Tuesday, August 07, 2007

BBC rewrites Boris Johnson story

A few days ago I complained about the BBC treating Dawn Butler and Diane Abbott as though they were disinterested observers of Boris Johnson's Mayoral bid rather than members of a rival political party. When I wrote that posting the BBC story began:
Black MPs spurn Boris mayoral bid

Conservative MP Boris Johnson's bid to become London mayor has been condemned by black MPs.
James Graham's Queaquam Blog! points out that the same link now takes you to a story that begins:
Labour MPs spurn Boris mayor bid

Conservative MP Boris Johnson's bid to become London mayor has been condemned by two Labour MPs.
One of the great joys of the internet from a professional point of view is that things can be changed so easily. By contrast, when something is wrong in print it is wrong for ever. So I am more forgiving of the BBC than James is over this rewriting.

What I do object to is the lack of any journalistic sense the BBC showed in the first place. We all want to get stories up quickly, but that should not mean that you should accept anyone's press release without question.
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2 comments:

  1. Anonymous07 August, 2007 15:32

    I don't begrudge them changing the story. What I begrudge is them changing it without making it clear it has been changed. It would be a relatively trivial thing to do: simply add a link allowing people to compare versions a la Wikipedia.

    Many corrections are perfectly valid. Being transparent in this way would only increase their credibility, not harm it.

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  2. dreamingspire08 August, 2007 07:03

    The ‘lack of any journalistic sense’ at the BBC is making viewing/listening/reading their reporting increasingly painful. Tabloid headlining intrudes too often, and content is suffering. The last of the File On 4 programmes (31/7 and 5/8), about the ID card project, was an excellent contribution to the understanding of this fumbled and not-joined-up development – except for its failure to clearly help us understand the biometrics concepts. Turning to the web page http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/file_on_4/6922882.stm I find that the headline and featured article are all about scaring us over the use of biometrics. That’s tragic, when the main aim of the programme was to help us understand the process by which the project has developed and is developing.

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