I 'ad that Guy Kewney in the back of my cab once... BBC News 24 cocked things up big time last Monday when they interviewed respected technology commentator Guy Kewney on the outcome of the Apple Computer vs. Apple Music case. Except, rather than place Mr. Kewney in front of lightweight Karen Bowerman, they chose his taxi driver for her to interview instead.

Bowerman proceeded to interview the taxi driver, whose Frank Spencer style expressions, when he realises their mistake, are priceless! Gamely though he had a go at answering her questions, while she, alert as ever, presses on (that said, for all her faults, she remains far preferable to squealy, squealy twelve-year old Julia Caesar, another so-called business correspondent).

Watch out for the cabbie's hilarious facial expressions!

This sort of cock-up beggars belief - that all the highly trained and expert BBC staff failed to spot the taxi driver, who looks and sounds nothing like Kewney, a BBC regular, earlier. Do none of them watch their own news programming? Do none of them have the gumption to tell the difference between a taxi-driver and a well known technology expert before they get him live on air?

A handy cut out and keep guide for BBC staffers:
This is a taxi driver, not Guy Kewney.	This is Guy Kewney.

Still, it could have been worse - the mother of all right-on BBC cock-ups remains the Bhopal hoax of December 2004, when the BBC were easily tricked into broadcasting a story they wanted to broadcast by a pair of conmen. For more details of this see my earlier Biased BBC post, Blink and you'll miss it.

Strangely, whilst this latest cock-up is featured on Raymond Snoddy's worthwhile Newswatch programme (256Kbps, WMV, or see clip above), it has yet to make an appearance on the BBC's Newswatch web site, which, we were promised when it launched, all of eighteen months ago, would "publish all mistakes of a serious nature across the BBC's platforms - TV, radio and on the web - and try to explain what happened". I expect the BBC Views Online people will attend to this omission in due course, since they've already covered a couple of other items from this week's Newswatch show.

More coverage of this story is available from The Times, BBC falls for 'expert' cabbie's banter, by Jack Malvern.

P.S. If Sky News or ITN had done this I'm sure it would have been mentioned for a day or two on every BBC News programme, with barely concealed mirth, purely in the interests of reporting the news of course!

Update: See also Mail on Sunday: The BBC's latest star - a baffled cabbie.

Update: It turns out the 'wrong' man was a job applicant - see News 24's 'wrong Guy' is revealed above.