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A big thank you to Guy Goma: the wrong man in the right place

Rod Liddle

Wednesday, 17th May 2006

Rod Liddle salutes the Congolese man interviewed by mistake on the BBC, who revealed an uncomfortable truth about the way the media works

This year’s most compulsive television viewing came on BBC News 24 last week, when they interviewed the wrong man. They were doing a story about the legal battle over registered trademarks between the computer company Apple and the Beatles’ record label, Apple Corps. They intended to speak to an acclaimed information technology expert, Guy Kewney, but some hapless researcher went to the wrong reception area and somehow brought into the studio Guy Goma, a Congolese business graduate with an extremely limited grasp of the English language. One of those identikit, bloodless and chirpy News 24 anchor babes carried out the interview regardless: Mr Goma’s answers were wonderfully uninformed and, because of his accent, almost unintelligible. The chap had been waiting down in the reception area for a job interview at the BBC (presumably as a newsreader: diversity is strength, remember) when summoned to the studio. The real pleasure to be taken from this misconceived live encounter was the look of appalled astonishment on Mr Goma’s face when he was introduced to viewers as an IT expert; his eyes widened like they do in cartoons and his jaw dropped several inches. But he soldiered on, bless him. Mr Goma knew almost as little about information technology as the anchor babe and the BBC correspondent who later, blankly, commented upon his contribution.

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New Sondheim: enjoy it while stocks last

Gerald Kaufman

Gerald Kaufman is enthralled by the first Sondheim premiere in 14 years. A minor work Road Show may be, but it is still worth much more than anyone else’s musicals

The law applies to Damian Green, too

Rod Liddle

Rod Liddle is reluctant to join the journalistic herd in its unqualified outrage at the Tory MP’s arrest. But it is certainly time to put the police under the microscope

After Baby P: the crisis in child foster care

Mary Wakefield

Mary Wakefield talks to a courageous woman who blew the whistle on the deep systemic failures in the foster care service — and whose only reward was to be hounded and vilified

The global force behind Mumbai’s agony is in our midst

Stephen Schwartz

Stephen Schwartz and Irfan Al-Alawi say that LET — the Army of the Righteous — is a worldwide Islamist organisation which is well-established in Britain. The Mumbai atrocities are further proof that the march of Islamic extremism is the central fact of our time

‘They treat me more like a devil than a god’

Lloyd Evans

Lloyd Evans finds that Bernard-Henri Lévy is not the ageing French dandy of caricature but a serious intellectual with views on everything from Barack Obama to the Muslim veil

Shared Opinion

Hugo Rifkind

If there really is a secret Zionist brotherhood running the world, why aren’t I a member?

Books Of The Year

The Spectator

A further selection of the best and worst books of 2008 , chosen by some of our regular reviewers

Strictly Come Dancing is not the BBC’s core broadcasting

Rod Liddle

Rod Liddle — a former editor of the Today programme — says that the Corporation must stop pretending to be democratic if it is to keep the licence fee. Unashamed elitism is the only chance that the Beeb has in the new media world

Letters

Spectator readers respond to recent articles

Why has the word ‘grandmother’ been banned by the Guardian?

Rod Liddle

Rod Liddle analyses the extraordinary list of mostly harmless words and phrases that are now considered inappropriate by one of our leading national newspapers