Slashdot Mirror
BBC Buys Google News Keywords In Kelly Case
foreign devil writes "BBC has purchased keywords related to coverage of the Hutton Inquiry in an attempt to direct all traffic to their special news coverage. This would be only moderately interesting, except the BBC is complicit in the death of Dr. Kelly and the 'sexing up' of the Iraq dossier. The article in the Guardian says this is coming out of the GBP 63.5m ad budget. I wonder how much it would cost them if someone, say, automated searching for those links on Google." It doesn't seem fair to pronounce the BBC complicit in Kelly's death (unless that's proven by the facts of the case), but it's certainly an interested party.
One could argue that the Beeb pushed Dr. Kelly to suicide, but calling them "complicit in ... the 'sexing up' of the Iraq dossier" is somewhat bizarre. Are we missing a relative clause here or what?
BBC should track the referrers. If the person comes from Google, instead of displaying a news page, they should display a giant banner proclaiming
"You are the victim of a shameless advertising experiment.
Footnote: We are not liable for any self-inflicted damage after reading this page"
webpage
The BBC didn't sex up the dossier. They accused the UK Goverment of doing so. The Hutton Report officially is released today, (28th Jan 2004), at 12:30[GMT]. One newspaper, (News International's The Sun), is claiming they have a leaked copy of said report, and according to them the BBCs reporter "Gilligan is effectively accused of LYING in a bombshell broadcast blaming Number Ten for "sexing up" a dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction." source http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2004041477,00.h tml
Buying Google keywords doesn't redirect searches. It just determines what sponsered links show up.
"BBC thinks palestinians who blow themselves (and innocent babies) are "freedom fighters""
history is written by the victors man. At one time a bunch of people hiding in the woods and sniping at officers was beyond reproach, and were the "terrorists" of their time. We here in the USA call them revolutionaries now, and revere them. During the civil war, the north took a radical step by attacking civilian and logistical targets instead of purely military ones. A move that would have been reviled had the north ended up losing, instead it's hailed as tactical genius.
Conventions of warfare go OUT THE WINDOW when you are faced with a militarial superior enemy. Calling palestinians freedom fighters is no more or less accurate than calling our american forefathers heroes.
Other information is there to be viewed but you dont have to click on the sponsored link, the option of where you want to follow up is up to you.
The danger is that the BBC is so large of a company and some feel that this move is not a sponsporship of events by their history division (for example) but rather to cull popular opinion to their spin of the story.
Let's keep in mind that patents are in place to keep lawyers employed and keep them litigating. -CatGrep
Reading this article I'm surprised that The Guardian (very respected UK daily newspaper) have missed one of the more important aspects of the BBC (must highly respected news broadcaster in the world) buying Google search keywords related to the Hutton inquiry. This action will cause the BBC to appear as a link on any website mentioning the Hutton inquiry that uses Google advertising banners on its pages, not just on Google search results pages.
... Google is automatically directed to a paid-for link to BBC Online's own news coverage of the inquiry."
In taking this action, the BBC will be inexorably linked with the Hutton inquiry as a source of information, rather than having an major role in the events that have led to it.
I would also question the use of the phrases "buying up all internet search terms relating to the inquiry" and "anyone searching for "Hutton inquiry" or "Hutton report" on
The first of these phrases implies the BBC is attempting to prevent others from using these keywords by buying Google's entire stock. This is obviously false, as anybody can buy Google's keywords and there is an unlimited supply.
The second of these phrases states that uses will atuomatically be directed to the BBC Online site when searching for 'Hutton enquiry'. This is blatantly false. Instead, a link to the BBC Online coverage will be displayed amongst a separate list of clearly demarcated sponsored links.
Buying advertising to negate the effect of negative crticism is a well-established business practice for which The Guardian (and indeed all other media which provide advertising facilities) have long served as a platform for.
What's far worse than the implied misdirection by the BBC in The Guardian's article is the blantant misreporting of opinion as fact in the Slashdot headline. Stating that the BBC is 'complicit' in the death of Dr Kelly is factually incorrect, not to mention libellous in the extreme.
It puts every fact - when issued by the Blair govt - in quotes, to make it look suspicious
Yea, that really bothers me too. Things like Saddams WMDs. I wish they had just reported as fact that Saddam had WMDs, like we did here in the US. It is totally rediculous that a news agency would question the government.
Yes but you can't argue with their amazing hard work and determination when it comes to investigative journalism. I mean finding an attractive British female for every issue is simply astounding.
The BBC didn't name Kelly. His name was leaked by the Goverment. He was subjected to Goverment's Foreign Affairs Committee on the 15th of July 2003, 24 hours later at the Goverments intelligence and Security Committee, the next day he was found dead. As for media attention it was a major part of his day to day life, there is plenty of evidence that Dr David Kelly met with a variety of journalists. "I have been involved with the press for ten to 12 years" - Dr David Kelly, FAC transcript Evidence from the Hutton Enquiry is here, with the report appearing at lunchtime in the UK. http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/
It's especially sad when someone reads one piece of propaganda and goes psycho without considering the motives behind it. The Guardian hates the BBC, and they along with Rupert Murdoch have been trying to get the British government to shut down the BBCs great website, so that more people go to their services.
What exactly is wrong with advertising your side of the story. Most advertisers are interested parties, and the article made it sound like they were preventing other voices from being heard, which is ridiculous.
Finaly
"I wonder how much it would cost them if someone, say, automated searching for those links on Google."
Absolutely nothing.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Erm, no. They call people who blow themselves up, "suicide bombers". They call the militants, "militants". In Iraq, they call the insurgents, "insurgents". Compare to the completely unbiased and independent American media, who refer to all of those under the collective term, "terrorists".
Has it occured to you, that they might be using quotes because they are quoting someone?
The coverage of the Dr. Kelly affair was incredibly poor. That's a large part of the Hutton Inquiry, right?
However, I get the impression, sir, that you are simply part of the angry right complaining that the BBC is not biased to the right enough.
It's a massive, disparate, semi-controlled corporation where one arm can frequently operate without the others being aware. There is the occasional shitstorm which flies up because of this (when, accidentally, the BBC 6 and 9 o'clock News programs almost entirely neglected the ruling Conservative Party's campaign in one election they went nuts and refused further interviews, threatened funding changes etc.) but on the whole the system balances out, given time.
Hutton is a big story in the UK. I don't work in News (thankfully) but I am willing to bet that what we have is an entirely regular attempt to drive traffic to the BBC for coverage of a major story. The BBC is an interested party, but news.bbc.co.uk couldn't give a damn about protecting Andrew Gilligan, broadcast news or any other part of the corporation.
In another situation, maybe you would have Conrad Black or Rupert Murdoch flaying the different section chiefs about contradictory coverage, or maybe not. But in the beeb, it simply doesn't happen. Nobody knows about anyone else's activities, and if they want to find out they've got to investigate, like journalists should. It's not efficient, but in terms of a free press, it's effecive.
The cretin who submitted this doesnt even live in the UK - he is an American who lives in San Francisco.
Quote : "the BBC is complicit in the death of Dr. Kelly and the 'sexing up' of the Iraq dossier."
Where does this idiot get his information from ? Yes, looking at this sentence, the BBC IS involved in the death of Dr. Kelly and the 'dossier' accusations, but only as a part of a whole, including the BBC senior management, the Government, MOD, some MP's and Dr. Kelly itself. And NO-ONE is directly accused of directly causing Dr. Kellys death - he committed suicide, end of story. The BBC's alleged involvement was to stand by an accusation against a government adviser of 'sexing up' an intelligence dossier, despite grave misgivings about the accuracy of the story.
I know news coverage in the US is poor, but I would suggest the original submitter tries to get some decent news coverage - BBC TV news (if you can get it in the US) still beats the pants off anything else you are likely to get for objectivity and editorial quality. I was also under the impression that the Guardian is a bit of a cheerleader for the BBC in general - public service broadcasting is something I would think the vast majority of it's readership support.