BBC write article on searching Google
OK, the BBC have been pissing me off for a while now. It all started when I began checking the news every other day. I would read an average of 5 articles every other day and an average of 3 of them contained spelling or grammatical errors that should have never happened.
I had been holding off writing about this as I thought it would seem that I was just bitching, but then I saw an article today that I really want to rip to shreds.
At the end of the day, this is pathetic journalism and yes, I will pull them for it.
The article in question is titled “Are search engine result figures accurate?“.
In the article, Ruth Alexander talks about search results (yes, with all that is going on in the world, this really is cutting edge journalism!). I will quote what the article says and then explain why they are talking bullshit.
It’s also worth mentioning that I searched for myself and got 68 million web page results.
Firstly, the screenshot within the article shows very clearly “about 69,200,000″. Learn your numbers, 69,200,000 is 69 million and not 68 million.
Secondly, they did not search for them self, they searched for any pages containing their first and last name, both of which are common first names.
I’ve written no books, starred in no films, and you’ve probably never heard of me. And yet I’m massive on the web.
No you are not. They simply searched for any pages that contained the word “ruth” and “alexander”.
Or, more likely, my secret to search engine success is to have a name made up of two popular first names.
It is not a secret, but a failure in the journalists understanding of the subject matter. Nor is it a success. In fact, it is a rather large failure. Had you searched for your name properly, you would have seen that there are “about 230,000 results” (shown in the screenshot I took which you can see to the right) according to Google, not 68 Million or 69 Million!
You might think that if a search engine tells you it’s returned, say, 68 million results, there are 68 million pages you could, in principle, view.
Not necessarily so.
A study comparing results from three search engines for queries that generated fewer than 1,000 results, found that even the best-performing search engine was pretty rough and ready in its calculations.
Wrong again. Going back to that screenshot, it very clearly shows “about 69,200,000″. You may want to grab a dictionary and look up the word “about”! However, I am certain from reading other BBC articles that the vast majority of journalists do not know how to use a dictionary or a spelling/grammar checker.
This is nothing less than irresponsible journalism. I am not a journalist, but I did do media studies which covered journalism.
The BBC used to be a shining example of sterling journalism, but now it is a shining example of poor understanding of the subject matter, research and journalism.