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BBC to Stop Inviting Guests with Marginal Views to Discuss Non-Contentious Scientific Issues

posted by azrael on Sunday July 06 2014, @10:42AM   Printer-friendly
from the flat-earth dept.

lhsi writes:

The Telegraph reports:

BBC journalists are being sent on courses to stop them inviting so many cranks onto programmes to air 'marginal views'.

The BBC Trust on Thursday published a progress report into the corporation's science coverage which was criticised in 2012 for giving too much air-time to critics who oppose non-contentious issues.

The report found that there was still an 'over-rigid application of editorial guidelines on impartiality' which sought to give the 'other side' of the argument, even if that viewpoint was widely dismissed.

 
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  • (Score: 2) by theluggage on Sunday July 06 2014, @10:24PM

    by theluggage (1797) on Sunday July 06 2014, @10:24PM (#64982)

    You do realize you just gave links to two BBC stories to support the idea that the BBC is better than other broadcasters?

    So... did you expect me to link to one of the commercial sites I'd just slagged off? Although, now that you mention it, I did Google and surprisingly it didn't throw up any links to The Sun, The Sunday Times or Sky News (merely a glitch on Google, I'm sure). Just for completeness here's [independent.co.uk] a link from a news source other than the BBC.

    What next, will you quote the head of the NSA to explain why the NSA is really doing good work?

    Perhaps you could point out which bit of either of those stories involved the BBC promoting itself?

    Meanwhile here [bbc.co.uk] is the BBC dutifully reporting on one of its own fuckups. If this sort of thing had happened in a multinational media corporation, do you think they'd run stories on it (or is the private sector just infallible) ?

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  • (Score: 1) by Jiro on Wednesday July 09 2014, @02:36AM

    by Jiro (3176) on Wednesday July 09 2014, @02:36AM (#66320)

    Although, now that you mention it, I did Google and surprisingly it didn't throw up any links to The Sun, The Sunday Times or Sky News (merely a glitch on Google, I'm sure).

    That's not a glitch on Google, that's because those sources don't have the incentive to over-emphasize such stories that the BBC does.

    Perhaps you could point out which bit of either of those stories involved the BBC promoting itself?

    It's a story about a private broadcaster doing bad things. You even used it yourself to show that private broadcasters do bad things. You seriously can't see how publicizing such a story benefits a state-owned broadcaster?

    Meanwhile here is the BBC dutifully reporting on one of its own fuckups. If this sort of thing had happened in a multinational media corporation, do you think they'd run stories on it (or is the private sector just infallible) ?

    Read carefully one of the related story titles. "BBC boss sacked over failed project". In other words, this is typical internal politics: now that they have a new boss, they publish things that make the old boss look bad. I would be very unsurrpised at a private company that, after firing its CEO or in the middle of an internal struggle whether to fire its CEO, publishes something saying how bad it is to be run by that CEO.