What a Difference a Day Makes
BBC Very Wrong
Posted on 11 Jan 25
by Mark Hodgson
In a comment under Geoff Chambers’ article, Global Warmongering, I drew attention to a BBC Verify article which sought to rubbish President-Elect Trump’s criticisms of the situation relating to the terrible Los Angeles fires. It was headed “Fact-checking criticism of California Democrats over fires” and was clearly rushed out to defend California Democrats and to point out that (as the BBC sees it) that everything Mr Trump says is rubbish.
The BBC Verify fact-checking article is already, a little over 24 hours after it first saw the light of day, on its eighth iteration, according to News Sniffer (thank you Stew Green and Jit for drawing this to our attention). This story represents in a nutshell why we can’t trust the BBC, especially where stories about climate change and Donald Trump are concerned (it’s a perfect storm for the BBC when those two issues are combined in a single story).
Anyone reading my comments generally here at Cliscep and specifically under Geoff’s article, will readily appreciate that I am a long way from being Donald Trump’s greatest fan. However, my dislike of him, his behaviour, and many of his policies doesn’t blind me to the BBC’s blatantly obvious Trump Derangement Syndrome. In this case it has left the BBC Verify team (“BBC Verify is dedicated to examining the facts and claims behind a story to try to determine whether or not it is true”) with a lot of egg on its face, but the BBC hasn’t recognised this at all. Although the article has been repeatedly amended, nowhere in any of the versions is there an admission that this is so. I suppose admitting that BBC Verify’s articles have to be repeatedly amended in order to correct earlier errors wouldn’t exactly instil confidence in the Verify brand. Although there are various changes affecting different aspects of the story, for the sake of simplicity I concentrate on the fire hydrants issue.
https://cliscep.com/2025/01/11/what-a-difference-a-day-makes/
