says NHS Blog Doctor. I ain’t going to say it any better.
…Though I will add that the practice of significantly changing an article while leaving the “Last Updated” field unchanged has been noted many times on this blog. Both the old and the new versions of the article on milk allergy say that they were last updated on Monday, 20 November 2006, 04:54 GMT.
UPDATE Tuesday 10.23am. A comment to this post by Lee Moore points out that the Google cache search result that Dr Crippen had cited to show the earlier version has now been updated, in the way of Google cache stories, to show the later version.
A more permanent record of the changes can be found using the News Sniffer programme. (Specifically the bit of it called “Revisionista”.)
This link shows versions 0 and 1.
This link shows versions 7 and 8
I haven’t the time to track down exactly when various changes happened. However I note that whereas Versions 0 and 1 say at the beginning:
Nearly 80% of 500 doctors polled by the medical taskforce Act Against Allergy thought…
Versions 7 and 8 say:
Nearly 80% of 500 doctors polled by a formula milk manufacturer thought…
There are other changes in the story. One important change relates to the question of how common milk allergy is. Earlier versions say it is very common. Middle versions say that opinions differ. Later versions state some figures from the Food Standards Agency.
As always, I do not complain that changes have taken place. The changes are improvements. What is bad is that non-trivial changes are done by stealth. An organisation with the BBC’s resources ought to find some way of making significant changes explicit. Failing that it ought at least to not make a false statement on the Last Updated field.
Of course none of this business of stealth edits is news to readers of this blog, but judging from the correspondence that “Dr Crippen” has received, the fact that the Last Updated field has not been changed does lead to some readers being misled.
Good to read the comments on that blog. Seems that more people are gradually waking up to “BBC Bias” – thanks to the blogs.
No doubt “Stealth edit” will be making the OED in the next couple of years…
To those who are interested, it looks like Michael Grade has returned his key to the executive bog and is off to ITV.
Wonder if he’ll be compensating the licence payers for reneging on his contract of employment? Probably not. Expect the Governors are working out his golden handshake as I write…
Unfortunately, it look like NHS Blog Doctor has not successfully screen captured the original article, as the link to the original article leads to the same text as in the doctored article.
There is however a vestigial remnant of the original article, for halfway down the doctored article, we read :
The taskforce, which includes expert paediatric gastroenterologists
In the doctored article, this “taskforce” springs from nowhere, never having been mentioned previously.
Lesson – it’s always the cover up that provides the conclusive proof of guilt.
‘Two days ago, Dr Crippen started getting emails accusing him of misrepresenting the BBC; of not checking his facts; in particular, these emails said
“the BBC article clearly stated that the recommendation was made by the artificial milk manufacturers.”‘
Sounds like that idiotic meedja student to me.
I’m coming round to the view that some ‘uni’ meedja studies unit is getting a retainer from the bbc to punt out this sort of tosh.
My theory is that Grade has jumped ship because the government have given the Beeb an awful licence fee settlement, with a minus amount for inflation. I do hope I’m right.
Possibly jumping before he’s pushed?
Natalie
According to News Sniffer, the important changes (the switch from an apparently independent taskforce, to a piece from a purveyor of milk formula) happened at Version 4 on Tues Nov 21, at 10.40:29 GMT 2006.
Lee – yes, and it took from the original correction (v4) which talked about “forumula” milk to version 7 to fix the basic typo to “formula” – 3 days!! During which time the piece had been re-edited twice and the typo not spotted.
Someone might want to invest in a spellchecker. Maybe they can’t afford it as they only have 3 billion pounds a year.
I wonder how much the artificial milk manufacturers paid for the endorsement.
Someone might want to invest in a spellchecker. Maybe they can’t afford it as they only have 3 billion pounds a year.
I imagine that they update the site via forms like how we comment here. But saying that, Firefox now comes with a built in spell checker and it’s underlining these words as I speak. (Ahaha, it’s suggesting “Firebox” for Firefox)
I’ve complained (via email) to the BBC 3 times over the last 2 years about declining quality on the news site and I never even got a reply. I didn’t even accuse them of any kind of bias, I just wanted to know why there are increasing numbers of spelling mistakes, bad grammar (I’m no good at it either), broken images, mislabelled maps, and so on.
STOP THE PRESS!!!!!!!
UK – BBC APOLOGISES TO TALIBAN
http://www.pakistanlink.com/Headlines/Nov06/29/10.htm
See, they do know how to apologise.
Thanx to ussneverdock.blogspot.com/ for that one.