Wednesday, December 16, 2009

New BBC Low (and High)

Barely a week goes by I don't write to the BBC to complain about a badly-phrased article or a misleading headline that I feel unfairly skews the argument on a key subject or misleads the public as to the underlying message of the situation. I'm like that. This week though the BBC has totally out-done itself with this debate on the "have your say" page... It's called "Should homosexuals face execution?". I was rather hoping there would only be one response just saying "no". Feel free to write in. I assume they'll take it down shortly.

I'm on the BBC myself tonight on BBC Five Live, the Richard Bacon Show. Half ten to 1am. I'll be his "presenter's friend" chatting about everything that comes up. Do tune in and ring in too if you like to back me up. All the info and the listen online option is here.

Footnote: they changed the page heading to something less shocking but kept the shocking headline as the first line of the introduction with a second line (new) which implied they had been asking the question deliberately to provoke debate... They didn't explain what they had done which is poor journalism I think - write an apology and a retraction but don't change it and then act innocent...!

1 comment:

Jim Jepps said...

When I saw this earlier I also noticed they had a comments policy that forbids homophobic remarks... shame it doesn't apply to the articles themselves