Sunday 30 May 2010

Misleading Headlines R Us...


Except if you read the story...
The vessel's crew had left their microphone on, blocking channel 16 off the Kent coast, which is used for distress calls.

All Dover coastguard staff could hear was Radio 2 on in the background so they called the BBC, who made the appeal on Ross's show during a news bulletin.

A Dover coastguard spokesman said the vessel blocked the channel for around three hours but has now moved out of range as it travels north, but it could cause further problems in the Thames coastguard area.
In other words, the appeal had zero effect. Nowhere does it say that as a result of the appeal, they stopped broadcasting...

No wonder no-one wanted to put their name to the story!

3 comments:

microdave said...

It's not the first time something like this has happened. I imagine the crew (or most of them) are non English speakers, and that's why the "appeal" had no effect.

JuliaM said...

Could be, or it could be that while they had Radio 2 on, they weren't actually actively listening to it at all!

Umbongo said...

Or maybe, since it was on the BBC, they didn't believe it.