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Claims that the BBC “censored” footage of Boris and Carrie Johnson arriving at the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee thanksgiving service to remove audio of the crowd booing have been shared widely on social media.
Conversely, there have also been widespread claims that the BBC overemphasised the booing in the crowd in order to cast the Prime Minister in a negative light.
The truth is less exciting.
The core explanation is that the events at St Paul’s were being captured by different crews from different places, which picked up more or less booing or cheering.
The claim of censorship comes when comparing two instances where the BBC showed footage of the Prime Minister arriving at the service. In the first, the booing is quite prominent. In the replay a few minutes later, the booing is less pronounced.
That’s because the BBC had multiple filming crews and they used a clean feed for the replay. The reason they couldn’t use the original feed again is because presenter Jane Hill’s commentary was captured on the same feed as the booing. Using this again would have clashed with her ongoing interview.
We’ve put together a mock-up of what it might have sounded like if the BBC had used the audio from the first clip again for the replay 👇
[spoiler: it sounds like a complete mess]
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How it might have sounded using the original audio for the replay
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This has been corroborated by sound engineers on social media and a statement to Full Fact by the BBC. Those at the event can also, at the very least, confirm that loud boos were heard at St Paul’s.
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CORRECTIONS CORNER
PM (still) must correct the record on employment
We were pleased to see a letter sent to the Prime Minister this week demanding answers as to why he has still failed to correct the record on false employment claims.
This letter from MP Chris Bryant, which quoted Full Fact, follows cross-party work from Labour’s Stephen Timms and the Conservatives’ Sir Bernard Jenkin to seek a correction from the PM for his misuse of this statistic.
Regular readers will be well aware that Boris Johnson has, on ten occasions, falsely claimed in Parliament that more people are in employment now than there were before the pandemic.
If you agree that politicians should correct the record when they get things wrong, sign our petition demanding more honesty in politics.
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FACT CHECK
Survey of GPs’ retirement plans is not reliable
Following the publication of a survey by GP magazine Pulse, the Times ran the headline: “Almost half of family doctors plan to retire by 60, poll shows.”
But the survey didn’t use a representative sample of GPs, nor did Pulse adjust the results to make them more representative. As a result, its findings are not a reliable guide to GPs as a whole. This wasn’t explained in any of the media coverage.
The survey was self-selected (respondents volunteered to participate) and the responses were not weighted for age and gender in order to make the results more representative of GPs as a whole. This is not a reliable way to measure public opinion.
That said, it is certainly possible that at least 47% of GPs intend to retire at 60 or younger. Data obtained by an FOI request from the British Medical Journal found that the average age of retirement for doctors in general was 59 in 2020/21.
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JOBS
We're hiring a health fact checker!
Bad information ruins lives. Help us fight it. We're looking for someone to focus on medical misinformation to research and write fact checks, explainers and features.
💼 Health fact checker
💷 £35,000-40,000
⏳ 23 June
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MORE FACT CHECKS
Also this week...
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All the best,
Team Full Fact
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