Ethicists criticise BBC

Jan 27, 2009
Bishop Hill in BBC

TonyN's sterling work on the BBC's egregious splicing of President Obama's inauguration speech continues to attract a great deal of attention, with the interest now crossing the Atlantic to large-readership sites like Junk Science. As well as attention from political bloggers and science bloggers, the furore has now attracted the attention of journalism writers.

One example is the Stinky Journalism site, which has been following the story up on a couple of fronts. Firstly they've gone direct to the BBC, asking if there was an intention to issue a correction.

Don't be silly boys, this is the BBC we're talking about.

They've also sent the evidence ("fauxdio" evidence as they amusingly put it) off to a number of specialists in journalistic ethics in the USA.

Suffice it to say they were not generally impressed. As one of them put it

By altering the context, the meaning itself was altered. A coherent claim about the environment cobbling together statements that were not designed to be approached in this way. Arguably, if Obama had wanted to highlight the environment he would have done so. He didn't. Both of your ethical objections are correct

The story now appears to be developing legs on the other side of the Atlantic, for example here, and as it spreads the BBC's credibility as a news-gathering organisation sinks lower and lower.

Article originally appeared on (http://www.bishop-hill.net/).