The BBC used to produce some of the best comedy series – but now many of the “comedians” seem to have moved to the news division.
To make things more perplexing, they appear not to – or not want to – understand humor. Now they (pretend?) not to understand content produced by obviously parody accounts, and (pretend?) to be taking them seriously.
So now, critically minded observers are not laughing with the BBC, but at them, especially when the BBC comes out with a deceptive podcast episode (based on parody content, falsely framed as “serious news).
The target: the highly likely US presidential candidate Donald Trump.
It’s one thing to not like Trump – but is it worth, so to speak, “burning your own house down?” In this case, what remains of BBC’s once commanding credibility?
And yet the situation is actually no laughing matter, in terms of free speech and free press. Unsatisfied with turning out questionable, in terms of bias, and just clickbaity content these last years, the BBC News would clearly like to establish itself as an arbiter of truth for other media to follow. Absurd, or what?
This is bad all over, including by the very “standards” of those on whose team the BBC plays, who like to say they protect “trustworthy and authentic journalism.”
Well, this ain’t it: the once-renowned broadcaster attempted to stun “the enemy” by churning out a deceptive “scoop” on its flagship Panorama program, and also branding itself as the said self (?) appointed “arbiter of truth.”
That was going down via the use of, the “Content Credentials standard from Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity” (Adobe, Microsoft, and Google being some other members).
The “scoop,” meanwhile, was Trump supporters allegedly “creating and sharing AI-generated fake images of black voters to encourage African Americans to vote Republican.”
The cringe caused by the savior complex aside – i.e., “strongly suggesting” to black Americans what they should or should not do or be, in political terms – it turns out that the key “proof” of any of this was an image with a visible “parody account” watermark.
Shockingly shoddy work, BBC.
Then other “leading” outlets, however, got the memo (possibly, literally). The Guardian, MSNBC, the Independent, the Hill. They all led with pretty much the same – not to put too fine a point on it – ludicrous story.
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