[Closed] bbc fake news?

last week i saw how 5500 had ridden the steam train over three days onthe settle carlise and the bbc reported this is a big passenegr numbers boost..although on average the line would normally carry 10000over the same three days..

even the basic stories are inaccurate fake

today they are reporting that roads are congested because of the rise in online shopping.. based on my own facts i havent been intoa tescofor a couple of years but that nice van visitsmineandhalfadozenfolks inour street every week..surely reducing traffic movements not increasing them?

The BBC have been telling me for weeks that some Alan Sugar wannabe is President of the USA, clearly not a trustworthy source of factual information.

Do you mean you don't understand the connection?

Why not explain it then, rather than just post a snide comment about your superior grasp on things......

I think a definition of what fake news is needed.

Fake news was originally coined to describe completely fabricated happenings.

The term seems to now be used to describe any story someone doesn't agree with.

If we apply to the term fake news to any story that carries bias or inaccuracies then it's all fake.

Maybe Baudrillard was right?

last week i saw how 5500 had ridden the steam train over three days onthe settle carlise and the bbc reported this is a big passenegr numbers boost..although on average the line would normally carry 10000over the same three days..

Well...did the steam train replace all scheduled services, or just a few of them? I think it might struggle to replace more than half of them, given that two trains normally run simulataneously on that service.

The scheduled service thing was a bit of red herring, given you had to pre-book seats on it and they were also running a replacement bus service for the poor locals who would otherwise turned up and found it full up with trainspotters.

Luckily I checked before riding from Skipton to Settle that day!

Obviously, I'm failing to see the hidden political agenda behind #fakenews about a steam service. 🙂

Sorry, but there must be better examples than passenger numbers on a steam train.

Why not explain it then, rather than just post a snide comment about your superior grasp on things......

Plus one

Why not explain it then, rather than just post a snide comment about your superior grasp on things......

That make any sense?

and to add the "snide" comment was probably as you had made zero effort to work it out, claimed the BBC were creating fake news (what's the adgenda for that?) and dismissed the second story out of hand because you used tesco online.

It is the current buzz word, and it's ****ing ridiculous.

What's your super credible source OP?

last week i saw how 5500 had ridden the steam train over three days onthe settle carlise and the bbc reported this is a big passenegr numbers boost..although on average the line would normally carry 10000over the same three days..

Maybe they would over a full day on the entire route, but Tornado didn't operate a full day (12 services) and the whole route isn't open (only Appleby to Skipton). Appleby station had 53,000 entries and exits in the whole of 2015/16 reporting period, so 5,500 in 3 February days sounds like some fairly hefty growth to me. Did you see the pictures too? I can assure you that's a touch busier than it usually is.

Data taken from the Office of Rail Regulation estimates [url= http://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/excel_doc/0020/23357/estimates-of-station-usage-2015-16.xlsx ]here[/url].

As for the online shopping, WTF?

What's your super credible source OP?

OP cited his source, in fairness. It was:

based on my own facts i havent been intoa tescofor a couple of years but that nice van visitsmineandhalfadozenfolks inour street every week..surely reducing traffic movements not increasing them?

Checkmate, BBC.

🙂

BBC are saying today that we all spend an average of 32 hours sitting in traffic a year.

Poppycock. I've never had any problem getting around Skipton. #fakenews

It's just part of the Libtard conspiracy to get us out of our cars.

I seem to recall during indyref the bbc news stated that to stay in the EU could only be acheived if we voted no.....

Err.....

It's not so false news as being simplified to fit in the time available.
The train passenger number thing above. Much quicker to give a number and single sentence explanation instead of what appears to be the true story explained above.

Fake news, alternative facts, all excuses to tell yourself so that you don't have to listen to the other side's argument.

Diplomacy and debate are dead in the age of the Internet. extremely polarised views from the echo chamber are your reality now.

I quite possibly spent 32 hours sitting in traffic just in January - clearly it's fakenews.
Every news provider has an agenda of some description- but [s]Trump[/s] Bannon appears to have a completely different approach to news, or truth.

I don't think the BBC does fake news, but it does pretty poor reporting these days. To be fair the organisation has been treated pretty badly by subsequent governments, since the Dr David Kelly affair, but it has laid down with a whimper to take its beatings rather than fight for it's integrity and honesty. And of course the political influence of Murdoch has seen further restrictions placed on its news funding. Now it largely just passes on press releases, as a news organisation it has become devoid of any investigation or digging into the truth behind those pr soundbites.

It is a bad time for investigative journalism all round though, the internet and 24 hour news channels have changed the landscape, organisations are struggling to monetise content and fund proper investigative journalism. Entertainment disguised as news is the order of the day, but democracy suffers because the expected checks and balances on power are missing.

Have you ever read a news article about the industry you work in?

Whenever a mainstream news source reports on the area I work in, the over simplification and ignorance makes the actual "facts" reported ropey at best.

Entertainment disguised as news is the order of the day, but democracy suffers because the expected checks and balances on power are missing.

gobuchul - Member
Have you ever read a news article about the industry you work in?

Here's the Tornado article.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-39020181

Unless there's another there is no mention of passenger boosts.

There was a independent credibility study of various press organisations made recently - which I just can't find a link for now.

It not only fact-checked reported stories but considered how they reported various facts and ignored others etc to give each story a right or left spin.

The BBC was one of, if not the most credible and stright down the line agencies.

There are people who think they're a bunch of leftie propaganda spewers, but I guess if you think The Mail or the Sun is credible the BBC is going to look like Spin and Lies (aka Fake news).

I had wondered if they'd gone too far with reporting Trump's most recent lie about a terrorist attack in Sweden that just didn't happen - I assumed he misspoke and meant Sehwan in ****stan and they were making more of it than they should, but no it seems his clarification was he was talking about a completely fabricated story Fox News had reported. I guess that's a pretty damming indication of the problem with 'fake' news, when policy makers start to believe it.

He should probably spend more time listening to security Briefings rather than watching the US version of The Express.

The other one would be http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/ for a reminder.

The MP's expenses is an excellent example, the person who had the information was struggling to get any news organisation to take it up, it was only when the rumours spread beyond the traditional media that it was eventually picked up.

Have you ever read a news article about the industry you work in?

Whenever a mainstream news source reports on the area I work in, the over simplification and ignorance makes the actual "facts" reported ropey at best.

I work in government. Possibly the one area the news generally does a reasonable job of 😀

Nobody should be taking anything printed or published in the media as FACT. It is just a point of view expressed, maybe with one or two supporting facts often cherry-picked by the journalist to maximise the impact/appeal/shock of the story to sell more copies. But what it isn't is a full and thorough impartial investigation into the facts. And often with complex issues even when presented with the facts, the facts alone don't necessarily provide a definitive answer, they just inform individuals to form their own opinions.

It's quite worrying that the leader of the free world is using the media and a source of information that is forming his opinions on anything.

'Fake news' should be reserved for the real dangerous stuff. An awful lot of news probably seems 'fake' if you spent 3 seconds thinking about it and comparing it with what you can see out of your window right now.

I'm personally pretty happy that most of the objective facts I read on the BBC (or any of the reputable news outlets in the UK) are accurate as far as they go. For example if they say there were 5500 passengers on the steam train then I'm sure that's how many there were.
Some are obviously more subjective but that doesn't make them fake either. IMO that's clearly different from saying an event happened when it didn't.

It's not Tesco, it's people ordering toilet rolls etc from Amazon and then appallingly wasteful packaging being used to deliver them.

I ordered eight small foam tiles for my turbo trainer to sit on and despite being only a foot square they came in boxes taller and wider than me, on their own van on a special delivery run.

I now have to take all that cardboard to the recycling centre, making another vehicle on the road.

MrSalmon - Member
'Fake news' should be reserved for the real dangerous stuff. An awful lot of news probably seems 'fake' if you spent 3 seconds thinking about it and comparing it with what you can see out of your window right now.

The whole 'fake news' phenomenon is fascinating not least because it’s hardly a new thing; it’s been happening for years if you take the definition as being the misrepresenting of information in order to support a political or social agenda (which I personally think it should mean). It’s the difference between reporting the Trump administration’s ‘ban on Muslims’ versus the Trump administration’s ‘ban on travel from predominantly Muslim countries’. The difference in the reporting is subtle but in the evaluation, subsequent interpretation and then consequently what people choose to believe, it’s huge.

There was a huge increase in train traffic through settle, that's for sure. Quoted figure for daily passengers might include somewhere well down the south end of the line.

I understood fake news to be "propoganda" or totally rubbish or "versions" of a story ie alternative facts... Not dull pieces of reportage

and with everything try applying these thoughts
Why are they telling me this
What do they want me to think after
Is there any basis in fact....

It seems like its a lot easier to pass off fake news nowadays as the proper news itself is so utterly unhinged! Things which would have sounded absurd a few years ago, we now just shrug at and think... meh.

Lets be honest, if a news piece came up right now saying that Trump has just annexed Canada, and nuked Iran, would you believe it?

Good example on the BBC right now. Headline is 'Trump tries to clarify Sweden remarks'.
The headline could read 'Trump clarifies Sweden remarks', which is a bit more generous. The fact that he's provided some sort of explanation doesn't seem to be in doubt, so in my view this isn't 'fake news' but there is a bit of bias in [i]how[/i] it's reported.

Headline is 'Trump tries to clarify Sweden remarks'.
The headline could read 'Trump clarifies Sweden remarks', which is a bit more generous.

[i]The headline could read 'Trump clarifies Sweden remarks', which is a bit more generous. [/i]

Although reading the story because he used Twitter he wasn't able to provide complete clarity on what he meant and someone else had to try and chip in from the White House to further clarify his clarification.

I think 'Trump tries to clarify' is about right.

Tries to clarify is very generous for somebody who fails to clarify anything beyond I saw it on't telly box last night it were right realistic them drones saying exterminate like

I'd agree, but I meant that, say, Fox news (or somebody else a bit more sympathetic to Trump) could paint it that way based on the same facts.

Theres a reason Blair, Dave etc courted Rupert Murdoch and the media. because they're not stupid.

You can't go on the attack against 'The Media', lumping them all in together, while slagging them off, then expect to get an unbiased appraisal of your actions.

It may not be right, and they are too powerful, but thats just the way it is. Apparently even Fox News is feeling aggrieved about its treatment from Trump. I think that serves as a compass to how far through the looking glass we now are, where Fox News is considered hostile. And this paranoia is just going to get worse.

With this 'us and them' narrative being played out, as a cynical (and clueless) political tool, I'll give it a month before some redneck shitkicker kills a journalist!

The BBC ties itself up in knots trying to be "balanced" and certainly there's a strong argument that it didn't challenge the Brexit BS enough, not that it would have made much difference when the vote was won on racism.

I don't know WTF you are on about OP, but it's not "fake news" as I understand it. Please have a Google and find out what the term really means.

I'd agree, but I meant that, say, Fox news (or somebody else a bit more sympathetic to Trump) could paint it that way based on the same facts.

Donald J. Trump ?@realDonaldTrump 14h14 hours ago
More
My statement as to what's happening in Sweden was in reference to a story that was broadcast on @FoxNews concerning immigrants & Sweden.

I think a 10 year old would get a tries for that one...

Please have a Google and find out what the term really means.

The term does not have a concrete and universally understood definition. Just like any new word, phrase or thing its meaning is evolving all the time. It may eventually settle down.

not that it would have made much difference when the vote was won on racism.

Ironically some people may call that a good example of 'fake news'.

Ironically some people may call that a good example of 'fake news'.

Some people who don't understand what fake news is, maybe.

Ironically the BBC have put it in simple-to-understand terms here, if you'd like to clear things up in your own mind...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/38906931

The real worry is trump taking briefing notes from fox news.

You'd think as president he'd have people to check stuff.

Blah, blah, blah.....

That make any sense?

and to add the "snide" comment was probably as you had made zero effort to work it out, claimed the BBC were creating fake news (what's the adgenda for that?) and dismissed the second story out of hand because you used tesco online.

I didn't make any effort to work it out as I don't give a **** about the story. It's your reply I had an issue with. HTH.

Ironically the BBC have put it in simple-to-understand terms here, if you'd like to clear things up in your own mind...

I much prefer to make up my own mind rather than have someone else do it for me.

Since you cannot possibly know what was in the mind of even a tiny handful of people who voted to remain, you cannot possibly know that it was motivated by racism. Therefore if you chose to present it as a fact that this is what happened, that is fake news.

I personally happen to agree with you to some degree; I think a lot of people's votes were the result of either biggotry or racism but I don't know that for sure.

I think a lot of people's votes were the result of either biggotry or racism but I don't know that for sure.

You should spend an evening in my local boozer. You'd be left in no doubt

Binners, your local has a flat roof. 😉

It's always funny to see people deride the Telegraph at every opportunity, then use the expenses story as the paragon of journalistic freedom.

More news is a good thing. Especially when it's from all sorts of political angles.

It doesn't actually flashy. Its a lovely pub. The people inside it however are a vile collection of shit thick, Daily Mail reading, UKIP voting racists.

Getting back to the original 'Fake News' theme, these idiots believe every word of the 'straight bananas', a million quid given to every immigrant, claptrap that they've been fed for years for our hateful national press, who've been making it up as they go along for years

I find it amazing you've got people on here moaning about the BBC when we're now facing the calamity ushered in, in part, by our wonderful 'Enemies of the People' free press

I didn't make any effort to work it out as I don't give a **** about the story. It's your reply I had an issue with. HTH.

The BBC reported recently that Jezza was Leader of HM Opposition - wrong on two counts 😉

Headline is 'Trump tries to clarify Sweden remarks'.
The headline could read 'Trump clarifies Sweden remarks', which is a bit more generous.

The BBC story makes it clear that Trump has not provided any coherent explanation of his remarks, so "tries to clarify" seems to be a concise and accurate headline. "Clarifies" would be incorrect.

Trump has achieved his aim by simply repeating "Fake News" until many people now assume all media is inherently untrustworthy, instead of critically evaluating each story and source on its merits. It's just diversion and an easy response for people that don't want to think too hard about anything that challenges their world view.

Listen, everyone makes mistakes.

What matters is:

1) How often you make them

and

2) How you deal with the mess caused by your mistake.

Trump makes a mistake every time he opens his mouth, and he deals with them by just lamely blaming someone else (anyone else but himself). it's quite clear his public oration is terrible (if he were 9, he'd fail his media class), and he clearly

1) doesn't listen to anything anyone tells him (99% talk, 1% listen)
2) Is so stupid he can't actually understand the politics or situation involved.

So, yes, the BBC and others are right to have a go at him. In this world, if you're not a t**t, the media tend to treat you ok. People like David Attenbourgh don't get loads of "oh, look at this muppet" type headlines because they are sensible, decent, moral people. Trump is none of those things.....

You'd think as president he'd have people to check stuff.

Has anybody yet pointed out that the OP is fake news?

Regarding a balanced press, let me just put this one here:

[img] [/img]

The opening post of this thread is one of the stupidist I've seen( and theres been a few), it and the poster deserve ridicule.

There's a story the BBC blatantly changed to fit their programming that sticks in my mind from a few years back.

On the 10pm news was a story about some one who rescued a sea turtle who had had his eyes gouged out. Apparently some fisherman did this routinely to turtles that came up in the nets as revenge for them eating [i]their[/i] fish and it was determined that this was what had happened to this one.

Local news the next night there was a lovely, heartwarming story at the end, you know the kind of crap. Well blow me, there's the same turtle but now it was a courageous fisherman who had saved it after the silly thing got caught in his propeller and lost both it's eyes but with no other head trauma...

I think it's because the subject was relatively insignificant that it really bothered me. This was fabricating a story and glossing over brutality just to fill three minutes before the weather. At least if there was a sinister government influence I could see why they would buckle like a belt and report what they were told but this was purely optional.

I'm not pro Trump but I am anti BBC and the way they are bleating on they are only helping to convince people he is right about them.

BBC and ITN I think are pretty good, they don't deliberately report fake stuff for sure. That's not to say they don't make the odd mistake like we all do.

As an aside Evelyn Waugh and some good stuff to say about the media over 50 years ago in Scoop. Worth a read.

Apparently there's been rioting in Paris, it's not on the BBC website are the riots fake news?

The local news story I recounted above was not a mistake, it was a blatant lie.

Apparently some fisherman did this routinely to turtles that came up in the nets as revenge for them eating their fish and it was determined that this was what had happened to this one.

Local news the next night there was a lovely, heartwarming story at the end, you know the kind of crap. Well blow me, there's the same turtle but now it was a courageous fisherman who had saved it after the silly thing got caught in his propeller and lost both it's eyes but with no other head trauma...

The local news story I recounted above was not a mistake, it was a blatant lie.

trouble with the bbc is it takes its impartiality from the middle of the political range of the press - which gives it an automatic right of centre / establishment bias and it also gives equal billing to absurd positions as well as sensible ones.

Nobody should be taking anything printed or published in the media as FACT. It is just a point of view expressed, maybe with one or two supporting facts often cherry-picked by the journalist to maximise the impact/appeal/shock of the story to sell more copies.

Up to a point, Lord Copper.

1. The Telegraph
a). "We hate the EU" = opinion
b). "MPs fiddle their expenses" = fact

2. The Guardian
a). "We love the EU" = opinion
b). "The News of the World hacks phones" = fact

The better printed media is pretty good at separating factual reporting from opinion... problems start when the likes of the Daily Mail conflate the two.

lazybike - Member

Apparently there's been rioting in Paris, it's not on the BBC website are the riots fake news?

Not sure if serious but
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39011298

Yeah ok, I waded in there without the reasoning. The 10pm news article was pretty in depth. They spoke to a lady from a local (to the turtle) wildlife trust/organisation who said she had seen such injuries before and had gone "undercover" to investigate her hunch that it was fisherman causing them and concluded that she was right. She pointed out that it was inarguably an intentional injury by a controlling attacker due to the accuracy and lack of other injuries.

When the same source provides two conflicting versions of events then one has to be wrong and intent has be considered.

PS. As someone who has seen a human go though an outboard motor propeller I know that that turtle had not been there.

Although of course, that is only my opinion.

I don't doubt your reasoning, but there appears no evidence that the story was made up or manipulated by the BBC. They might be guilty of being gullible, but probably no more than that.

Northwind - Member
lazybike - Member
Apparently there's been rioting in Paris, it's not on the BBC website are the riots fake news?
Not sure if serious but
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39011298

I assume it was taking the piss, I noticed the same phrase word for word in comments under BBC Facebook posts on Sweden yesterday.

[i]Has anybody yet pointed out that the OP is fake news?[/i]

Totalshell does seem to have a knack for kicking off a debate and then not contributing...

I don't doubt your reasoning, but there appears no evidence that the story was made up or manipulated by the BBC. They might be guilty of being gullible, but probably no more than that.

The BBC went to the island this happened on and got a story about a turtle, the same turtle then stars in a very different story broadcast by, the BBC.

Same turtle, same news outlet, two different versions of events.. One or the other version had to have been manipulated, I really can't see any other rational conclusion.

All news stories are manipulated to some extent or another. First of all the news organisation decides whether or not to even run with it. Then it looks for the best 'angle', depending on the information in front of it. Later on, the angle may change depending on what interviews etc throws up.

Without seeing the two versions, you couldn't say for sure, but my slightly cynical interpretation of what you've put there (as a former reporter) points to the first version produced a complaint, possibly threats of legal etc, and the second, smilier version and interview was the agreed way of making that go away? 😀

Local news can be a bit ragtag and amateurish, and news from all sources should be read with a critical eye, whether it's looking for the dead hand of an unaltered press release or an editorial 'interpretation' which slants the story in an unfair way.

Hmm. Yes I see the reasons but if it's necessary that examples like the one I gave happen then I say that something has to be fundamentally wrong.

I maintain the second story was blatant fabrication for sake of having a nice ending. But I won't continue trying to convince anyone else of it, as you say without the footage to compare it's just boils down to my opinion and understanding of it all.

When I was a teen I saw a ship, the Maria Asumpta, sink on the coast. That evening the local news said that rescue services arrived in minutes, yeah, about 90 minutes. It angered me at the time because I stood there helpless and watched people dying, unable to help and yet the public were being told that they were being rescued. I can understand why they said that, Cornwall depends on tourists and tourists depend on the sea here. Knowing they could be in trouble if they get in deep water would keep many away. But it wasn't true. It was not the truth.

That evening the local news said that rescue services arrived in minutes, yeah, about 90 minutes. It angered me at the time because I stood there helpless and watched people dying, unable to help and yet the public were being told that they were being rescued. I can understand why they said that,

Because the police/coastguard told them that?

It's always difficult to dig into the reasons why there are inaccuracies in press reports. It can be the kind of bad faith motive you put forward, or it can be simple misunderstanding/incompetence or simply being given the wrong information. Generally the simplest explanation is the most likely.

[quote=lazlowoodbine ]Knowing they could be in trouble if they get in deep water would keep many away.

Completely irrelevant to the main point you're making (where you have a point - I didn't see the features, so don't feel able to comment further), but I already know I'd be in trouble if I get in deep water. I doubt accurate reporting would make any difference at all to tourism - how many tourists arrive by sailing ship? (anyway, I'd be more interested in how the captains actions were reported)

I reckon in this case you're definitely seeing conspiracy where there is none.

Yeah I don't know for sure where the inaccuracy stemmed from, that is a fair point. Eye witnesses would have been a good place to start for an accurate account though..

I used an unfortunate term with "deep water". People come here in the summer for the beaches and no most of them arrive via the a30.
I'm not seeing conspiracy, martinhutch gives a better informed, more articulate explanation than I can of why such things happen just a few posts above. People deceive others for all sorts of reasons, the media are no different.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/8492870.stm

I think what Trump and co are accusing the media of is a world away from one news source cocking up (or manipulating) a story about a turtle.

They are alleging systematic and coordinated misreporting or suppression of news by many outlets. It's nonsensical.

Indeed. Anyone who has seen journalists reports about things they actually know about, tends to be a bit sceptical. Knowing people at Uni who then went on to be reasonable high profile journalists has not made me any less sceptical.

But Trump is different - he just lies for the hell of it and then labels any attempt to correct it as "fake news" - and this from a bloke who trusts Breitbart.

I'd recommend every one to watch last weeks "Last Week tonight with John Oliver" where he totally nails this... not that catching him at it and explainig where he gets his lies from will help in the slightest...

I stopped trusting the BBC when their news presenters stopped wearing full evening dress, and I wasn't even born then.

I knew it! It's cut of of their collective jib that is at the root of my discontent.