Daily Mail Scuppers BBC’s Wrong Shipping Forecast
MORE on the Daily Mail’s war on the BBC. MacGuffin looks at a reaction to BBC Radio 4’s Shipping Forecast near disaster:
THIS morning, this particular story was third on the Mail’s website, suggesting that there are only two more important stories around.
Paul Revoir’s BBC apologises after broadcast of wrong shipping forecast leaves listeners all at sea reveals:
the BBC is in hot water after it broadcast the wrong shipping forecast and ended up frightening the nautical community with force 11 winds that had already passed.
‘Hot water’? So there was a Jan Moir-like flood of complaints? That’s what the Mail implies:
Members of the public feared that sailors were put at risk by the reports of extreme whether when the information was wrong.
Except, shock, that’s not quite accurate:
a member of the public complained to Radio 4’s own complaints show Feedback about the error.
So not ‘members’ but ‘member’. Hmm. And it quotes this single complainer:
‘The entire transmission was a repeat from nearly 20 hours earlier. Was I the only sad person to spot it?’
Yes, apparently he was.
So did any ship get into trouble based on the old forecast? Did anything of note happen at all as a consequence? Errr, no. Because if the bad weather had already passed, and the seas were actually calmer than forecast then where is the danger or the chance of people being put ‘at risk’?
It’s total nonsense.
The only thing that does come out of all this is the way the BBC gave the Mail and other printed media a severe lesson is fessing up:
David Anderson, Radio 4’s presentation editor, said: ‘What went wrong is that somebody made a mistake. It was human error and a pretty bad one I am afraid to admit.
‘The late night announcer at the end of the shift pulled out an email of what she thought was the right shipping forecast and read it out completely unaware it was the wrong forecast.
‘All I can say is that I am most terribly sorry we got that wrong this was a big error on our part.’
Wouldn’t it be refreshing for a newspaper to be so honest and forthright in admitting it had made a cock-up? In fact, has any national newspaper ever been that upfront and apologetic? – TW
In other news, ships have radar. And if you want to moan at the BBC, get them on this…
Posted: 24th, November 2009 | In: Reviews Comments (2) | TrackBack | Permalink
