The unwritten rule of writing news is that news is news. Not comment. News. Facts, facts, facts and reportage, but never, ever, comment.
The BBC is very good at this, as evidenced by the fact that it can be self-critical in its own reportage without any sign of irony, defensiveness, or watering down of the facts, no matter how painful.
Sometimes, though, you wonder whether its reporters are slipping in a sneaky one behind a sub-editor’s back. Here’s a good example, from a story published yesterday about L’Oreal being knuckle-rapped for giving Penelope Cruz false eyelashes in an ad for mascara that made your eyelashes look 60% longer.
It also ruled the adverts “did not make clear that the claim referred to an increase in the ‘appearance’ of lash length”.
In the commercial for L’Oreal Paris Telescopic mascara, Cruz stood on a terrace next to a telescope and said: “Imagine, lashes that could reach for the stars.”
That, in its most subtle sense, is a direct news translation of the phrase ‘and if you believe that you’ll probably believe anything’.
Good old BBC.
The original story is here.
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