BBC Bollocks

The trouble with sensationalist headlines is that they can create false assumptions among readers. Take this screamer, which was posted earlier today on the BBC News website:

Iran Celebrates Global Meltdown

For much of the day, this was among the most-read stories on the BBC site, and with good reason. It's eye-catching and evocative, conjuring up images of an evil dictators rubbing his hands with glee and ululating minions dancing in the street as piles of now-useless dollar bills go up in flames. It certainly doesn't do much to counterbalance the country's image as a founder member of the Axis of Evil...

And yet.

Click through to the story itself, and you'll find a rather different image. Yes, there's a cleric publicly relishing the downfall of the US economy. But the rest of the article is all about the inner workings of the Tehran Stock Exchange and Iranian economic policy.

The problem is, of course, that most people can't be bothered to trawl through a turgid 1,000-word piece on the Iranian banking system, and instead are much more likely to form their opinions based on the headline alone. And the headline, in this case, is completely misleading. To say nothing of the questions it raises about bias and subjectivity in journalism.

I had expected more of the BBC, which is supposedly a bastion of serious journalism and which is also partly behind a bill sent to me in the post this week asking for A HUNDRED AND FORTY QUID to maintain their supposedly impeccable standards. Harrumph.