Facts matter

Charlie pointed out a CNN correction yesterday:

CNN correction: A previous version of this story misstated that Rep. Ted Lieu grabbed a crowbar before leaving his office. He grabbed a ProBar energy bar.

"This is how MSM can get stories badly wrong", he wrote. "It’s amusing but also concerning. CNN today corrected a story about the storming of Capitol Hill. Facts matter."

Less funny, but just as concerning is this from the BBC's Corrections and Clarifications page. 

I count three things that the BBC had to 'correct' and 'clarify' here, from just one programme - which is quite an achievement:

Talkback

BBC Radio Ulster, 5 January 2021

During a discussion on 5 January about how different governments have responded to Covid-19 we made [1] an inaccurate estimate of Israel’s population and [2] the number of its citizens who have received a Covid-19 vaccine. For clarity, Israel has a population of around 9 million, not six million as we had suggested. And around one fifth of Israeli citizens have received a Covid-19 vaccine at this stage - which is lower than the one third total we had mentioned. 

We note that whilst there has been some dispute about the Israeli government’s responsibility for vaccinating Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza, those Palestinians who live in East Jerusalem, or who hold Israeli citizenship, are covered by the roll-out of the government’s Covid-19 vaccination programme. [3] This distinction was not made clear in the brief exchanges between contributors on this issue - all of which took place in the context of other media reports about the speed, extent and effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccinations in Israel, relative to elsewhere. 

12/01/2021

Probably narrative-building again. 

"Diane Abbott doing your counting?"

This tweet from William Crawley's BBC Talkback programme didn't go down too well:

The long thread beneath the tweet illustrates the 'complaints from both sides' fallacy brilliantly:

One side points out that 'half a million people' is a fake figure, as even the organisers claimed around 100,000 people attended; the other side (many with #FBPE after their Twitter names) rails against the programme for using the phrase "the biggest moan-fest in history".

The point, as so often, is that those condemning the BBC for anti-Brexit bias here by asserting a massively inflated turnout for an anti-Brexit march have a genuine point (it is almost certainly utterly fake - probably out by a factor of five) while those condemning the BBC for pro-Brexit bias by moaning about the "moan-fest" phrase don't have a genuine point. 

Here are some examples from both sides:

• Well that escalated quickly. At the weekend the BBC reported this as no more than 100,000, now by the miracle of BBC journalism it's gone up to half a million??
• Factually incorrect and embarrassing tweet for the BBC. Even the organisers only claimed 100,000 (more like 20,000 max) so why say half a million.? Appalling reporting.
• Get your facts straight first....it wasn't half a million....
• Suddenly it's half a million? The British Bullsh*t Corporation strikes again...
• Half a million? When I read this I nearly spat out half of the 60,000 sausages I was having for my tea.
• Diane Abbott doing your counting?

and:

• When was the last time BBC described a 500,000 protest march as a “Moanfest”? 
• Usual biased BBC commentary, you really couldn't make it up. The once respected BBC now just an alt-right mouthpiece. #bbcbias
• Moan-fest? You wish...!
• Moanfest? Jesus thank god for an unbiased BBC...
• 'Moanfest' (what a patronising term!)
• This is appallingly. Under what authority do you feel enabled to smear it as a 'moan-fest'? At best this is lazy, pandering journalism seeking easy cliches. At worst this looks like craven prejudice. 100k to 500k passionately protested, you wouldn't smear other marches would you?

Of course, the latter crowd are missing the balancing part of the programme's question: "Is that the start of a great awakening?" That's where they're falling down, taking the validity of their point with them. Other might just as (unreasonably) moan about the BBC for daring to use the ridiculous phrase "the start of a great awakening" here.

Quite how such people missed that and managed only to notice the "moan-fest" bit is a question perhaps best left to psychologists (or psychiatrists).