Richard Madeley has been chastised for reading out readers’ notes live on Good Morning Britain without responding with any type of challenge.
Furious social media users chastised the 67-year-old morning host for omitting to include any fact-checking after reading out statements individuals had written into the programme verbatim.
Following the news that six people were drowned at sea on Saturday after a boat carrying asylum seekers capsized in the English Channel, the series solicited audience feedback on the immigration problem.
The host then read a handful that did not adequately depict what migrants and asylum seekers are entitled to – and when – after arriving on British soil.
‘Why does #gmb read out tweets about the migrant crisis without adding a fact checking element?’ complained one viewer.
‘Migrants don’t get housing (as in a council house) and benefits as soon as they arrive yet Richard Madeley just read that out verbatim.’
‘If Richard Madeley is going to read out typically ill thought through emails about migrants coming for benefits, it really should be his responsibility as a broadcaster to correct them and give details of what they are ACTUALLY entitled to,’ added another.
Richard had claimed the ‘overwhelming majority of people’ who contacted the show did not feel that Britian was ‘letting migrants down’ before reading ‘two typical messages’.
In the first email, attributed to Joe, the viewer claimed that ‘the reason they come here is because they get benefits, housing, NHS, education at the expense of the British tax payer and there are thousands of homeless British people who should be taken care of first’.
Another argued that the UK government was only failing by ‘not growing a backbone and turning the boats back’, calling the crisis ‘a shambles’ – which Richard claimed that ‘everybody would agree with’.
The emails were also branded elsewhere on social media side X, formerly known as Twitter, ‘a completely stupid, objective lie’ and ‘pig ignorant’.
Others were baffled that they could ‘get away’ with the comments and receive ‘no push back whatsoever’.
Refugee charities have since warned that ‘more people will die’ unless safer routes to the UK are created.
Care4Calais joined the Refugee Council in its alarm, describing the incident as an ‘appalling and preventable tragedy’.
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays from 6am on ITV1.
Source My Celebrity Life.
