Sky News | The New York Times | "The Daily Show" | Time
The BBC has reached a settlement with Lord McAlpine, the politician it erroneously fingered as a sexual predator in a report on its "Newsnight" program.

But how did the BBC botch that report so soundly -- especially after after it killed a "Newsnight" story about a BBC presenter credibly accused of pedophilia?

It's not for lack of editorial process, Sarah Lyall and Nicholas Kulish write: After a 2004 scandal,

The corporation also appointed a deputy director general in charge of news operations; established a “journalism board” to monitor editorial policy; issued numerous new guidelines on journalistic procedures; and put an increasing emphasis on “compliance” — a system in which managers are required to file cumbersome forms flagging dozens of potential trouble spots, from bad language to “disturbing content” like exorcism or beheadings, in every program taped for broadcast.

(more...)

Telegraph | Broadcast | Eyes to the right
BBC News Acting Director Fran Unsworth is drawing the scorn of the Internet Tuesday morning after asking the staff not to tweet or talk publicly about the organization's ongoing scandals.

"It would be helpful if some of our problems were not played out publically across social media and in the pages of the national press," Unsworth wrote, according to the Telegraph. "We need a collective and collegiate sense of all pulling together to restore trust in the BBC’s news output."

The full email was reprinted by Broadcast magazine. (more...)

Phillip Mendonça-Vieira
Phillip Mendonça-Vieira attracted some attention when he posted a video of about 12,000 versions of The New York Times home page over about nine months, so he gave the BBC News home page the same treatment. The videos capture the differences in how the two news organizations follow major breaking stories like the Japan tsunami and the Arab Spring. "The thing that stands out the most in comparison to the nytimes is how the BBC's editors behave more placidly in their content curation," he writes. "Where the nytimes crams its homepage with as much information as possible, the BBC picks the most important story of the day and runs with it." The difference is evident in the coverage of the Chilean miners' rescue, with the BBC News home page relatively static compared the Times' rapid-fire updates. "One pleasant upshot of this, however, is that the nytimes' homepage is more dramatic. If I want to know the most important story of the day, the BBC will do me right. If I want to follow an event with bated breath I might be better served by the nytimes." || Related: Pushback to ‘redesigned’ New York Times website; designer accuses critics of "libelous journalism" (more...)