Lincs FM - Top Reporting

[reds & greens]

A fantastic peice of accurate reporting from the local radio station (Lincs FM) covering the Nimrod R1 final flight today, as they interviewed QUOTE 'The Senior RAF Officer, Air Chief Sir Steven Marshall...' UNQUOTE
:E ...makes I larf

[XV490]

Yeah, I am beginning to despair of the dire standards of local TV, radio and newspaper reporting on military matters. The other night, Anglia TV referred to the Colchester-based "16 Air Assault Bridge". And I've given up expecting 'Marshal' to be spelt properly in referring to RAF brass, while Cosford's boss, a one-star who sadly died recently, had his rank abbreviated to Air 'Cmdr' on BBC TV text.

The RAF Regiment is another source of bad reporting, its No 1 Sqn being confused with the former Harrier-flying 1(F) Sqn. But at least one BBC local TV hack (Norwich-based) is trying his hardest to get the facts right - he's now on PPRuNe, so he's got no excuse.

Basic military nomenclature, abbreviations etc. are there for all to see in the style guides provided by august publications, such as The Times, online (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/tools_and_services/specials/style_guide/article986744.ece) - and should be familiar to all journalists who've undergone their NCTJ basic training. All part of dumbing down and the all-pervasive "what does it matter?" attitude, no doubt.:ugh:

[Birdle]

It does my head in big time!! With the amount of information on the internet, there is no excuse for incorrect abbreviations or referral to any names of Squadrons/Brigades etc. regarding HM Armed Forces. I thought journalism was about research into obtaining correct information but then again maybe I'm wrong and it's just sheer laziness.

Birdle

[bobward]

Sadly the average member of the great British public doesn't have a clue about services ranks etc. Thus, when the journo messes up they don't notice anyway.....

If you time the average news report on TV or radio, it's usually measured in seconds, so how can any sort of 'quality' information be given?

Sometimes you need to rememebr that quality can mean poor as well as good I guess.....:confused::{

[ghostnav]

Well just think what crap is pushed out about other subjects. Certain anti-EU newspapers blow situations out of all proportions of which there is often only a grain of truth.

I no longer buy newspapers - they aren't worth the paper the stories are written on.

[Marham69]

Or perhaps extreme ignorance coupled with lack of intelligence and an affinity with Yoof Speak (see Alexander and Miller).

A BBC News Lady, her wot won the ballroom dancing contest, honoured us with this belter not so many years ago.

A member of the Royal Logistic Corps met his unfortunate demise in Afghanistan. This lady intoned that the deceased was a member of the "Royal Logistic Corpse". We could all make a mistake reading a teleprompt but surely this was unforgiveable - betraying such a basic lack of education and intelligenece.

One can imagine the iimediate family distress if they were in hearing of this outrage.

My complaint to the BBC over this was met with stony silence.

[glojo]

I guess we can understand some confusion with military ranks although how many seconds would it take for a journalist to simply ask the person being interviewed to clarify what they are, position they hold and rank.

What I find a real hoot though is when a TV caption will call a uniformed police officer 'detective' It seems that standards are a thing of the past and don't get me started on talking about how ALL our Government Ministers now call our country 'Britain' instead of its rightful name of GREAT Britain. Most foreign Heads of State have the good manners to get the name right but I guess our own politicians are ashamed of the way they have destroyed our once proud nation.

[Pontius Navigator]

I thought journalism was about research into obtaining correct information but then again maybe I'm wrong and it's just sheer laziness.

No you are wrong one both counts.

Journalism is about selling papers or increasing audience numbers.

Not laziness but simple lack of time. A specialist journalist like Jacko can pick a subject and research it calling on experts as required.

A generalist journalist will have deadlines and multiple story lines.

Sad but true.

The TV news media, OTOH, have less excuse as they have specialist journalists with a defence portfolio and researchers to back them up.

[Climebear]

Marham 69

A member of the Royal Logistic Corps met his unfortunate demise in Afghanistan. This lady intoned that the deceased was a member of the "Royal Logistic Corpse". We could all make a mistake reading a teleprompt but surely this was unforgiveable - betraying such a basic lack of education and intelligenece.

At least she didn't make the common mistake of referring to them as the Royal Logistics Corps as that really annoys them - alongside calling their trucks 'lorries'.

glojo

It seems that standards are a thing of the past and don't get me started on talking about how ALL our Government Ministers now call our country 'Britain' instead of its rightful name of GREAT Britain.

I thought that its rightful name is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_of_Great_Britain_and_Ireland). That's what it says on my passport anyway.

[XV490]

A generalist journalist will have deadlines and multiple story lines.Yes, but there is (or used to be, in the case of local TV and radio) a whole higher layer of experienced and observant journalists called sub-editors (or plain 'subs') to weed out the rubbish. Cost-cutting is the likely cause on the local scene.

[1.3VStall]

They are all as bad. Last week "North West Tonight" did a story about the closure of Woodford. They waxed lyrical about the history of Avro and the contribution of the Lancaster in WWII. Trouble was the video they screened at the same time was of a formation of Halifaxes.

Feckwits!

[tmobile]

We could all make a mistake reading a teleprompt but surely this was unforgiveable - betraying such a basic lack of education and intelligenece.



One can imagine the iimediate family distress if they were in hearing of this outrage

What was that about a lack of education?

[bingofuel]

I think part of the problem is that we now receive, and therefore expect, news reports in real time as they are happening. This quite naturally leads to inadequate research and little vetting of the facts before they are aired as the media have this obsessive aim of reporting a story before anyone else.
When we had news reports only 2 or 3 times a day on the TV, they had time to check and verify the facts and compile a more accurate and responsible story for broadcasting. So in a way, the problems stem from this stange desire to get the news as it happens regardless.

[Marham69]

Quote:
We could all make a mistake reading a teleprompt but surely this was unforgiveable - betraying such a basic lack of education and intelligenece.

Quote:
One can imagine the iimediate family distress if they were in hearing of this outrage

What was that about a lack of education?

A Psychiatrist speaks – We have here a manifestation of the classic symptom of the anal retentive – a failure to address, nay completely ignore, the substance of the original post yet highlight a couple of spelling errors - the prime purpose of which was to deliver some personal abuse.
Get a life and some respect for others.

[500N]

The media have LESS excuse nowadays than ever for making mistakes. No more reaching for a magazine or trotting off to the library as all reference material is on hand, 24 hours a day with a few key strokes on the keyboard. It's called Google, Bing or any one of the search engines.

If I am reading something on here that I don't understand (being ex Green not Light blue:)), I just look it up instead of asking on here. Why can't they ?

[airborne_artist]

While journos should do their research, PR people must coach them. Too many PR luvvies just bomb their info from above when they could be adding value to it by helping the poor soul who has to use it.

So, when sending out a release about the former Rickshaws, Carts and Taxis, put in a note to editors saying that Corps is pronounced "core".

While it's reasonable to expect Caroline Wyatt to be fairly well read-up. she's probably the only person in the BBC who does Defence day in, day out.

500N - I do much the same, but then I was first Dark Blue, and later Green :8

[500N]

AA

"500N - I do much the same, but then I was first Dark Blue, and later Green http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/nerd.gif"


I do it because asking questions on here about basic RAF terminology would really get up some people's noses so I decided I'd leave Tourist and a few others to incur the wrath of the Air force police !!! LOL:)

.

[XV490]

While journos should do their research, PR people must coach them. Too many PR luvvies just bomb their info from above when they could be adding value to it by helping the poor soul who has to use it.

AA - I quite agree. And have you noticed how PR luvvies randomly put as many Words as they can into Capital Letters, even if They don't qualify for such Elevation. They don't understand that the Resulting Text is hard to absorb, because Words in Capitals slow down Reading (Berks).

Defence press releases are probably among the worst because of the industry's insistence on capitalising every new GizMo's and Widget's function as being Heat-Seeking, Grass-Fed, Upside-Down-Flying, Cold-Starting, Pox-Ridden and ACBDXYZ-Capable. A nightmare to read, and sadly a style that's found its way into many aviation magazines.

Interestingly, the MoD itself has tried to follow the plain English path with its Defence Writing (http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:hqWSag8-QCMJ:da.mod.uk/edw/eDW/JSP101_DWG_Version_1_0.pdf+defence+writing&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjzcup9QPPpyD9dcJjj3MVCitT-s-0cOfr8nmbnVBPgfcUurjtIf4bX7mFA-4YQ9NGA5jWJQOB7s_Vvj-QjFK6VCtNxeYlg8aE2VqaiBxIfi1tn5x2RkmnlWiysL1LXw5_9c58w&sig=AHIEtbTUmvec8pjc9T1S28wpIqGlWEJk_g)scheme.

Marham69 - Thanks for reminding me of the dreadful 'corpse' gaffe. I too heard it live, and was totally shocked. Incidentally, the BBC now has an online feedback form (http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ukfs/hi/newsid_3950000/newsid_3955200/3955259.stm) for style, accuracy and grammar! If that isn't an admission of falling standards at the world's number one vehicle for the English language...

[foldingwings]

Cost-cutting is the likely cause on the local scene.

Nope, nationally or locally the truth is:

THEY DON'T GIVE A SH1T IF IT SELLS!:ugh:

[Pontius Navigator]

So, when sending out a release about the former Rickshaws, Carts and Taxis, put in a note to editors saying that Corps is pronounced "core".

An excellent point. We were certainly taught to put in Note to Editors although not to pick up things like corpse.

Now not meja, but I read a book the other day that was so bad Amazon refunded my money. This American author was so lamentably bad that it was evident that he had not heard of internet research. Where it really grated was his way of writing time:

For oh-three hundred he wrote three hundred hours. Or once three hundred hours fifteen. Bit like the teeth grinding when the meja talk of forty five commando or six hundred and seventeen a squadron.

Maybe the MOD Media Comms should issue a decode:

Ten Sqn, One-oh-One Sqn, 4-5 Commando etc etc and of course a spell list:

IX Sqn, XIII Sqn etc.

[airpolice]

Allegedly the Sky News team motto is, "We won't be wrong for long"

They are happy to say whatever comes to mind and hope that anyone who knows better, will call and put them right.