The first two sentences of the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines are as follows: “Impartiality lies at the heart of public service and is the core of the BBC’s commitment to its audiences. It applies to all our output and services – television, radio, online, and in our international services and commercial magazines.” It seems difficult to reconcile […]
Archive for the ‘Bad News’
Mar 21 2012
Afghan shooting as a simple litmus test of media credibility
On the night of March 11, Staff Sergeant Robert Bales walked out of the Kandahar Army base in which he was stationed and (allegedly) murdered 16 civilians – nine children, four men and three women. Mostly children. While I’d like to say that the Western media’s approach to covering this gruesome saga is surprising, it’s […]
Aug 20 2009
Five News breaks the law on air
I just happened to stumble on a report being broadcast on Five News in which they discussed the leak of the latest pop ditty by Justin Timberlake and Leona Lewis (and the hilariously futile attempts by the IFPI to remove the file from the internet). Towards the end of the segment, the reporter remarked “Now, […]
Jul 03 2009
Statistics misuse in BBC News magazine
It’s far from the most egregious failure of statistics reporting, but this article in the BBC News’ Magazine section is really rather pointless. It’s clearly not meant as any sort of serious commentary on the appropriateness of the prison time given for various offences, but why even include crimes where the probable offender was killed […]
