Naughtie, Naughtie!

James Naughtie: veteran Radio 4 Today presenter in 'Jeremy Hunt' on-air gaffe

 

James Naughtie, the veteran Today programme presenter, lost his composure on the BBC Radio 4 show after he stumbled over the pronunciation of Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary.

 

 

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Veteran Today programme presenter James Naughtie Photo: REX FEATURES

 

 

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Andrew Marr, the BBC journalist, inadvertently repeated Naughtie's gaffe live on Radio 4 Photo: REX

 

 

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Mr Naughtie had been promoting an interview with Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary who was due on the show to discuss the government?s new £830m million broadband policy. Photo: JULIAN SIMMONDS

 

 

The 59 year-old struggled to contain a coughing fit after he realised his blunder over the minister's surname just before the 8am news.

 

Mr Naughtie, then compounded

[warning: link contains explicit language] by giggling through the news headlines. Later, guests to the programme mocked the presenter and the gaffe became one of the most popular subjects on Twitter, the micro-blogging site.

 

Mr Hunt himself even weighed in, commenting: "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."

 

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The programme responded on its own Twitter account by playing down the incident: "Your ears deceived you. Move along now, nothing to see here..."

Mr Naughtie himself issued repeated apologies, describing the slip as "the most unintentional thing imaginable".

"I'm afraid many of you will have noticed that I landed in one of those awful verbal tangles just before eight o'clock, courtsey I should say of Dr Spooner," the Scottish presenter told listeners after a barrage of emails into the programe.

“All I can say is occasionally in live broadcasting these things happen and I'm very sorry to anyone who thought it wasn't what they wanted to hear over their breakfast. Neither did I needless to say.”

Mr Naughtie had been promoting an interview with Mr Hunt who was due on the show to discuss the government’s new £830m million broadband policy.

A subsequent segment in the programme, exploring the use of language, featured Elaine Higgleton, editorial director of Harper Collins English Dictionaries, who gently chided Mr Naughtie for his slip.

Later there was another apology when Andrew Marr, the BBC journalist, inadvertently repeated Naughtie's gaffe live on Radio 4.

Presenting his cultural discussion programme Start The Week, conversation on philosophy turned to the use of Freudian slips.

The former BBC political editor told his guests he would not repeat Naughtie's earlier remarks but then did just that while trying to say "Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary".

"I must apologise for saying it again but it's just very hard to talk about it without saying it," he said.

His error provoked embarrassed laughter from his guests - choreographer Matthew Bourne, dance writer Jennifer Homans, journalist David Aaronovitch and psychotherapist Jane Haynes.

A clip of the gaffe, which went viral on the internet, was later blocked.

A BBC News spokeswoman said: "James regrets what happened and apologised for his verbal tangles on air twice.

"This was a slip of the tongue during a live broadcast, and we apologise for any offence caused."

Mr Naughtie, also known as Jim, joined the Today programme in 1994 after six years with the BBC. He has also presented a Radio 3 programme on opera and led coverage of many concerts for BBC radio and television. He has chaired Radio 4's monthly Book club since 1997.

Educated in Aberdeen and at Syracuse University, New York, he began his journalistic career on The Press and Journal, The Scotsman, The Guardian and The Washington Post.

The term “Spoonerism”, an error in speech involving mixing the initial sounds of a pair of words, is named after the Reverend William Archibald Spooner, the Oxford lecturer and Dean.