Editor Reports: Not So Exclusive Stories

Doug Lambert, ATV Today’s Editor, puts his fingers to our keyboard once again to write about how another site has once again tagged a story as an “Exclusive” when it was anything but.

ATV Reports has previously written about a certain site that has tagged stories as an “Exclusive” when in fact it was a general press release sent to everyone. Well that site is up to old tricks yesterday as it claimed its Doctors story on actress Annette Badland guest-starring in the Birmingham based soap as an “Exclusive”. Well folks it wasn’t. It was a press release sent out by the BBC – a press release sent to us as well and we imagine a few others…

So tagging a general press release as an “Exclusive” seems rather misleading doesn’t it? After all it’s not like that information was confirmed/released just to the site? It was released to everyone. We’ve raised this issue before with the site and we’d hoped they had learned their lesson, obviously not. Another little nitpick though comes from within the article it self which contains this rather curious little piece of information:

“Badland last filmed at the Birmingham-based soap in July 2007, playing a cantankerous woman called Sarah Hardy. She filmed two further guest spots in 2004 and 2000.”

Right so Annette Badland filmed in 2007 for Doctors last, fine, but rather than stating she previously appeared in 2004 and 2000 they stated she had two further guest spots. Now the connotations of those two words are quite different. Previously is obviously intended to mean in the past while further implies she returned after 2007 to film more. So did the actress jump into the Tardis and hop back to 2004 and 2000? We don’t think so somehow. So that’s just another little nitpick we thought we’d mention.

Next time you see “Exclusive” you may want to ponder on just how “Exclusive” it really is. UPDATED: The same site has done the SAME today with the same soap as it tags a new press release as an exclusive when it was released to everyone.