BBC Trust Concludes Report On BBC 3 Series “The Real Hustle”

According to the Guardian, the BBC Trust has concluded an investigation into episodes of a BBC 3 program, The Real Hustle, by telling the show’s producers and the network that they may not repeat broadcast of those episodes. While announcing that the show had not “breached editorial guidelines,” the Trust also concluded that “it did breach a guideline on accuracy because of the confusion in knowing “who was being fooled and who was in on the con” is (sic) a number of scams.” The investigation found that the manner in which the show’s producers recruited members of the public wishing to appear on the show did turn up actors wanting to appear.

However, BBC management said that “none of them were hired to work as an actor” or knew they were applying to be on The Real Hustle.The BBC Trust concluded that their (sic) was a “lack of clarity and precision” in some of the scams over who was the “mark” – the unknowing member of the public who was a target of the scam – and who was in on the “set up” for the con hired by programme-makers.

Link to text of the BBC Trust report here.