Accuracy? Truth? ‘We didn’t have space’

A few years back, I had a rare exchange with the editor of Reporting Scotland. I checked on him. He was a young man, still in his twenties I think. He seems to have disappeared.

When I criticised the lack of reliable evidence in a report, his response was a tetchy ‘It’s all very well for academics’ and ‘You don’t understand journalism’. As I understand it, he meant they were working fast and couldn’t be held to the same standards as academics.

See the above headline? What does it suggest? All of Scotland’s schools are at 50% absence? What else can it mean unless you read the small print or click and read:

Covid: Almost half of Kirkintilloch school’s pupils absent during surge

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-58402153

So it’s just one town and just one school in that town. Was there space for ‘one’ in the headline?

What kind of journalism is that? Shoddy? Deceitful?

6 thoughts on “Accuracy? Truth? ‘We didn’t have space’”

  1. I had noticed this one. – or rather, the omission of ‘one’. It is another example of reporting a specific and inviting readers to generalise.

    Last week there was a heading in one of the papers; “FIFTEEN THOUSAND PUPILS ABSENT!” There are almost 800 000 pupils in Scotland. So, it is barely 2%. Since the average attendance over a year is around 92%, only 2% being off represents an unusually high attendance rate!

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  3. As I keep saying the SNP/Scot Gov should publicly come out and expose this propaganda for what it is and boycot the BBC. Only then will vast awathes of the elderly who still rely on this tripe for their news wake up and take notice that they are being misled. They have been getting away with this for years so time to take the gloves off.

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    1. Maybe instead of taking the gloves off
      We should place our fists into lead weighted boxing ones
      Then without Quarter or Mercy
      Unleash our fury upon their thick cranium Till they lay upon the canvas

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