Last week when Prime Minister David Cameron was a guest on This Morning, host Philip Schofield presented the PM with a list of names of politicians who were allegedly involved in historical abuse at a Wrexham children’s home.
Schofield gave the list of names of implicated members of parliament connected to the care home during the 1970s and 1980s (that he had found on the Internet) to Cameron live on air.
Cameron said: “I’ve heard all sorts of names bandied around and what then tends to happen is everyone sits around and speculates about people, some of whom are alive, some of whom are dead. I do think it’s very important that anyone who’s got any information about any paedophile, no matter how high up in the country or whether they are alive or dead, go to the police.”
He continued to say that there was a danger of a “witch hunt” starting based on rumours and not real evidence.
I was shocked when I heard about what happened on This Morning, especially considering that it is a magazine show without much of a political agenda. Philip Schofield is not a journalist, he is a television presenter and I was surprised that he had decided to take on the Prime Minister on such a contentious matter.
ITV has said that they will take “appropriate disciplinary action” over the incident and Ofcom are planning on launching their own investigation.
Schofield apologised for the events, but I still think that it was very ill-though-out. The Internet can be a dangerous breeding ground for rumours and a great deal of things that you read online should be taken with a very big pinch of salt. One false comment online could completely ruin someone’s reputation and life.