A history lesson
Broadcaster gets apology from BBC as history repeats itself
Here's a news item which is quite amusing to read since it is obvious that only a junior researcher would make such a fundamental mistake as to plagiarise whole sections of an established documentary, but there are two important lessons that the BBC ought to have learnt from the whole incident and other broadcasters should treat this incident seriously instead of simply taking delight in the BBC's discomfort.
Firstly, the BBC documentary was billed as being "Written and presented by Dan Cruickshank" whereas it transpired that it turned out to be not entirely the case - how much of a documentary has to be physically written by someone before a programme maker can claim that it was "written" by them? As a viewer, when I see someone like Dan Cruickshank present a programme I expect that person to have done at least some of the basic research since they appear to be the 'authority' on the subject.
Secondly, and perhaps the most important point to be drawn from the whole incident is that it is very difficult to produce good factual programming on a budget, and the BBC's recent cutbacks in research staff appear to be even more badly judged in the light of this incident, even if they are totally unrelated.
