Thursday, January 22, 2009

BBC manipulates Obama inaugural sound bite

I don't know what you'd call an audio-only version of fauxtography...fauxdio?

TonyN at Harmless Sky uncovered a bit of BBC trickery in their coverage of Barack Obama's inaugural address. It seems they spliced together a few segments from different parts of his speech to make it all sound like a single statement on fighting global warming.
Paragraph 16

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act - not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

Paragraph 22

We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort - even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the spectre of a warming planet. We will not apologise for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.
Those bolded pieces that TonyN emphasized are the bits that were spliced together to make a single sound bite in the Beeb's broadcast in an apparent effort to make Obama's stance on global warming strongly than it may have otherwise sounded.

Once again, the link to the audio clip.

H/T to reader Ayrdale.

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