Olosta: You mean you're not an expert....

Sunday, May 21, 2006

You mean you're not an expert....

So you show up at the BBC to apply for a job as an IT Specialist. The next thing you know you are on air answering questions. Dream or Nightmare? Well probably a bit of both. This is absolutely hilarious and just reinforces my opinion of the current state of broadcasting. Check your facts people. Try a little due diligence. Sheesh.

I especially love the the look on the guys face when he realizes he is on air and he hasn't a clue as to what he should be talking about, although for being put on the spot, he handled himself fairly well.

BBC apologizes for on-air interview mix-up

The BBC has apologized to viewers after conducting a live interview with the wrong man last week.

"We interviewed the wrong person," a British Broadcasting Corp. spokeswoman said Monday. "We apologize to viewers for any confusion."

The man was mistakenly ushered into a BBC television studio on May 8 for a reaction interview about the verdict in the legal dispute between Apple Corps Ltd. and Apple Computers Inc.

The man, who appeared startled at first, said: "I'm very surprised to see this verdict to come on me because I was not expecting that. When I came, they told me something else."

However, he soon warmed up to the interview and answered several more questions about the state of music downloading on the internet.

The real guest, technology expert Guy Kewney, watched the mix-up unfold as he sat watching a monitor at reception. On his website, Kewney wrote that the man "seemed as baffled as I felt" when asked about the consequences of the lawsuit.

What made the mix-up more unlikely is that the show producers had previously seen a photo of Kewney: a fair-haired, bearded, Caucasian man. The mystery guest the BBC host interviewed is a clean-shaven black man.

The short TV segment is now being circulated on the internet, including on the website of the Daily Mail newspaper.

Kewney added on his website Monday that the mystery guest has been discovered to be a Congo-born IT specialist named Guy Goma, who was at the BBC that day waiting to apply for a job and thought the on-air bit was an initiation gag.