Thursday, 3 September 2009

Why the speechmarks?

From the BBC:

India politician 'dies' in crash

A powerful Indian politician has been killed along with four others in a helicopter crash in southern India, media reports say...

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Somebody at the BBC must be reading your blog Mark, they have changed the headline to KILLED from 'dies'. Look at the time you posted and the time the page was updated.

JuliaM said...

Well, if he was a Hindu, don't they believe in reincarnation...? ;)

RantinRab said...

JuliaM said...

Well, if he was a Hindu, don't they believe in reincarnation...? ;)

What? They believe that you come back as a tin of condensed milk?

manwiddicombe said...

@ Rab C.


ROFL!!!!!!!!!!

Paul said...

The BBC online website is famous for three things:

1. Misuse of quotes, especially in headlines in order to discredit off message news or quietly push the senior editors' agendas. One of my favourites recently was the BBC online's treatment of James Murdoch's speech:

News Corporation's James Murdoch has said that a "dominant" BBC threatens independent journalism in the UK

Again - Why the quotes if the whole of the clause is reported speech?

2. Revisions, revisions, revisions. There is a site called Revisionista which tracks changes the BBC makes to their articles. On a number of occassions, the BBC online editors have changed the way they index their stories in order to try to thwart them, but the BBC is Web 1.0, Revionista is Web 2.0, so the latter's always ahead.

3. Unflinchingly bad mathematics ability of journalists. Like the reporting on the VAT cut in November 2008. That's what comes of hiring too many floppy-haired liberal arts graduates called Tarquin at the BBC.

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