BBC Uphold Bologna Floods Complaint
November 9, 2023
By Paul Homewood
https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/av/65640935
Could it be that the BBC is starting to take complaints more seriously since Tim Davie took direct charge of oversight?
You will probably remember my complaint in May following the Bologna floods, about the claim that of “half annual rainfall in 36 hours”, something there was no evidence for.
The BBC have now upheld my complaint, and admitted it was wrong:
Maybe Chris Fawkes will be a bit more careful next time he decides to make baseless claims!!
41 Comments
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Well done Paul!
Seconded!
Thirded
Can I come fourth?
The BBC absolve the presenter, but will they make sure their support teams who write the rubbish be given a talking to? (Answers on a postage stamp….)
Well done in getting that correction.
However it is still full of BBC weasel words and excuses. The one that annoys me most is “we’re just reporting what experts/politicians said” implying that it is reasonable to do this without verification.
Keep up the good work.
No correction on the actual page in question yet
I found it but had to do some digging. It’s in a PDF file for the end of Oct-First of Nov. Pretty much mirrors the language here to make it sound s trivial as they can.
‘We were just reporting what experts/politicians said, especially as they agreed with our biased viewpoint’.
” “we’re just reporting what experts/politicians said” ”
Believe! You must believe!
Please keep the spotlight on the BBC Paul.
Congratulations. Perhaps they will be quicker to correct their mistakes in future as well as being less inclined to make them.
I’ve got one outstanding from 7th Nov 2022 that hasn’t yet received its ‘Stage 1b’ response!
It’s a factual complaint, so they have no wriggle-room based on opinion or speculation.
Time to jog their memory?
IDAU
Have done.
I’m about to raise another complaint about the time the BBC takes to resolve complaints contravenes the Beeb’s own Guidelines on response times! 😉
Hi Joe re the article https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-67105363 (13th October) – Georgina Rannard not knowing even basic science, I got a reply 7th November as follows.
“This is an update from the BBC Complaints team.
We wanted to let you know that we have referred your complaint to the relevant people and are still looking into it. We regret that it may take a little bit longer before we can reply. Please wait to hear from us before you contact us any further – we appreciate your patience.
Although we reply to most complaints within 2 weeks we cannot achieve this every time. It depends on what your complaint was about and how many others we are handling, or may sometimes be due to issues outside of our control. Sometimes it can take a while to hear back from the key people involved, but we often find the wait is worth it.”
Interesting that they replied fairly quickly to you but seem to be dragging their heels with me – perhaps they realised the response to you was somewhat inadequate.
All I can add is their response to me had better be worth the wait!
If a report from a third party fits their alarmist agenda, the BBC take it as gospel. It’s akin to hearsay and shouldn’t be accepted without verification from other sources. We should not be compelled by law to pay for this propaganda.
It’s rather like the BBC News takes the casualty numbers from Hamas as gospel.
Goodness what a laboured response from the BBC. No wonder they are so late in responding.
Yes, I thought the same. It reminded me of a translation of Chekhov’s maxim that “brevity is the handmaiden of talen”t. Doubtless the BBC rendition of what in the original Russian is only three words would be “the ability to say what you want in as few words as possible may well be shown by fact checkers to be the basis of the exposition of a fruitful mindset”.
Many thanks, Paul. Please keep up the good work.
And many thanks from me Down Under, although I cannot see the ABC (or BBC-lite as I refer to it – not that I never watch it but the denizens of Canberra do. Probably why that was why they were the only part of Australia to vote for the recent referendum which failed by over 60% against it everywhere else).
I doubt there will ever learn and the BBC either.
I fell asleep before I got to the part where they said you’re right.
Well done Paul….. I gave up my TV licence 5 years ago because of the outrageous bias of the BBC ( and other channels)…. I’m currently staying in a hotel in Bournemouth that has BBC 24 hours news on the TV in reception…. I’ve learnt in just 15 minutes that all the forests in the UK are on the brink of collapse and 2023 is going to be the hottest on record!!
It beggars belief!!!!
The BBC should offer guidance as to which politicians making statements it will believe, and which it will disbelieve. We know what Vorderman thinks. Would she trust an Italian?
Excellent work Paul.
“Rely on a government minister…reported by reputable sources”?
What utter nonsense. And why take what a minister says as true for this, when the BBC endlessly questions government ministers on other stuff?
Mr Fawkes made this statement to great many people, how many people will know that his statement had been untrue.
Do you suppose Tim Davie takes a look at Paul’s website here just to check on how his response is going down with the licence payers? If I were him I would. Maybe learn a lesson?
Possibly wishful thinking but I have noticed a change in stance by the BBC in treating complaints. I have just complained about this article being factually wrong and misleading as follows.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1w2l71jnnqo
“Article states “Butterflies spotted in November ‘very worrying'”
It continues:
“Four Red Admiral butterflies were spotted in Cambridgeshire in November
It is a “rarity” to see any butterflies at this time of year as they usually hibernate
Buglife says it is a “worrying” sign that nature is going “out of sync” due to climate change”
All of which is incorrect.
https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wildlife-explorer/invertebrates/butterflies/red-admiral
“The red admiral is an unmistakable garden visitor. This black-and-red beauty may be seen feeding on flowers on warm days all year-round….When to see
January to December.”
Your article’s authors do not appear to have any qualifications in this subject and are simply quoting an environmental organisation without checking the accuracy of their claim. i.e.
“Paul Hetherington from Buglife Peterborough, external said the sighting was “a very uncommon occurrence for this time of year”.”
Is this Paul Hetherington an expert on butterflies? Or is he a fund raiser/activist and not particularly qualified at all to comment?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-hetherington-6741b612/?originalSubdomain=uk
{Educated to degree level with more than 20 years’ experience in marketing, including PR, digital, marcomms, fundraising, internal communications and campaigns.}
This article is incorrect and reads like an excuse to gratuitously put in the the term “climate change” where no such evidence exists. It fails to cite any recognised real scientific opinion and amounts to no more than hearsay from incentivised sources.
Red Admirals in November in Cambridgeshire is not indicative of “climate change” nor is it unusual.
This article reads like deliberate climate disinformation, is very poorly researched and should be withdrawn.”
I wonder how they will respond?
In addition to above I have also contacted Paul Hetherington to give him to clarify exactly what is attributable to him/his organisation as below.
“info.buglife.org.uk
Hi Paul
Regarding the following recent BBC article https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1w2l71jnnqo
The article quotes you as the source for much of the information. Can you confirm what are actually comments/quotes you made rather than general comments “superimposed” upon your name by the article’s authors please?
To clarify, as an example, “Paul Hetherington from Buglife Peterborough, said the sighting was “a very uncommon occurrence for this time of year”.
He said that it is a sign of climate change and “can only be down to the fact that it’s really not got that cold yet”.
Did you actually state the particular part “it is a sign of climate change” in this specific context or is that the author’s addition attached to your comment (put in quotation marks) about it not having got particularly cold yet.
Obviously Red Admiral butterflies are frequently seen all year round, always have been and in much cooler climate areas than Cambridge: “https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wildlife-explorer/invertebrates/butterflies/red-admiral
Clarification of which points and comments in the above article are genuinely and directly attributable to you/your organisation and those which are not originating from you/your organisation would be very useful.
Regards
Ray Sanders
The answers to your questions are eagerly awaited, but I best not hold my breath!
I can’t answer for Peterborough, Ray, but I can say that such a sighting would be most unusual in our garden in Burgundy, where daytime temperatures are still in the mid- to high-teens, after early October. In fact we wouldn’t expect to see any of the summer butterflies or the hawkmoths or carpenter bees between then and mid-March at the very earliest.
The occasional sighting on exceptionally warm days in December or late February is rare enough for madame to record it and the last such sighting (of a swallowtail) was in 2018.
To Mike Jackson, I can’t speak for Burgundy, but today in east Kent
I had two Red Admirals messing about in the somewhat chilly rain.
Unusual but by no means a rare occurrence.
A justifiable ‘complaint’, Ray.
“I wonder how they will respond?”
First, you’ll get the standard ‘office intern’ response that the BBC isn’t wrong.
Reject that, and a higher-level bod will ignore your salient points, and explain why ‘they’ think your claim is baseless.
Reject that, and the Beeb’s ECU will apologise and deign to admit that you may after all, have a small point.
What about the flooding of Florence in 1966?
Trying hard to empathise with a news organisation, their business is to fill TV time or news space with stuff to interest the punters (and crucially to encourage the advertiser to advertise), In their way of thinking an event is news and someone saying there is an event is just as much news as the event itself. Little distinction is made between the two and certainly scant regard for the substance behind the event or what was said about the event. In fact they seem to be taught at journalist school to avoid too much substance as this will turn off most of the punters. After all, analysis of the event or enquiries into the bona fides of the someone talking about the event are of a different nature to news; essentially they are not date stamped. And if they do stray into the meta-realms of what lies behind, it will be limited to some confection to justify why this item of information should stand out more than some other hence the preoccupation with its surprise value, being unprecedented or first or largest since… etc.
Just me trying to enter into the head of a news person.
What is conspicuous to this American is BBC’s fetish for not being wrong.
Cirrusly, you get a complaint, you hand it to an intern to check, they come back – in less than an hour – and say, “Yeah, we got that wrong.” Boss says, “Okay, thanks. I’ll contact the editor to fix it.” Editor says, “Okay, I’ll get someone on it right away.” The someone fixes it.
Process occurs in no more than one business day.
Someone sending you a letter two weeks later saying they are checking into is saying, “We aren’t checking into it. But thanks.”
SO WHAT IF YOU ARE WRONG ?!?! Your process has made it known to everyone that you are liars and YOU DON’T CARE.
George Orwell/Eric Blair based his “Ministry of Truth” in “1984” on his experiences of working for the BBC. Need I say more?
BBC perceives itself as Infallible. As do the Church and totalitarian states.
Yes, very much as Orwell depicted.
No doubt the climate hysterics and the covidians also consider themselves infallible?
No doubt, blueboy. Climate scientists say stupid, juvenile stuff, and go nuts if anyone disagrees with them. As if the ad hom “denier” is an argument. It does say, “We don’t have to talk with you. We’re in charge here.” Rather totalitarian of them.
So Chris Fawkes was wrong but for all the right reasons? So really, he did his best under the circumstances. I wonder if ‘lessons have been learnt’?
If he is a meteorologist he should no more be relying on what people who aren’t, than on sea-weed, pine cones, and his grandma’s lumbago accurately to report on weather conditions.