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The quality of writing on the BBC News website

Started by Noonling, July 24, 2019, 07:37:42 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

kngen

Quote from: steveh on July 24, 2019, 10:32:41 AM
It also comes from pressure to get stories out quickly to beat others to high placement on Google News, Facebook and others - BBC News often does a first quick story then rewrites and fixes issues later.

You can extrapolate that to digital media as a whole. The subbing process has been pretty much circumvented, so the public is pretty much seeing how bad journalists often are before their copy gets subbed. There are hacks at the Guardian (and elsewhere, of course) who shouldn't be anywhere near the live site that are allowed to post raw copy without even one set of eyes checking it in even a cursory fashion let alone being subbed, fact-checked and legalled. It's utter madness and is the sort of thing that can, and will, bring down a publication sooner or later.


pancreas

Quote from: Bennett Brauer on July 24, 2019, 05:09:51 PM
...  is strained.

See. This is better than 'Portia considers rewrite'. ISN'T IT.

Sebastian Cobb

They had cutbacks a few years ago during a site design. I think some if it is practically automated now (generates a skeleton article off of things posted on reuters) that then just gets fleshed out by glorified bloggers.

By far the worst parts are the articles that read like they're trying to explain what's happing on twitter to your nan.

Video journalism is getting cheapened as well; with people now being reclassified as 'mutli-media journalists', which means instead of a crew you get given a camera, tripod and a laptop to do everything solo and upload back to the newsroom from the coffee shop wifi.


shiftwork2

Yes, it used to be a reasonably even-handed thing of beauty but budget cuts have killed it.  The shape of things to come.

When the BBC has gone you will regret it.

royce coolidge

No,I for one will be glad to see the back of it,the arselicking voice of the establishment and the Royal family.

buttgammon

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on July 24, 2019, 09:58:49 PM
They had cutbacks a few years ago during a site design. I think some if it is practically automated now (generates a skeleton article off of things posted on reuters) that then just gets fleshed out by glorified bloggers.

That makes sense - a lot of their regional news really has a template vibe. Local news is often badly written at the best of times, but at least there's normally a human touch; not on the BBC, sadly.

I've been living outside the UK for over a decade now, and I don't miss the BBC at all - not the TV, the radio or the website, which I gave up on many years ago.  If I were still living there, I'd be indignant at having to stump up for a TV licence.

BBC TV used to be great - something you could look up to, an innovator in comedy, documentaries and current affairs programming.  For me, I think the decline started at the beginning of the 2000s, when reality TV was starting to get its hold in the schedules, and the Beeb started to more obviously compete with its commercial rivals by producing the same kind of lowest common denominator shite, instead of thoughtful, intelligent or just original stuff.  As a bit of a science nut, I used to love Horizon and Tomorrow's World: the former ended up a vehicle for vacuous celebs-of-the-day with a recap for the hard-of-thinking every ten minutes on what was just said; the latter was canned for no particularly obvious reason.

And then there's the bias aspect.  The Beeb goes out of its way to present itself as an impartial commentator, but from the photoshopped "comrade Corbyn in the Russian hat" picture to the way they afford some marginal views a disproportionate amount of time compared to others (in the supposed interests of "balance"), it's clear that it's anything but balanced.

Perhaps it's still the best we've got.  That's sad.  To be positive for a moment though, the last time I was in the UK, I was happy to see that the old BBC 2 idents from the 90s had come back.  So at least there's that.

BlodwynPig

Quote from: royce coolidge on July 24, 2019, 10:19:52 PM
No,I for one will be glad to see the back of it,the arselicking voice of the establishment and the Royal family.

Here here. We'll never return to the glory days of the beeb. Those saying we'll miss it are those happy with sub-standard 'it'll pass the time'  amygdala ticklers

BlodwynPig

Darles, its all big society middle class idents these days. Wave a fucking flag you plebs

Sebastian Cobb



sevendaughters

Labour and Blair began the serious project of undermining of the BBC. It was one of the strangest things and I seem to recall it had ramifications around the David Kelly death, but I daresay it was part of the cosy Murdoch deal to retain their support.

This being the second story on BBC Sport is eye-wateringly bad. No counter-voice, no expertise, just one of their foghorn pundits sounding off and it becoming a credible report: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/49110775

Icehaven

Quote from: sevendaughters on July 26, 2019, 12:46:43 PM
This being the second story on BBC Sport is eye-wateringly bad. No counter-voice, no expertise, just one of their foghorn pundits sounding off and it becoming a credible report: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/49110775

Slightly off topic but; can anyone who clearly uses a wider range of news sites/channels than me confirm whether or not any of them except the BBC cover netball? A while ago I started noticing it popping up on BBC Breakfast when I was getting ready for work, then during an occasional look at the website there'd it'd be again (not on the sports pages, which I don't typically look at, on the featured stories on the main page.) Is it just the BBC or is there a general push to get people interested in this hideous game I was forced to play at school typically more under the radar sport?

sevendaughters

Quote from: icehaven on July 26, 2019, 01:10:09 PM
Slightly off topic but; can anyone who clearly uses a wider range of news sites/channels than me confirm whether or not any of them except the BBC cover netball? A while ago I started noticing it popping up on BBC Breakfast when I was getting ready for work, then during an occasional look at the website there'd it'd be again (not on the sports pages, which I don't typically look at, on the featured stories on the main page.) Is it just the BBC or is there a general push to get people interested in this hideous game I was forced to play at school typically more under the radar sport?

I haven't seen it anywhere but I imagine in the Antipodes it gets covered. BBC Sport has clearly had a concerted push to include women's sports, which is good, but can't seem to cover an event without getting a rapper in to say how fierce all the ladies are, which is bad.

Not too fussed about BBC One and Two but absolutely love the output on 6 music and BBC Four.  It's still a world class service and the people grumbling about it tend to be moaning minnies, especially with regards to their perception of it's impartiality. As another poster said, you'll miss it once it's gone.

Beagle 2

I do find it depressing that they chase the trashy clicks so much on the homepage. I thought the whole point in its existence is to offer something different. But it's probably the constant criticism by berks driving the desperation to show improved fucking KPIs that has led to it being such a shitshow. They definitely try and do too many things, I'd rather they slimmed their focus right down than changed their funding model.

object-lesson

I think there should be room for polemics on the television channel as long as they're explicitly acknowledged as such, and interviews with people with a particular point of view on a subject on the website, again as long as some effort is made to allow room for countering views.

In the case of Sharron Davies she is well-versed in the subject and the same journalist has given a similarly weighted interview to Rachel McKinnon, who's a trans athlete and is also well-versed, and there's a link to it in the middle of that article so you can see an opposing point of view.

Of course 'balance' is a very thorny subject. There were strong arguments in S. African apartheid days that the BBC should stop giving equal space to  'balancing' views from S. African government spokespeople, comparing it to "representatives of the Jewish community have complained of persecution but a representative of the National Socialist German government denied these claims, citing statistics that it says show..." etc. There was actually a polemical programme on the BBC making that argument against BBC policy.

I think the biggest problem, as people have been saying, is where that doesn't happen and the BBC follows mainstream narratives and cheap attention-grabbing tat which serves to obscure and oversimplify things due to a combination of the budget cuts mentioned above and stupefied trend-following.

The alternative is a world of Fox News and MSNBC - flat out propaganda.

Bennett Brauer



No doubt they can afford it but seems a bit harsh in the circumstances.

Aside from one sentence paragraphs, things were much better back in 2010.



Uncle TechTip

Search a newspaper archive from 30 years ago, politicians were routinely addressed as Mr or Mrs. Sadly this man is Prime Minister and they still like to wheel it out.

kngen

Quote from: Darles Chickens on July 26, 2019, 05:25:12 PM
Aside from one sentence paragraphs, things were much better back in 2010.



Not putting the bulldozer angle in the headline is very poor.

BlodwynPig

Quote from: Mrs Wogans lemon drizzle on July 26, 2019, 01:38:53 PM
Not too fussed about BBC One and Two but absolutely love the output on 6 music and BBC Four.  It's still a world class service and the people grumbling about it tend to be moaning minnies, especially with regards to their perception of it's impartiality. As another poster said, you'll miss it once it's gone.

Nope.

NoSleep

Headline about a tweet... a bit written about what the tweet says, followed by the tweet quoted, followed by an image of the tweet.

sponk

Quote from: NoSleep on July 27, 2019, 12:18:59 PM
Headline about a tweet... a bit written about what the tweet says, followed by the tweet quoted, followed by an image of the tweet.

I made this point last page, but I do think that can be valuable in preserving tweets and making them and the reaction to them easily findable before they get lost completely on Twitter.  Often Trump tweets will get thousands of replies, almost all of them worthless so I don't think it's wrong for the BBC to preserve the more valuable ones

BlodwynPig

Quote from: sponk on July 27, 2019, 12:23:20 PM
I made this point last page, but I do think that can be valuable in preserving tweets and making them and the reaction to them easily findablt before they get lost completely on Twitter.

The BBCinks are The Village Tweets Preservation Society

Barry Admin

Pancreas: sorry for blowing up at you. I was almost completely reduced off morphine at that point, to go back on tramadol, right after my pain levels had finally been sorted. So I was sore as fuck again and the morphine sent my emotions haywire for a few weeks. Apologies.

gilbertharding


phantom_power

Quote from: pancreas on July 24, 2019, 01:16:09 PM
The most egregious recent cases are: Venezuela, Syria, Antisemitism in Labour. You'd have no idea what the truth of the situation is from the BBC. You'd think the exact opposite of what is true. Less bad: Poverty in the UK, Hostile Environment. Not particularly bad: Brexit.

Actually I think they have been pretty light on the AS thing. Whenever some new piece of bullshit or smear on Corbyn comes out I check the news front page and rarely does any of it make a dent

pancreas

Quote from: Barry Admin on August 01, 2019, 11:48:26 AM
Pancreas: sorry for blowing up at you. I was almost completely reduced off morphine at that point, to go back on tramadol, right after my pain levels had finally been sorted. So I was sore as fuck again and the morphine sent my emotions haywire for a few weeks. Apologies.

I actually do expect people to blow up at me, because if you search deep down within my soul, inception-style, then in a cupboard somewhere you'll find my totem, which is a spinning neon sign spelling out the word 'cunt'. Don't worry about it, I don't. I wouldn't change me for the world.