BBC Churnalism
APGaylard has won a complaint against the online BBC news service. Go and have a read, but this is the story that started his complaint:
In August, the BBC ran a story claiming that research had determined that some places in Britain were ‘happier’ than others. You can see the nature of the claims in the TV news report, “Britain’s happiest places mapped“. There was a big problem with this though: the research found no significant differences between places. The only differences were accounted for by the socio-economic status of the people.
Churnalism, which consists of rewriting press releases rather than news reporting, is common at the BBC online news pages. In fact, it is weakness that is being exploited to good effect. Mary Hicks, MD of healthcare comms shop Clew, outlines how her agency sold a story to the BBC.
She cites an example of a story that her agency successfully pitched to the site. One of the team working on GlaxoSmithKline’s Cervarix drug (a cervical cancer vaccine) spotted figures from the NHS Cancer Screening Programme showing that the numbers of women coming forward for cervical cancer screening had been falling.
This fact had been overlooked by the media so the agency used it as a news hook. The agency gathered quotes for the BBC from key spokespeople including the screening programme, gynaecologists and cervical cancer charity Jo’s Trust.
Providing spokespeople is key, says CCD Healthcare MD Justin Clark. Working in the client as part of the story using a heavyweight topic in the press, such as obesity, can create an opportunity for coverage: ‘Thesite doesn’t necessarily create an impact on sales but it does have an impact on reputation management. Clients rate the site highly because of the perceived independence of the BBC. It’s a fabulous endorsement for a client because it is seen as the truth if it appears in an article.’
It is disgraceful that the BBC are allowing themselves, and their readers, to be exploited in this way.
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It highlights is how elements at the BBC (along with the news media in general) have become complacent and think of themselves as more important than the integrity of the news they report. It illustrates how they have lost sight of their role as a public information service and instead think of themselves as a publicity service. They don’t understand the difference between giving the public what it need in order to make an informed decision, and what it wants. Nor do they seem to understand any more the difference between news and entertainment.
Doesn’t it really just point to a lack of funding for the BBC, and in-fact most news services these days?
As they try to put more news content out there, they’re filling the gap with cheap stories. Either news-wire stories which can also be manipulated, or PR.
And since they’re doing this and the public are letting them get away with it (i.e. not dropping in number), aren’t they just reflecting what the public wants? We’re all headed for a faux-news-clown world.
Point of information, it’s APGaylard not APGaylord.
He probably gets that all the time…
Otherwise bang on.
Whoops! Amended.
Working in the client as part of the story using a heavyweight topic in the press, such as obesity, can create an opportunity for coverage:
Anyone else think this was intentionally funny?
Michael, I think funding of the BBC has little to do with it. It’s a culture that runs right across the news media industry, and I believe that not everyone at the BBC is proud of some of the tosh the corporation dishes up as news on its web site. Rest assured, if they had more money they’d do it more colourfully or with more bells and whistles, or maybe just more of it, but it would basically be the same old lazy crap.
Having space to fill is a problem with 24 hour news coverage on tv and radio. It’s no different on the Internet. They feel,they have to give the impression that there’s always something “important” going on, and that we the public should know about it. Under pressure to fill the gaps we get dross and fake news. It’s their fault and nothing to do with funding.
neuroskeptic/Anthony:
Thanks for correcting the typo; it feels like that one has followed me around my whole life!
Anthony: Thanks for the name check and the insight. It probably explains much of what I don’t like about the BBC news coverage these days. It’s also one thing to get the BBC to say they were wrong – quite another to get adequate corrections or unsalvageable pieces pulled; I’m not making a judgement as to where this one falls.
I must admit that I still view the BBC as authoritative and so feel very strongly that errors must be corrected as well as acknowledged – even though they have already propagated far from the source. Imperfect, but the alternative is much less palatable.