to report some shockingly biased BBC reporting concerning some comments of his.
Hannan blogged on Thursday, ‘Cast-iron guarantee’ must not rust, about how the Conservatives should handle the EU Treaty. In it he called on his party to make sure they play no games on the issue, saying:
My party calls Gordon Brown a liar because of his sophistry over Europe, and we are right to do so. Let us play no games of our own.
There was no criticism of David Cameron, and in fact nothing but praise for him. But the BBC reported this as Pressure on Cameron over EU poll:
Daniel Hannan MEP told Mr Cameron to “stop playing games” on the issue.
As Hannan writes today, My BBC Barney:
the Beeb made up a false quotation and attributed it to me. This is the sort of thing you get fired for at the Telegraph.
Will anyone at the BBC be fired or at least disciplined for this fabrication?
Whilst it is possible to read Hannan’s original blog post as very oblique criticism of Cameron that’s very much a matter of interpretation and a big stretch at that. But that is beside the point. The BBC quotes Hannan saying that Cameron should “stop playing games” – something Hannan did not say.
The BBC’s fabrication has been online, unamended according to Newssniffer, since 6pm on Friday. The BBC should at the very least correct this story – and publish their correction with the same prominence as the original story, rather than the usual sleazy BBC stealth edit, and issue a public apology to Hannan.
All in all, a fine example of the BBC’s dreadful propensity for making up the news – the BBC wants to push the BBC line about Pressure on Cameron over EU poll, so the BBC scouts about for material to back the BBC line, and then just makes up a quote to hang their story on anyway. Appaling.
Hi Roland,
I don’t quite understand what you’re saying/asking. When the BBC carried the story, it gave no indication that it wasn’t originated by them.
When the Guardian reported the story about Hannan that we’ve been discussing here, the report said at the end ‘Copyright PA’, or words to that effect, making it clear that it was a newswire story supplied to the paper by the PA. This is how most reputable newspapers handle a newswire story that runs to anything more than a single paragraph.
However the BBC story did not carry such an attribution. This may be BBC policy, and that’s fine, but in that case the BBC can’t complain later that it wasn’t their story, ie they can’t pass it off as their own story when it suits them but disclaim all responsibility when the story is found to be incorrect.
“there was nothing in the BBC article to suggest it originated from the PA’
‘Quite so. Why should there be? There’s nothing on a pack of Sainsbury’s chicken Korma that tells you which farm the chicken came from either.’
Yes John Reith, but when the chicken Korma gives you food poisoning, you’re going to complain to Sainsbury’s. They may well choose to take it up with the farm, but they can’t tell you, the customer, that it’s nothing to do with them, they’re just an innocent middle man. Well, they might try, but it’s not going to wash in the real world, is it?
I don’t see why it’s so hard for you to accept that the BBC made a mistake on this story. No biggie, we all make mistakes but your refusal to accept what is self-evidently true smacks of arrogance.
“The BBC policy is to attribute a line to a news agency only when there’s doubt and the substance remains unconfirmed.”
In this case, the substance WAS unconfirmed. So why did they not attribute it?
John Reith | 30.10.07 – 3:59 pm
Quite so. Why should there be? There’s nothing on a pack of Sainsbury’s chicken Korma that tells you which farm the chicken came from either.
The label does, however, tell you the ingredients.
Gareth | 30.10.07 – 9:20 pm
he label does, however, tell you the ingredients.
Yes, but we’re discussing provenance here, not provender.
Labels on chicken korma list the ingredients. The BBC story did not, until Hannan complained. If that is unhelpful for your analogy perhaps you could have picked a better one.
This one is more like a dog’s dinner than a curry.
Just for information about the korma chicken.
On all packages meat products sold direct to the consumer you will find an oval mark (or in some cases a round one following the recent FMD outbreak). The id mark includes an approval number which is allocated to the premises that produced the food and any member of the public can find out which from the FSA website.
The premises concerned will have their own traceability systems and from these it would be possible to narrow down which farms the meat for that batch came from.
Back on topic, I am finding JR’s wriggling very amusing but I do think Hannan should add a correction to his own article showing that he now knows that it was originally PA copy (after all no one is going to go back an read it anyway – a favourite BBC tactic).
The BBC/Reith would prefer to wriggle ad absurdum, over having an ounce of humility.