Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Astoundingly Poor on other continents, too


A non-LatAm OT, courtesy of kind reader and always entertaining mailer 'JR'. Let's not beat around the bush, let's just get the BBC to tell it as it is:

The Associated Press (AP) news agency has accidentally published internal notes about the arrest of film director Roman Polanski instead of a story.

The document details an exchange of messages between reporters about Mr Polanski, who was held in Switzerland and faces extradition to the US.

In the note, one reporter asks if his colleague can "do some more probing" and speculates that Switzerland was under pressure from the US.

AP swiftly filed a replacement article.

The mistake came to light on 27 September, with the headline "Swiss arrest Polanski on US request in sex case".

But rather than a conventional news story, the post contained basic information as to when the press conference would start, and then continued, saying the reporter would "push out another writethru [sic] with some more background details before press conference", while a colleague wondered if the Swiss were under "intense pressure" and whether they wanted "to throw the US a bone".

Sent in error, the copy was picked up by the Google News service, as well as being automatically posted to a number of yada yada continues here