Sunday, July 04, 2004

BBC admits its' stories are "inaccurate and potentially libelous"

From The Telegraph

More proof, as if you needed it, that the BBC are doomed as a news organization. They just will not change their ways. If it were not for the TV license fee propping the BBC up, it would collapse. It is hard to understand how anyone can take this organization seriously anymore.

A significant number of BBC news reports are untrustworthy and littered with errors because the corporation's journalists fail to check their facts, according to e-mails sent by one of the BBC's most senior news managers. His messages reveal that the credibility of the news service is "on the line" because of a climate of sloppiness.

...They suggest that the corporation is struggling to keep its promise to improve the standards of its news services following damning criticisms leveled against it by the Hutton inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly.[...]

The leaked e-mails sent by Hugh Berlyn, an assistant editor of BBC News Online, show that despite the furore surrounding the Gilligan report, dozens of "unvetted" stories appear on the internet every day. The result is a string of stories that are, at best, littered with errors and, at worst, inaccurate and potentially libelous.

In an e-mail last October, Mr Berlyn said journalists were not showing their reports to managers, who are supposed to check them in accordance with BBC rules. He wrote: "Yesterday we carried out a study of how many of your stories were being properly checked by a second pair of eyes before publication. To my surprise and concern, more than 60 stories around the country were apparently published without being second-checked."

Another e-mail, sent in February, said that the number of "justified complaints" about the lack of accuracy in spelling, names, grammar or simple detail was growing. Mr Berlyn told staff that he received dozens of complaints a day. "I really think the level of complaints is such that our credibility is on the line and that cannot be allowed to continue."


Sadly, it continues to this very day.
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

'It is hard to understand how anyone can take (the BBC) seriously anymore'????

For all its faults and occasionally excessive political correctness and wooly liberalism - which it now appears to be seriously looking at correcting - the BBC remains the world's finest broadcaster.

If you don't agree name one better. Nobody ever can.

 
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