Thursday 27 June 2013

"And now in the newspapers, another repeat"

From The Daily Mail:

A staggering 63 per cent of newspaper articles about the BBC last year were repeats, it has been revealed.

Editors were forced to admit the majority of their coverage in 2012 was taken directly from the BBC's own press releases, raising questions about how their cover price is being spent and journalists' commitment to original thought.

The figure was unearthed by Freedom of Information requests to the newspaper groups about the make up of their reviews of programming on BBC1, BBC2, BBC3 and BBC4.

The average level of rehashed press releases from all four channels was 63 per cent - up two per cent on 2011. Amazingly, a third of of all articles about programmes on flagship channel BBC1 simply trotted out the BBC's own self-penned pre-reviews - a total of 2,793 in 2012.

The BBC also saw a huge leap in its own commentary on itself being faithfully republished by Fleet Street, with more than half of articles being word-for-word copies of viewer complaints, statements of resignations by senior figure and apologies for the Savile affair.

Rather infuriatingly, 32 per cent of articles in major newspapers were repeats of earlier articles criticising the number of repeats on the BBC.

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