Jeni Barnett
Jeni Barnett (born 24 March1949 in London) is an English actress and TV presenter who grew up in Borehamwood.[1] She is married to Yorkshire-born actor Jim Bywater and has 3 daughters.
Acting career
As an actress she appeared on several TV shows, including Revolting Women (BBC2, 1981)and Doctors, and has also been a panelist on ITV's Loose Women and Five's The Wright Stuff, and was a long-time presenter of the children's TV series You and Me.[2] [3]
TV presenter
Barnett became well known after appearing on British breakfast station TV-am as a weekend presenter. She courted controversy by breast-feeding her new daughter live on air.[citation needed]
Between 2002 and 2007, Barnett was host of UKTV Food's flagship food show, Great Food Live (previously known as Good Food Live) and its spinoffs Great Food Bites and Great Food Live Extra. In 2004/2005, Barnett also hosted the second series of the ITV1 cookery show, Too Many Cooks.
Radio presenter
On 16 June 2007 Barnett presented her first radio programme on LBC 97.3, when she stood in for Chris Hawkins on Saturday afternoon. Barnett soon returned to the air filling in for more presenters, including Jim Davis' Lifestyle show. As part of a new Sunday schedule she was given a new 2 hour programme talking about food.
A further change on 7 January 2008 saw Barnett move to weekday afternoons, 1-4pm, as part of the new weekday line up. The programme is a topical debate featuring aspects of news and views, in which the public are encouraged to call in with their views.
Barnett continued to present the Sunday Food programme as well as the new weekday afternoon programme until 20 January 2008 when Bill Buckley replaced her on Sundays so she could concentrate on the weekday programme.
2009 MMR vaccine controversy
In a show broadcast on January 7, 2009,[4] Barnett's topics included the MMR vaccine, in which she and some callers expressed negative opinions of the vaccination, conventional medicine in general, and disagreed that recent disease outbreaks should be blamed on parents that choose not to vaccinate their children. Barnett's views reflected those expressed in the late 1990s when the media took up concerns about possible linkage of the vaccine to autism raised by Dr Andrew Wakefield, at the time overhyped and since shown to be wrong.[5]
The discussion attracted criticism of its accuracy and possible negative influence on public health by doctor and journalist Ben Goldacre, who described her views as "irresponsible, ill-informed, and ignorant".[6]
Following Goldacre's criticisms, which he placed on his blog along with an audio clip of the show in question, the companies that aired Barnett's show (LBC and Global Radio) issued legal threats[7][6] to force removal of the audio clip on copyright grounds.[8] Goldacre removed the audio, but it, and transcripts prepared from it, have been available by others via alternative sources[9][10] in what the blog Techdirt called a 'Streisand Effect', alluding to the wider publicity arising from an attempt to remove material from the internet.[11] Following this, the controversy received wider attention.[12][13]
After the broadcast, Barnett admitted on her blog that she "did not have the facts to hand. Was I ill informed? Yes. As a responsible broadcaster I should have been better prepared" when she discussed her claims with medical professionals who called in to question her statements.[14] Subsequently to this, all comments submitted to the blog entries dealing with this episode were removed from her site, although they have been archived elsewhere.[15]
An Early Day Motion criticising her broadcast has been tabled by Norman Lamb MP.
"This house ... expresses its disappointment that ill-informed comments by presenters such as Jeni Barnett on her LBC radio show will continue to cause unfounded anxieties for many parents and are likely to result in some parents choosing not to vaccinate their children ..."
References
- ^ Great Food Live, 27 Feb 2007, 6pm (UKTV Food)
- ^
"IMDb entry for Jeni Barnett". 5 February, 2009.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^
"BFI TV and Film database". 11 February, 2009.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Dr Ben Goldacre (3 February, 2009). "Bad Science Bingo, with Jeni Barnett". Bad Science.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); External link in|publisher= - ^ Gillian Baird, Andrew Pickles, Emily Simonoff, Tony Charman, Peter Sullivan, Susie Chandler, Tom Loucas, David Meldrum, Muhammed Afzal, Brenda Thomas, Li Jin and David Brown (5 February, 2008). "Measles vaccination and antibody response in autism spectrum disorders". BMJ Arch Dis Cild.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); External link in|publisher= - ^ a b Dr Ben Goldacre (5 February, 2009). "Legal Chill from LBC 97.3 and "Global Radio" over Jeni Barnett's MMR scaremongering". Bad Science.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); External link in|publisher= - ^ "LBC in legal warning to Ben Goldacre over MMR blog post", Press Gazette, 6 February 2009
- ^ "Goldacre on the ‘intellectual property absolutists’ - LBC’s legal warning", journalism.co.uk
- ^ "Jeni Barnett MMR and vaccination slot on LBC radio". Wikileaks. 5 February, 2009.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Jeni Barnett MMR show on LBC - full transcript
- ^ "Radio Station Uses Copyright Claim To Try To Silence Bad Science Critic; Guess What Happens?", TechDirt, 6 February, 2009
- ^ "The preposterous prejudice of the anti-MMR lobby", David Aaronovitch, Times Online, 10 February 2009
- ^ "Bad Science columnist attracts a lawsuit threat", Ars Technica, 8 February 2009
- ^ "MMR and Me", Jeni Barnett, 5 February, 2009
- ^ "The Great DBH rant".
- ^ http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=37811&SESSION=899
External links
- Jeni Barnett (Personal website/blog)
- LBC presenter page