Comments on: Happy people, not places

By: Francis Sedgemore - Churnalism and journalistic compromise

Francis Sedgemore - Churnalism and journalistic compromise — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 18:48:59 +0000

[...] Cox points to a recent post by science blogger APGaylard concerning a complaint to the BBC about an alleged case of “churnalism” on the corporation’s news [...]

By: gimpy

gimpy — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 17:29:52 +0000

Just a postscript regarding the video I linked to earlier.

I discussed this with Mr Warry around the time apgaylard submitted his complaint. Mr Warry made clear he was not responsible for the video but he did defend it saying his colleagues wanted a ‘well I never’ moment. A moment that was planned to the extent of sending a camera crew and journalist to Hae-on-Wye to spend half a day gathering vox pops from the population but not planned to the extent that they had the press release checked by somebody with a basic knowledge of statistics. ‘Well I never’ indeed.

By: blacktriangle

blacktriangle — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 17:20:15 +0000

Great work, really poor standards at BBC online, who are being played like suckers by PROs.

By: draust

draust — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 16:28:05 +0000

Yes, nice work AP. Or, as my students would say: “Kick ass, bro’”

By: BBC decides news reports should be true after all | Liberal Democrat Voice

BBC decides news reports should be true after all | Liberal Democrat Voice — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 13:10:59 +0000

[...] news now though: the BBC has ruled on a complaint over its story and decided that, after all, a news story should be accurate. Share and [...]

By: apgaylard

apgaylard — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 11:47:01 +0000

Mark Pack, soveda and dvnutrix: Thanks for the kind words. It just takes a letter or two and a bit of motivation, rather than any real skill. I must say that The BBC's Head of Editorial Complaints has handled four of these on my behalf in a very fair and perceptive manner. I was surprised that Mr Warry had lost the original piece, as gimpy says this doesn't come over very well. I have sent in a copy I kept and hope that will help him out. I'm very impressed with dvnutrix's sniffer skills; they exceed mine by some margin. I tend to rely on printing copies of things I critique to pdf. Once more, thank you all for taking an interest.

By: dvnutrix

dvnutrix — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 10:25:36 +0000

Again, well persevered, and it is good to see that the ECU agreed with you. Churnalism is bad enough but to have been enabled in it by the RGS who seem to have willingly distorted the serious purport of the research (at a time when it looks like 'academic research' is semantically equivalent to 'irrelevant and a waste of tax-payers' money') and supplant it with a trivial take is deplorable. It serves no-one's agenda unless you are an estate agent in Powys. Maybe somebody should tell the journalist about News Sniffer? I ran a search stating the source and the URL of the original story: source:bbc url:*7584321* Which delivered these versions of the story 0-6; you've already provided a link to the original release. Is it possible that some of these web content reporters need a training session in, well, how to use the web to track versions and original sources?

By: soveda

soveda — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 08:21:46 +0000

Good result, hope the video complaint gets dealt with as appropriately.

By: Mark Pack

Mark Pack — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 20:49:53 +0000

Excellent news. Well done for pursuing this.

By: apgaylard

apgaylard — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:13:46 +0000

Gimpy: Thanks. The video is my next target…