The weirdness of BBC reporting

Just saw this article.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/tennis/19384811

It's staggeringly bland - as usual for BBC website reports - but that's not what's got my attention.

I only looked at it because on the main page it was advertised as "Momentum with Murray for US Open". I didn't know whether this was to be a cruel jibe at Andy for his negligible showings at Toronto and Cincinnatti, or just standard BBC newspeak where the Olympics would again trump the rest of the season. I assumed the latter.

It turns out I was wrong. The article didn't represent the concept of momentum at all. It touched on the poor US hardcourt results but dismissed them by reference to Murrays wN comments on Queens / Wimbledon. Fair enough, but therefore no momentum.

I just wonder about the calibre of person they let loose on their facility. There can't be any meaningful editorial overnight at all, unless provided by a chimp. There are a number of people on this forum who could do far better than the output of their tennis 'journalists'.

Increasingly in the media, headlines are often at complete odds with the content of the article. I suppose they just go with whatever is likely to generate the most interest so that people give their interest to the piece.

Unfortunately it often seems to work the other way with vast numbers of people quoting 'soundbites/headlines' about politics in particular - the scary thing is that if that is the sum total of their political consciousness, then those misleading headlines are the 'issues' on which they vote.

Anyway, I digress

I can't watch the interview clip in that article right now, but in Murray's official pre-tournament interview, he was asked about carrying on the momentum of Wimbledon & the Olympics. He answered that it had been a number of weeks since then & in sport that was a long time, that it had given him a bit more confidence, but he still neeed to keep his feet on the ground & working hard. All fair enough really.

So yes, the headline on the main page doesn't tie in with that.

I always prefer to read the whole interview transcript than the soundbites journalists take from them.

I totally agree on the journalistic standards. Everyone makes mistakes, but some of the mistakes I've seen recently in BBC tennis articles are so blatantly obvious that it does leave the impression that no-one proof reads them before they are published. There was one by the BBC chief sports writer during Wimbledon which suggested that Murray could face Nadal in the final (a week after Nadal lost in R2). Any review would have picked that up.

BB, I think you are being very charitable by merely calling it weird!

The number of factual errors they let through is astonishing. Only this week they were saying before the draw that Murray couldn't meet Fed until the final.

I think part of the problem for the BBC is that are understandably Andy-centric and on that front there is so little new say.

"Andy has a chance of winning his first slam but he's not the favourite". This statement would work as an accurate preview for almost any slam of the last 4 years. I don't think the BBC has either the resources or the desire to do much more than recycle that each tournament.

Look, it is a matter of budget. They probably get about 20 minutes to knock up an article, and 1 guy probably covers about 7 sports.

Great, so of they can't afford to do it properly why not stop and reduce the license fee? Right now it's a typical state sponsored organisation; drive by senior management aspiration ether than commercial value.

Would you pay to subscribe to the BBC given a choice? I wouldn't.

Well, I'm not sure I'd say he comes in with momentum because of his knee injury in Toronto and very odd performance against Chardy in Cincy... Perhaps if they'd said added confidence or more belief in his possibilities to win it after the summer he's had then that would have been more accurate.

If momentum could only be owned by one man then obviously it would be Roger as he also had a great summer but a far more successful transition to hard courts with his Cincy win.

I'm not a huge fan of the BBC's tennis coverage generally. But I have absolutely no problem with its bias towards Murray. It is British after all. And they do repetitively state that Murray is 3rd or 4th favourite in these slams.

Frankly, the BBC digital (what used to be Ceefax) coverage of tennis is awful. Old results staying up for days. New results not being posted.
It's usually better during a Slam, with latest scores going up and results put up quite quickly. But if you woke around 4.15am as I did today to check to see how Fed was doing, you would have seen the results page for the men had disappeared and I had to assume he'd won quite quickly as his match did not feature in the latest score pages either.
They' ve probably got some poor fellow trying to operate around 38 pages at once across a variety of sports.

Would you pay to subscribe to the BBC given a choice? I wouldn't.

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It's not right that we're not given a choice. They should have used the digital switchover to change to a subscription service where you enter a password once you've paid the license fee.

It is quite bizarre that you must pay for the BBC, if you want to own a television.