Tuesday 26 November 2019

An appeal


Here's a curious thing that neither I nor Sue can work out. Can you, dear reader? 

As per Newssniffer, the BBC's Chief rabbi attacks Labour anti-Semitism record article underwent a startling sea-change around 10.30 this morning.

Someone at the BBC went through the report and changed all eleven mentions of 'Chief Rabbi' to 'chief rabbi'. 

Neither Sue nor I can account for this abrupt but very thoroughgoing change from upper case to lower case. Can you?

4 comments:

  1. You might have guessed that this story has disappeared from the BBC News website Homepage already. It's a routine move to demote stories the BBC doesn't like. It's also routine to downgrade the story before archiving. To downgrade THE Chief Rabbi to A chief rabbi in this way is disrespectful to the person and the position. And, I'm sure it's deliberate. We often say that nothing is accidental in the BBC's world.

    The counterbalancing story 'no place for anti-Semitism within Labour - Corbyn' complete with its prominent photo of Corbyn against a red background with Labour motto will remain in place for a lot longer.

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    Replies
    1. A post is coming up on that very subject, Arthur. Thanks for the tip-off.

      Delete
  2. Well it's easy enough to change all references x to y but a bit of a puzzle. Probably just a "teenager" at work. It is a bit of a Guardian thing as well, favouring the lower case.

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  3. Don't forget Newssniffer doesn't track every edit
    it merely rescans pages every so often.
    Page changes will also show up at achive.org and other such site ?

    The BBC policy seems to be that Bishop titles are capitalised
    but it's policy on "The Rabbi of" seems mixed, more often choosing lower case eg "The rabbi of the Western Wall"

    ReplyDelete

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