BBC Radio 4 presenter James Naughtie was caught up in a storm this morning after disastrously mispronouncing a guest on The Today Programme.
The radio presenter was introducing culture secretary Jeremy Hunt when he committed the broadcasting faux pas – mistakenly replacing the ‘H’ with a ‘C’.
Andrew Marr commits same faux pas
Naughtie then broke out in a coughing fit as thousands of listeners nearly spat out their cornflakes in shock at the embarrassing moment.
The Twittersphere promptly went into overload as users tweeted their amazement at Naughtie’s accidental swearing.
Alastair Ford tweeted: “Entertaining spoonerism by Jim Naughtie on @r4today this morning at expense of Jeremy Hunt, can’t wait for interview with Bill Hothermucker”
Mark Breeze added: “So who else had the good fortune to hear James Naughtie refer to Jeremy Hunt as Jeremy *unt and then splutter through the 8am headlines?”
Naughtie promptly returned to the air to apologise, saying: “I’m very sorry to those of you who thought it wasn’t what you wanted to hear over your breakfast. Neither did I.”
Culture Secretary Hunt found the whole episode amusing, tweeting: “They say prepare for anything before going on Today but that took the biscuit… I was laughing as much as u Jim or shld I say Dr Spooner.”
Fellow radio presenter Nicky Campbell was caught up in a similarly awkward situation when he introduced the “master of the west Kent hunt.”
Following Naughtie’s gaffe, the Five Live host tweeted: “Jim Naughtie called Jeremy Hunt Jeremy C*** in a slip of the tongue a few mins ago. How can anyone say that on the radio! It’s a disgrace.”
At the time of publishing the words ‘Culture Secretary’, ‘Naughtie’ and ‘Jeremy Hunt’ were all trending on the micro-blogging website.
In August BBC weatherman Tomasz Schafernaker was left red-faced after being caught on camera sticking his middle finger up at his colleagues.
Listen to the audio clip (contains swearing)
It was totally accidental, everyone who listens to Radio 4, knows this.
Very Funny, The embarrased silence, then coughing fit (or laughter supression) was priceless 🙂
I missed it by moments, but was very pleased that Evan Davies, his fellow presented, proclaimed solidarity by saying, at the end of the Today programme, that the next programme would be “Mart the week with Andrew Starr.” It’s very easy to do this kind of transposition of a letter or a vowel, especially when you have to read fast, often looking ahead to another word as you say the one in front of it, and that’s clearly what happened. Forgive this national treasure and enjoy his corpsing that followed the blunder! John in Southport
The barely suppresses laughter afterwards was hilarious. Made my morning 🙂
These things happen, but wait for the miserable old buggers to start moaning….
every broadcaster will feel deep sympathy. Happens in print too, especialy with sitting