Breaking news: a little more transparency?
Another breaking news story on the BBC, this time concerning an attack on the author Sir Salman Rushdie, in New York. This time, however, the footnote advises not only that this is a breaking story to be updated, but also that refreshing the page will bring the most recent version. With neither clarification as to what's been updated or corrected, nor any edit timestamp as to when it occurred. Naturally. (rolleyes)
The BBC must think that someone, somewhere is so invested in this story that they'll keep the page open, rather than just moving on. It takes all sorts, I guess. (shrug)
I'm travelling at the moment, and cannot follow the updates, nor when the story is no longer noted as breaking. But we may come back to it later, to see how it's status is being reported: the article, that is, not the events themselves.
It's all over now. At least, I think it is. The breaking news advisory has gone. I don't know what changed in the interim, or when. Nevermind, such are the ways of the world's most trusted international news broadcaster
™.
This kinda gave me pause for thought though:
The interviewer who was also on stage, Henry Reese, suffered a minor head injury and was taken to a local hospital. Mr Reese is the co-founder of a non-profit that provides sanctuary to writers exiled under threat of persecution.
Sam Cabral, BBC News
That's gotta make those writers just a little more nervous now, given the circumstances. (pipe)
Same shtick, with a breaking story on the husband of Scotland's ex-first minister being caught with his hand in the till.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.
Someone at MostTrustedInternationalNewsBroadcaster Towers considers this story so compelling that readers will keep the page open, rereading it, trying to spot the latest updates, rather than moving on and perhaps returning later. If ever.
And in the time it took me to put that together, the story is no longer being updated: the breaking news advisory had been removed. Except I've just refreshed the page once again, out of curiosity, and it altered before my very eyes. The article is now longer, much longer, than it was only a few moments ago. I wish I'd done a word count, but I estimate that it's grown at least threefold. (rolleyes)
Naturally, none of that transparency shit to confuse the reader; no edit details—time stamps and change notes—are included. Which makes me wonder what the point of the breaking news advisory is, and why it's removed before the news has stopped breaking and the story's finalised. We may never know.
Verily, you have to be quick to keep up with the world's most trusted international news broadcaster
™, an' no mistake.