Sunday, May 28, 2006

BBC Blusters With Bogus News

The BBC is running a story about how British soliders are deserting in record numbers, except that the BBC itself rebuts its own blockbuster headline - with a story from 2000.

Why would the BBC run a clearly bogus story that any fact checker would have come across in the BBC archives from just a few years ago? Could it be some of that nonexistent media bias?

The BBC report from June 4, 2000 notes that the desertion rate for the British military was 2,000 for the year 1999. The 2006 BBC report touting record desertion rates? It claims that there was 1,000 desertions since the war in Iraq started in 2003.

In other words, just over 300 British soldiers deserted per year since 2003, and this is a record increase over the 2,000 soldiers deserting in 1999? Sounds like the BBC needs remedial math lessons in addition to lying to make a story.

If anything, this further suggests that morale is not adversely affected by the ongoing conflict in Iraq. Fewer desertions suggests that the British military had addressed the underlying concerns that resulted in 2,000 soldiers deserting in 1999 so that the British military is dealing with an average of fewer than 350 soldiers deserting in each year since 2003.

Biased BBC calls this the BBC deserting its former journalistic standards. Agreed. Secular Blasphemy wonders who's doing the fact checking at the Beeb. Apparently no one.

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