (6 August 2023). "It's normal to hate me, says BBC's first disinformation correspondent". The Sunday Telegraph . Retrieved 6 August 2023.
  24. ↑ Frost, Caroline (6 August 2023). "80% Of The BBC's Online Abuse Is Addressed To One Female Journalist: 'It's Normal To Hate Me'". Deadline Hollywood . Retrieved 6 August 2023.
  25. ↑ "When the BBC's disinformation correspondent lied on her CV" . The New European . London. 6 September 2023. Retrieved 8 September 2023.
  26. ↑ Kanter, Jake (8 September 2023). "BBC Disinformation Correspondent Marianna Spring Accused Of Lying On Her Resume". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved 21 September 2023.
  27. ↑ McTaggart, India (8 September 2023). "BBC's disinformation reporter 'lied on her CV'" . The Telegraph . London. Retrieved 22 February 2024.
  28. ↑ "BBC's Justin Webb, Sarah Smith and Marianna Spring join Americast" (Press release). London: BBC. 12 July 2023 [30 August 2022]. Retrieved 13 April 2024.
  29. ↑ Spring, Marianna (7 November 2022). "US midterms: How BBC's voter profiles were shown hate and disinformation online". BBC News. London. Retrieved 13 April 2024.
  30. ↑ Wood, Heloise (13 July 2021). "Spring's disinformation debut goes to Atlantic in three-way auction". The Bookseller . London. Archived from the original on 19 July 2024. Retrieved 13 July 2021.
  31. ↑ Naughton, John (3 March 2024). "Among the Trolls by Marianna Spring review – into the cesspit of online hatred". The Guardian . London. Archived from the original on 19 July 2024. Retrieved 13 April 2024.
  32. ↑ "Have I Got News for You, Series 67, episode 1". BBC One. Archived from the original on 19 July 2024. Retrieved 19 June 2024.
  33. ↑ "Panorama: Online abuse: Why do you hate me". BBC. 20 October 2021. Archived from the original on 19 July 2024. Retrieved 1 June 2022.
  34. ↑ "A social media murder: Olly's story". BBC News. 19 June 2022. Retrieved 31 October 2022.
  35. ↑ "The UK terror survivors tracked down by 'disaster trolls'". BBC News. 31 October 2022.
  36. ↑ "The TikTok Effect". BBC. Archived from the original on 19 July 2024. Retrieved 5 October 2023.
  37. ↑ "How to Cure Viral Misinformation". BBC. 24 April 2020. Archived from the original on 19 July 2024. Retrieved 14 April 2021.
  38. ↑ Sawyer, Miranda (28 March 2021). "Radio roadshow: the Beeb's big move away from London". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 19 July 2024. Retrieved 14 April 2021.
  39. ↑ "The Denial Files". BBC. Retrieved 1 November 2022.
  40. ↑ "Death by Conspiracy?". BBC Sounds. Retrieved 31 October 2022.
  41. ↑ "War on Truth". BBC. 25 March 2022. Retrieved 25 March 2022.
  42. ↑ "BBC's Justin Webb, Sarah Smith and Marianna Spring join Americast" (Press release). London: BBC. 30 August 2022. Archived from the original on 10 December 2022. Retrieved 10 December 2022.
  43. ↑ "Disaster Trolls". BBC Sounds. Archived from the original on 19 July 2024. Retrieved 31 October 2022.
  44. ↑ "Marianna in Conspiracyland" (Press release). London: BBC. Archived from the original on 7 June 2023. Retrieved 15 June 2023.
  45. ↑ Sawyer, Miranda (17 June 2023). "The week in audio: Marianna in Conspiracyland; Women of Web3; Gateway: Cocaine, Murder & Dirty Money in Europe; The Archers". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 19 July 2024. Retrieved 26 June 2023.
  46. ↑ "Why Do You Hate Me?". BBC. London. Retrieved 13 April 2024.
  47. ↑ Nicol, Patricia (28 January 2024). "Why Do You Hate Me? review — why discord reigns on social media" . The Times . London. Retrieved 13 April 2024.

Sources

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.