# Does news.bbc.co.uk even \_have\_ a proofreader? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 22, 2008, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-news-bbc-co-uk-even-_have_-a-proofreader/460911 "2008-08-22T09:13:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2008, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-news-bbc-co-uk-even-_have_-a-proofreader/460911/1 "2008-08-22T09:13:31Z")
It’s my favourite source of online news, but come on BBC, I feel embarrased for my country when I see how often you make stupid and glaring spelling and grammar mistakes in your articles. Even spelling people’s names incorrectly. I know you are ‘uniquely funded’ but you should be doing better than this. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2008, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-news-bbc-co-uk-even-_have_-a-proofreader/460911/2 "2008-08-22T09:17:55Z")
Yes, I have been meaning to say this exact thing for a long time. You took the words right out of my mouth. What the fuck? I’m astonished that such a prestigious news source has such amazingly sloppy editing. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2008, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-news-bbc-co-uk-even-_have_-a-proofreader/460911/3 "2008-08-22T10:27:15Z")
[QUOTE=Lobsang] It’s my favourite source of online news, but come on BBC, I feel embarrased for my country when I see how often you make stupid and glaring spelling and grammar mistakes in your articles. Even spelling people’s names incorrectly. I know you are ‘uniquely funded’ but you should be doing better than this. [/QUOTE] Yes. It’s really ‘embarrasing’. ---
**Author:** ![Petrobey\_Mavromihalis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bcef8e/32.png) [@Petrobey\_Mavromihalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Petrobey_Mavromihalis)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2008, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-news-bbc-co-uk-even-_have_-a-proofreader/460911/4 "2008-08-22T10:49:41Z")
Now that someone’s pointed out your typo we can proceed! Have you got any examples? Not saying you’re not right, but it’s not something I’ve noticed, and I look at the site every day. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2008, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-news-bbc-co-uk-even-_have_-a-proofreader/460911/5 "2008-08-22T11:00:41Z")
[QUOTE=Petrobey Mavromihalis] Now that someone’s pointed out your typo we can proceed! Have you got any examples? Not saying you’re not right, but it’s not something I’ve noticed, and I look at the site every day. [/QUOTE] The BBC news web site contains hundreds of thousands of words, maybe millions and has the odd typo. The OP a couple of dozen words yet can’t manage to proof-read them. I’m just a big fan of irony. ---
**Author:** ![SpaceDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spacedog/32/9932_2.png) [@SpaceDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpaceDog)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2008, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-news-bbc-co-uk-even-_have_-a-proofreader/460911/6 "2008-08-22T11:55:56Z")
[QUOTE=Lobsang] Does [news.bbc.co.uk](http://news.bbc.co.uk) even _have_ a proofreader? [/QUOTE] Eh, quite probably not. Their tagline is “updated every minute of every day”, the whole idea is to get the news out there first. So I imagine that, no, they don’t have someone proofreading stories before the hit the site. Once stuff is on the site it’s generally read and corrected overtime. So high profile, highly edited stories (The Olympics, Gary Glitter, whatever) have more errors in them and you’re more likely to see those errors if you’re reading them. I’m happy with that, it’s a fluid medium it’s not like making a mistake in a newspaper. SD ---
**Author:** ![slaphead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@slaphead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slaphead)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2008, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-news-bbc-co-uk-even-_have_-a-proofreader/460911/7 "2008-08-22T12:25:32Z")
A tenuous link to an article about spelling, but just because I love the title… [You write potato, I write ghoughpteighbteau](http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11920829) ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2008, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-news-bbc-co-uk-even-_have_-a-proofreader/460911/8 "2008-08-22T14:49:19Z")
[QUOTE=tagos] The OP a couple of dozen words yet can’t manage to proof-read them. I’m just a big fan of irony. [/QUOTE] 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Petrobey\_Mavromihalis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bcef8e/32.png) [@Petrobey\_Mavromihalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Petrobey_Mavromihalis)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2008, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-news-bbc-co-uk-even-_have_-a-proofreader/460911/9 "2008-08-22T15:28:34Z")
[QUOTE=Bosstone] 😃 [/QUOTE] To be fair, **tagos** ’ post could have an ‘elided has’ (I might just have made up this term). Eg. ‘Jane has two apples. Peter seven.’ It certainly works in spoken English. If not then this thread is just one big example of Gaudere’s Law. ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2008, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-news-bbc-co-uk-even-_have_-a-proofreader/460911/10 "2008-08-22T15:46:13Z")
I don’t publish my words on an internationally read news website. I think I am entitled to make the odd mistake. I read [news.bbc.co.uk](http://news.bbc.co.uk) every day and I spot grammar, spelling, or punctuation errors all the time. The recent example was that they spelled Nastia Liukin’s last name as “Lukin” right underneath a picture, underneath the article title, which they got right. ---
**Author:** ![Hokkaido\_Brit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/d26b3c/32.png) [@Hokkaido\_Brit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hokkaido_Brit)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2008, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-news-bbc-co-uk-even-_have_-a-proofreader/460911/11 "2008-08-23T02:34:54Z")
I was reading the Times Online last night and there was a perfectly captioned photo (with the same wording) but the headline read “Students celebrate there results”. AGGGGH! Get back to school yourself! ---
**Author:** ![Lo-Slung\_Denim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f6c823/32.png) [@Lo-Slung\_Denim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lo-Slung_Denim)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2008, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-news-bbc-co-uk-even-_have_-a-proofreader/460911/12 "2008-08-23T08:35:32Z")
I’ve noticed this too. BBC News is my homepage. They also have a bad habit of leaving off full stops at the end of sentences. It’s an annoying habit because it just leaves the article dangling 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Indian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@Indian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indian)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2008, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-news-bbc-co-uk-even-_have_-a-proofreader/460911/13 "2008-08-23T09:27:48Z")
I saw this in Beeb about 2 years ago … U K government took a decision to raise pension age of staff. If I remember correctly it was to take place in year 2046 . Their website carried the news as **" pension age raised to 2046 "**. 😃 :smack: I kept refreshing the page every 5 minutes to see , if they corrected the mistake. It wasn’t changed for about 30 minutes or so, when I had to log out ! Late in the night I saw that they corrected it. Anyone else seen this ?? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2008, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-news-bbc-co-uk-even-_have_-a-proofreader/460911/14 "2008-08-24T03:58:55Z")
They just keep writing “labour” and “colour” and “defence” as if they thought those were actually the right spellings, don’t they? Drives ya nuts sometimes. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2008, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-news-bbc-co-uk-even-_have_-a-proofreader/460911/15 "2008-08-24T16:25:53Z")
I kind of like the BBC News’ lack of proofreading, if only because it led to the funniest thing I have ever read on a serious news website. Years ago, they had an article about people who have a phobia about crossing bridges. There were several accompanying pictures of famous bridges. The captions were all things like “Heeeeeeeelp meeeeee!!!” and “Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!” It was awesome. Sadly, about half an hour later, some killjoy editor changed the captions to something more sedate. ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2008, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-news-bbc-co-uk-even-_have_-a-proofreader/460911/16 "2008-08-24T16:47:17Z")
[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves] They just keep writing “labour” and “colour” and “defence” as if they thought those were actually the right spellings, don’t they? Drives ya nuts sometimes. [/QUOTE] And thei downt eeven bother to maek the werds b speld how liek thei sownd. ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2008, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-news-bbc-co-uk-even-_have_-a-proofreader/460911/17 "2008-08-24T16:48:31Z")
(Now freddie. Just because you don’t have an account, doesn’t mean you can use mine) ---
**Author:** ![Merhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@Merhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merhouse)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2008, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-news-bbc-co-uk-even-_have_-a-proofreader/460911/18 "2008-08-24T20:56:51Z")
Hey, “Taleban” is one of those new-fangled words that have just come into wide usage. I can understand them missing something like that. ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2008, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-news-bbc-co-uk-even-_have_-a-proofreader/460911/19 "2008-08-27T03:22:38Z")
Even forgetting about the minor errors, the writing is embarrassingly bad sometimes. I used to have BBC News along with several other news sources on my feed-reader, but after about a week or two of reading articles with glaringly obvious biases, factual errors, or simply ones that raised more questions than they answered, I took it off my list. For some reason I thought BBC had a reputation for good news reporting, but if it ever did good work that time is long gone now. ---
**Author:** ![Petrobey\_Mavromihalis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bcef8e/32.png) [@Petrobey\_Mavromihalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Petrobey_Mavromihalis)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2008, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-news-bbc-co-uk-even-_have_-a-proofreader/460911/20 "2008-08-27T20:02:17Z")
[QUOTE=Sleel] For some reason I thought BBC had a reputation for good news reporting, but if it ever did good work that time is long gone now. [/QUOTE] Out of interest, who do you turn to for factual news? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-news-bbc-co-uk-even-_have_-a-proofreader/460911.md?page=2)