3 responses to “Rumour or raw data?: Why the BBC is worried about Sky News”
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Interesting post. 24 hour rolling news shows have to rely on rumour, speculation, the raw feed. They cannot afford to wait to check the facts before broadcasting them. We the audience want things now now now! And if we don’t get it from one station, we go to another.
But what if Reuters, AP and AFP acted in the same way? They are all in competition to get the story out as soon as possible – but they have to get it right because if they don’t, the professional media bodies will stop buying their services.
And if I put my PR hat on, I would be furious if a broadcaster was putting out stories about a client based on rumour and speculation, without waiting to check their truthfulness.
I understand why the 24 news stations behave in the way they do but I admire the BBC for having the guts to actually say getting the facts right is more important than getting the story out first.
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Interesting parallel, David. I guess they all have to balance veracity with the ability to get a story out there as quickly as possible.
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[…] wrote about this a few years ago in post called Rumour or Raw Data, during the pre-Twitter age if you can remember that, when the then Metropolitan Poolic […]
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