BBC Newsnight’s editor, Peter Rippon, has posted a comment on Susan Watts’ blog attempting to explain the very strange ‘sound bite’ used in their report on President Obama’s inaugural speech which was discussed here.

33. At 4:44pm on 24 Jan 2009, PeterRipponEd wrote:
Hello All,

Re the opening of Susan’s piece. We did edit sections of the speech to reflect the elements in it that referred to Science. The aim was to give people an impression or montage of what Obama said about science in his inauguration speech. This was signposted to audiences with fades between each point. It in no way altered the meaning or misrepresented what the
President was saying. You can look for yourself above.

Apologies for not responding sooner. I thought I had. BBC Editors find this blogging software frustrating at times too.

Peter Rippon
Editor, Newsnight

Comment #33, here

If the reaction in the dozen or more comments that have already been posted in response are anything to go by, then he has failed to convince his readers.

I do not think that any viewer outside the Newsnight editing suite would recognise that the ‘sound bite’ was a montage, or that the extracts from the speech were separated by fades. And he also needs to explain why the extracts were arranged in a different order from the one in which they appear in the speech if this was intended as a montage.

Then there is the matter of Susan Watts opening remarks:

President Obama couldn’t have been clearer today. And for most scientists his vote of confidence would not have come a moment too soon.

In the eight years of the Bush presidency, the world saw Arctic ice caps shrink to a record summer low, the relentless rise of greenhouse gas emissions, and warnings from scientists shift from urgent to panicky.

How can this be explained if viewers were not intended to understand the ‘sound bite’ as two complete and consecutive sentences? Her opening remarks only make sense if the ‘sound bite’ is perceived in this way.

I sent a formal and detailed complaint to the BBC Trustees on Thursday, specifically asking for confirmation of receipt. So far I have heard nothing, but perhaps the trustees’ office have the same kind of trouble with electronic mail that Newsnight editors have with blogging software.

The BBC Trustees are responsible for ensuring that the corporation’s news and current affairs reporting is accurate and impartial, as their charter requires. This is a matter that must be dealt with by them. It is far too important to be settled by a cheery comment from Peter Rippon on a blog.

Natalie Solent has an excellent post about this at Biased BBC.

Climate-Resistance also has a very thoughtful post which covers other aspects to Susan Watts’ report too.