U.K.'s ITV Faces Complaint After Morning Show Host Blunder During Abuse Debate

LONDON - A British member of parliament has filed a complaint with U.K. media regulator Ofcom against ITV morning show This Morning.

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Conservative politician Rob Wilson has urged it to investigate whether the network breached its duty to give people a chance to respond before subjecting them to serious allegations after a host on Thursday had presented a list of alleged child abusers to Prime Minister David Cameron. The topic of debate was abuse of residents of a children's home in Wales, and at least two names were visible during the segment, the Guardian reported.

Host Phillip Schofield later said he hadn't planned to make any of the names public, but the camera angle allowed viewers to at least potentially make out the names.

With Schofield off on Friday as he usually is, This Morning host Ruth Langsford read an apology from him. Schofield said a "misjudged camera angle" was to blame and emphasized it was "never my intention" to identify anyone on the list on-air.

Schofield during the show wanted to hand Cameron the list of names he had compiled from the Internet, but the prime minister declined to look at it, warning that it could lead to "a sort of witch hunt."

BBC radio host Jonathan Dimbleby and BBC News host Huw Edwards criticized Schofield on Twitter for the stunt with the list of names. "How cretinous can you get - giving PM a web list of names as though it was serious evidence," Dimbleby wrote. "Grow up."

Email: Georg.Szalai@thr.com
Twitter: @georgszalai