Current mood:

disappointed

Oh how the mighty have fallen.
I've been saying it for years; the press does not have a shred of worth in today’s day and age.

Many a time I have lamented at the pointless scaremongering of certain papers.
A couple if times I have even pointed out blatant mistakes (Many of which are indeed corrected in later bulletins)

But today I actually laughed at the sheer and total incompetence.

And who was the perpetrator?

The British Broadcasting Corporation.

Long held as one of the best and most respected news providers.
I will not here go into any potential bias or agenda's many people I have spoken with seem to think the BBC (and many other news agencies) have, today I am purely writing about the incompetence I have witnessed.

On the radio today I heard from the BBC news the following.

"A Giant Baby Panda has today died"
You only need to read the above statement to realise how wrong it is... When understood the above statement leads the reader/listener to believe that a baby Panda of abnormally large size has died.... Not in fact that a baby of the Giant Panda species has died...
A simple proof read by a half competent person would have spotted this error, but alas it went on air.....

On the television just a few moments ago I heard the following

"People in Wales are today being advised to boil there water for 48 hours"
Evidentially there has been a contamination of the local water table or at least a scare of such…
I am quite confident that boiling water for only a few minuets would suffice... boiling water for 48 hours would cause a rather large gas or electricity bill and almost certainly result in a few house fires...
What should have been said was "People in Wales have been advised that over the next 48 hours they should boil all water before usage."

I am not a reporter.
And it is probably evident from MANY grammatical and spelling mistakes that I do not hold much education in written English. I never paid enough attention in English class at school, and for that I do now suffer.
I failed my English GCSE three times in fact.
My spoken English is however flawless, (in a non Steven Fry way of course) and it pains me to realise that BASIC errors are being made by what was the last true news broadcaster in an effort to put the news forward first…

Fact checking and proof reading are things that should NEVER be pushed aside in the rush to get a story to air.

The BBC instead should be proud to think they alone can get the news right FIRST TIME when other may get it wrong, rather than try to feel proud about reporting everything FIRST when others are second.

Bad information is worth nothing to anybody no matter how fast it is received, Good information is worth everything to the people who need it, no matter what the wait.