It’s all in the mind

@gol979 Well if it’s on the BBC, it must be true!

@SW-User -@gol79] Ah, who actually said it? A BBC News reporter, or was the BBC quoting some campaigner who would have been credited or even recorded in interview ?

It's that sort of lazy, context-free passing-on at arm's-length that leads to or encourages distortions, mistrust, "conspiracy" fantasies, etc.

@ArishMell it was a bbc article. Utterly bonkers.

@gol979 In a BBC programme yes - but who actually used the word? A BBC reporter or some interviewee or contributor?

I agree it is not perfect; but you tell me any organisation or individual that never makes mistakes or uses incautious language at times.

I was hurling abuse at the radio for news-readers saying the 'Bibby Stockholm' barge is "moored off the Dorset Coast", and that can only have been a news-room error. (It is not off the coast at all, but moored to it - via a jetty in a harbour.)

Similarly I wish its music programmes presenters and guests would learn the difference between acoustic and acoustics, and between reverberation and resonance. Oh, and stop using Americanisms like "meld" - that is just affectation.

Nor do I excuse presenters from the wrong tense in history programmes and weather forecasts, even though most of their guest historians can't help it.

One of the worst howlers I have seen, as it should have been stopped by the editor, was not broadcast but was in the BBC's Nature magazine, some years ago now. I don't know if by a guest or staff writer, but an otherwise good article advising how to use your refrigerator efficiently, was let down by this nonsense:

Use
My italics. Ye Gods!!

However, before we throw cheap jibes at the organisation itself for some glaring error or absurd hyperbole, let's at least cite the right source.

@ArishMell theres mistakes and lies. The bbc is full of both. Its a tool to push agendas for the parasite class

@gol979 Ah I see. Language like that tells me you believe the BBC must never publish news and opinions with which you disagree or find uncomfortable.

Besides, accusing anyone of being a "liar" with no evidence to support your accusation, only undermines you, especially when you will not or can not cite the source of the supposed lie that looks no more than a poor metaphor. A foolish one but still only very obviously a metaphor.

@ArishMell its not just the bbc, it pretty much all msm. They all sing from the same script. The mono opinion for the masses.

And if you want a well edited and polished lie from the bbc, look no further than panorama.....theres a few whoppers on there but how about looking into the chemical attack in douma? On the back of this fabrication many countries bombed syria.

Another one.....building 7 on 9/11. Theres a mountain of evidence that the bbc lie on a regular basis. The quicker people stop paying for their own propaganda (the tv licence) the better

@gol979 The BBC didn't lie about Syria. It quoted what all the politicians had said and has recently run an investigative series on why the UK went into war there with the US. Last year now, I think it was, it also ran a similar series looking at the role of the White Helmets medical charity there (looking after civilian casualties, especially Kurds that Syria's government would not help), the massive propaganda war against it by Russia, and the suspicious death of its head.

President Assad had chemical weapons - he used them against the Kurds he was trying to wipe out - but as soon he realised everyone else was on to him, destroyed them.

On a more general point you are calling everyone "liars" but now give all the results of your own investigations into the same matters including citing your published reports and interviews; and make constructive suggestions for improvement.... if you can.

Also tell me any multi-channel, properly-run, public information, education and entertainment service whose subscription is barely more than £3 a week for the lot. If you can.

@ArishMell it did lie about syria. It even manufactured a documentary (panorama) about it, showing actors being "burnt from chemicals". And unfortunatley, many like yourself, believe these lies and lay the groundwork for consent for dropping death from above in foreign countries.

And a constructive suggestion for improvement.......stop paying the tv licence.

@gol979 All right,so you despise the BBC and want to destroy it for reporting fairly what politicians say - and its journalists do press them for answers but most politicians are good at dodging awkward questions - or merely for reporting truths and views you want suppressed for not conforming to your opinions; but you have no sensible constructive alternative proposals.

I do not believe lies and I listen carefully to what the interviewees from different sides say, to try to determine which side is truthful or at least the more accurate. And by "sides" I mean those taken by the interviewed politicians; not the interviewers and analysts trying to get at the truth behind the politicians' "spin".

Where are you writing from, or for whom? Moscow? Peking? Fox News? Qanon?

@ArishMell you will never say "i listen to lies"......you just believe them. Pretty much all msm reporters are nothing of the sort, they are repeaters.

And there we go, because i have a different opinion to you i must be russian or a red statist yank.

Anyway, enjoy your day and dont forget to cancel that licence

@gol979 I listen to, and read, both sides presented by the interviewees.

I listen to independent analysts and investigative work for background details that help explain what is going on.

I do not wildly accuse people of being "liars" unless they clearly are - usually statements issued by totalitarian states. I also ask myself why a politician might by trying to evade awkward questions, not by barefaced lies but by simple avoidance.

I am also well aware of a form of unwitting bias that does frustrate journalists, when some organisation accused of failure in some way is invited to give it side of the matter but has "no-one available for comment" or simply refuses. Sometimes the reporters have to admit it has "issued a statement" that carefully dodges responsibility and is about as meaningless as those "mission statements" once popular in big, especially American-owned, companies.

I have no idea what is a "red statist yank" - anyway whatever side you actually do take I am neither "red" (i.e. Communist) politically, nor "yank" (i.e. American) as native or resident - though if I were either or both of those I might be anti-British.

I did not accuse you of being a Russian.

Oh, and I have no television nor do I use my PC as a television, so I do not need a licence. I gain almost all of my news, information and entertainment from the BBC radio services, plus some quoted by my ISP (BT) from the daily national papers whose political flavours I do account for, and a small amount via my local newspaper.

An SW PM correspondent living the the USA sometimes points me to articles of interest published by MSN and others. As far as I can determine, MSN is politically neutral in reporting from abroad at least (I don't know how it scores on reporting fairly the USA's difficult internal politics), and it does state when an article is an opinion essay rather than direct observations or deep analysis.

In the UK, both the BBC and ITV are under strict impartiality rules that do not apply to the newspapers, and a test of impartiality is whether they report both sides of contentious matters. They do - complaints to the opposite are investigated independently, and upheld or rejected as appropriate!