ALEX Salmond’s debut TV show on the Russian propaganda channel RT has been mired in controversy over a series of mysterious tweets.
The former first minister claimed he had received “an avalanche” of tweets from the public, but four of those he read out raised eyebrows because of the ongoing row over ‘fake news’.
One was from an account that apparently didn’t exist, one was from an account that had never tweeted, one was a tweet that hadn’t been posted, and one was from a director at RT, formerly Russia Today.
The show blamed part of the confusion on a caption error and said there were simple explanations for the rest, but assured The Herald that all tweets were genuine.
It offered to provide screenshots as proof, but failed to do so in all but one case, and later admitted some of the material had been broadcast in error.
Mr Salmond has boasted he has full editorial control over the weekly programme, which was dubbed “Carry on Kremlin” on social media.
He also caused controversy by denouncing the Spanish government for using police brutality and jailing pro-independence politicians in Catalonia, despite Russia doing the same thing.
RT, widely seen as a mouthpiece of president Vladimir Putin, is register in the US as an arm of the Russian state.
The half-hour Alex Salmond Show included interviews with Labour peer Baroness Helena Kennedy, Tory MP Crispin Blunt and Catalan president-in-exile Carles Puigdemont.
Topics covered included the sexism scandal at Westminster, gay rights in Scotland and the international stage, and Catalonian independence.
The programme began with Mr Salmond reading out comments from the public.
He said: “Over the past week and even before the show has started we have received an avalanche of tweets and emails. Can I just say to the media - thanks folks, for all the publicity. Let’s just look at a few of them.”
The first tweet he read out was ostensibly from a Twitter account called “@ellalorenR” which asked: “So why RT?”, however there is no such account.
The show said the the real account, “@ellalaurenR” had suffered a “transcription error”.
Mr Salmond also read out a tweet from “@thegodfather12” asking: “If you were Prime Minister would you stop Brexit?”
The account has never tweeted since it was set up in 2009.
The show said: “The use of the account ‘@TheGodfather12’ was requested by the questioner presumably to protect his anonymity. We respected that.”
A third tweet from “@admrobrts” asked: “What does Slàinte mean?”, a reference to Mr Salmond’s new TV production company Slainte Media.
However “@admrobrts” did not post this until three and a half hours after Mr Salmond read it out.
The show said: “The Slàinte question came directly to us enclosing his twitter handle which we used. When the gentleman concerned saw his question broadcast he then tweeted it.”
A fourth was from “@lastjohn” which asked “When are you getting President Trump on your show?” This turned out to be from the private account of Luisa St John, a director at RT who was named on the credits of Mr Salmond’s show as the “Series Director”.
The show said: “Yes, one of the directors of the show is Luisa St John. Her question was actually used for the filmed rehearsal and left in the final programme cut in a simple error. However, she is a real person with a real twitter account.”
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