Monday 9 March 2009

Oopsie-Beebs-a-blog™ - deliberately tasteless, or just stupid? (fixed)

dominoOh dear, I hate coming over all disapproving but I really thought this was a bit much: on the BBC News UK page, the little header thingy for the little taster thingy for a story about the possible consequences of the Antrim shootings read, for a while this afternoon, "Domino effect". In case you didn't realize, the soldiers killed were taking delivery of a delivery from a Domino's pizza, and the delivery drivers were also shot and injured.

On the other hand, the story to which the header referred, Fears for Army killings fall-out, does genuinely describe a concern about a possible domino effect or, perhaps better in this instance, chain reaction in which the shootings could lead eventually to the collapse of the Stormont government.

So the question really is whether it was a very stupid, tasteless attempt to be clever by pulling the Domino's name into it, or just a very stupid, clueless failure to think, by someone who had composed the line without knowing or remembering enough about the story to be safe in doing so. Either way, it seems a bit of a naff, tabloid-smelling performance from an organization which usually has much higher standards. 4/10 see me.

I should add that either lots of people (including me) moaned, or someone with more clue at the Beeb has had a look, as it has been changed. It now reads "Uncertain days" which is about ten million percent more acceptable, thank you Auntie.

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