01 Sep
CEP Media Watch
The CEP is setting up a Media Watch group to keep tabs on the media and report any inaccuracies.
The BBC have made efforts to improve their reporting of items that relate only to England but they are still the worst offenders by a long way. They aren’t alone, though - even local newspapers make the same mistakes as they pick up poorly-written news items off the newswire and reproduce them in their own publication.
If you are interested in helping us with this activity, please contact us.
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Best of luck with that - but you really do have your work cut out! It is all over the place… only yesterday, I sent a letter of complaint to the Sunday Times about errors in successive editions of their ST magazine.
First was AA Gill’s crap article about the battle of Towton - the bloodiest battle in English history (they said ‘British’, obviously). The battle occurred during the Wars of the Roses - an exclusively English affair - but good old AA just kept on waffling on about ‘Britain’…. Worst error by miles though was on the great big full-colour, highly technical double-page diarama of the battle that accompanied the article - just a pity the rose symbols next to each army were the wrong way round… According to AA and the ST, the Yorkists fought under the RED rose, and the Lancastrians under the WHITE rose….. How pathetic is that????
This week’s edition had a feature entitled ‘Dotes on a small island’. All about celebs and their favourite views of ‘Britain’. The blurb on the intro confirms it - ‘Bill Bryson, Eric Clapton, Raymond Blanc, etc reveal what they love about the British landscape’…
Lots of nice piccies - it’s only at the very end of the piece that you see a tiny little box - Apparently, the celebs and their favourite views have been taken from a new book entitled ‘ICONS of ENGLAND’ - and it has been produced in support of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE)…. Somehow, the word ‘England’ had been obliterated from the ST support copy! Somehow,the ST just couldn’t mention England!
It sort of reminds me when Bill Bryson was guesting on Alan Titchmarsh’s afternoon show last year. Bryson was there in his capacity as President of the CPRE. Titchmarsh introduced him to the audience …
“Now Bill, you’re here in your capacity as President of the CPRE - for those of you that don’t know, that’s the Campaign to Protect Rural BRITAIN”….
Bryson didn’t even pick him up on it - and the interview then proceeded down the Brit road - job done, Titchy queers the pitch!
Even in an official capacity, they just cannot utter the ‘E’ word.
September 2nd, 2008 at 12:44 pm