Thursday 15 December 2011

Journalism at Its Worst

This piece on the BBC website purporting to be news is probably the worst piece of journalism I've seen, ever.

Actually the name for it is "Churnalism", where propaganda or press release is regurgitated verbatim as news.

How else would the article state that "Low Carbon technology will not Mean Big Bill Rises"? As we know, any charge made upon the generating companies such as being forced to pay for carbon credits is instantly passed on to the consumer. With feed in tariffs for the wind farms adding to the cost for the consumer as well, its a spurious claim that green technology doesn't add to the cost of energy.

Unless of course you think like the weasel-wordy PR-men. Then you realise the important part of the phrase above is "technology". Yes, possibly the technology on its own may not add to the cost (but to be honest the huge cost of building offshore windfarms in my mind still negates the phrase.), but what the statement is saying is blame the government: in other words, the technology isn't expensive (yeah, right), but its the government legislation that is adding to the cost.

Like I said, its journalism at its worst: PR passed off as news. The BBC should be ashamed.

No comments:

Post a Comment