Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Now the BBC does name Emily Thornberry

On Friday I complained that the BBC had failed to name Emily Thornberry (Lab, Islington South) as the MP whose action were described by Sir Philip Mawer, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, as "unwise and unfortunate".

That post was read by a lot of people thanks to Iain Dale and, in particular, Biased BBC. Yesterday it had visitors from the BBC itself.

Now the report does name Emily Thornberry and has this footnote:
Earlier versions of this story did not include the name of the MP as it was a straight report from Sir Philip's report in which she was not named. We added the name, and some extra background, once we became aware of her identity.
I think I can fairly claim victory here. But I am still amazed at the original report. It took me a few seconds with Google to find out that Thornberry was the MP involved. What does the BBC employ journalists for?

Thanks to James Graham for noticing the change.

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