BBC gets at least 75% of the story correct

By | June 5, 2002

BBC: “The United States served up one of the World Cup’s great upsets, as they out-fought Group D favourites Portugal to record a superb victory in Suwon.”

I can’t believe how many mistakes are in this BBC report. Basic things like saying the cross on the third goal was from Stewart when it was from Sanneh. ” An excellent cross from Stewart drifted over Baia and unmarked McBride headed in the United States’ third…” This mistake is compounded by the later quote from McBride where he talks about the cross that came from Sanneh.

Also, their transcription of the quote from McBride is comically inaccurate, although I have seen the same error in other stories, too.

From their story: “McBride’s header ultimately proved the winner, and afterwards he hailed the old college routine that created it.” and “The ball got wide to Tony (Sanneh) and we played a Milwaukee Rampage right out of college.

McBride actually said something more like “we played for the Milwaukee Rampage right out of college.” The Milwaukee Rampage is a second division pro soccer team in the US. McBride and Sanneh played for Milwaukee before Major League Soccer came into existence in 1996 as a first division league.

While I don’t expect a BBC reporter to be familiar with second division soccer teams in the US, I also don’t expect such sloppy reporting and non-existent fact checking.

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