Salmond caught in ‘fake news’ row over talk show

ALEX SALMOND was last night embroiled in a “fake news” row over messages attributed to the public that he read out during the first edition of his talk show on a Kremlin-funded television station.

The former Scottish first minister told the audience he had received an “avalanche” of tweets and emails following the disclosure last week that he was hosting the programme on RT, formerly Russia Today, before reading out a selection. However, one was presented as being from a Twitter account that did not appear to have posted it, and a second allegedly appeared online several hours after the broadcast. A third message came from the account of Luisa St John, the talk show’s director.

A spokesman for the show said one of the Twitter account names was used to protect a questioner’s anonymity, and another was posted online after the questioner realised it had been used in the show.

He added that Ms St John’s question had been included by mistake. “All of the emails, tweets and queries used on The Alex Salmond Show are real questions from real people. We have incontrovertible proof of that fact,” he said.