SKEWED SUBTITLES – FAKE NEWS OR ALTERNATIVE FACTS?

In these challenging times as the cost-of-living crisis deepens, at least TV subtitles have a way of helping us to stay cheerful…

Following an earlier blunder on its News, Sport and Weather channels that quoted Jeremy Corbyn praising Prince Harry and “Hezbollah”, rather than “Harry and his brother”, the BBC apologised after a message appeared on the news channel saying: “Manchester United are rubbish”.

The text mistakenly popped up on the news ticker at the bottom of the screen during a tennis update. The culprit, it later transpired, was a trainee who was being shown how to write stories on to the ticker, believing that they were not going out for broadcast. They had also written the disappointingly accurate: “Weather rain everywhere”. Better to stick to weather forecasts, then?

The general consensus was that this was a lucky escape for the BBC, with the former presenter Simon McCoy saying: “This could have been so much worse.” Like when the caption confused two stories: one concerning David Davis’s resignation from Theresa May’s cabinet and another the rescue of schoolboys trapped in a flash flood. The caption read: “Brexit Secretary Resigns: Eight people remain inside the cave”.

Nuff said.

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