Leading French daily newspaper Le Monde reports today on how the American National Security Agency (NSA) spies on France.
The documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden also contain information about communications intercepted by the NSA in France. One image in the documents leaked by Snowden, some of which have been accessed by Le Monde reveals that the NSA recorded the data from “70.3 million French telephone calls” from 10th December 2012 to 8th January. The content of SMS (text) messages is also recorded by scanning their contents for keywords.
Quite.
Explanations in the documents consulted by Le Monde suggest that the NSA was targeting “both people suspected of links with terrorist activities and individuals targeted simply for belonging to the worlds of business, politics or the French government” under a programme codenamed US-985D. When contacted on this point, the American authorities simply referred to the statement issued on 8th June 2012 by James R. Clapper, National Intelligence Director which states that the United States Government can only collect data if it suspects activities linked to terrorism, to cyber-attacks and nuclear proliferation, according to Le Monde Informatique.
I think the reviewer had got his vowels muddled and actually meant Colombia, a South American country famous for the supply of a variety of white nasal decongestant allegedly enjoyed at one time by Mr Crosby.
Vampires are a mainstay of horror films. Seemingly dead, they rise again unbidden under the right circumstances – usually nightfall – to carry on their (non-)existence.
The press equivalent of the vampire is the story which is initially posted online, only to be deleted (with its expectant reader served up a 404 error page instead. Ed.) and then reappear at a later date.
This happened with the Bristol Post story featured in the screenshot below.
Controversial or what? The Bristol Post’s latest vampire article
This story originally appeared online first thing on Friday morning, only to be pulled a couple of hours later. It has now risen from the dead bearing a Sunday timestamp.
Why was it pulled in the first place, some may be wondering, particularly as it seems like a fairly innocuous tale of an elderly gentleman moaning about parking and especially since those with an intimate knowledge of the Bristol Post will be well aware of its passion for the motor car and all matters motoring.
The Guardian, immortalised in Private Eye as The Grauniad for its error-prone typographical propensities, now reveals its errors are not restricted to orthography.
However, the link to the report is illustrated by an image depicting interpreters at work, as the following screenshot shows.
This means The Guardian is now the latest media outlet in the UK willing to employ illiterates who can’t tell interpreters from translators along with the likes of the BBC (posts passim) and the Bristol Post (posts passim).
This blog has a handy illustrated guide on the difference between these two sorts of linguists should employees of any of the above organisations need enlightenment.
Not only has this blog noticed that the English employed by the Bristol Post may occasionally fall below the standards required in primary school (posts passim), but regular readers of the online edition have also noticed that the code running the website is a tad dodgy. How many comments are shown below the report featured in the screenshot?
If 1 = 2 in Bristol Post land, is it any wonder its journalists regularly manage to make 2 + 2 = 5? 😉
Thursday saw the launch of the latest Apple iPhone models – the 5C and 5S – when scores of people with more money than sense queued overnight to make an elitist US technology company even richer.
Naturally the Bristol Post covered it in Friday’s edition as there’s an Apple shop in Bristol’s monument to Mammon otherwise known as Cabot Circus.
Part of the Post’s coverage consisted of a photo gallery, which featured as follows in its news section.
How does one spell queue? Certainly not how the Post has done.
This crime against orthography is also perpetuated on the gallery page itself.
As any journalist knows, an appropriate picture can add interest to what would otherwise be a dull story. However, what a quay full of cars has to do with a report on school expansion in Portishead, only the Bristol Post knows.
Evidently, the above image is so good, the Post decided to use it a second time for a completely unrelated report into Frenchay Hospital.
Both screenshots were taken from the Bristol Post website at about 7.00 a.m. on Friday. However, the ‘featured image’ might have changed by the time you read the articles. 🙂
There’s hardly a day goes by without the Bristol Post screwing up somewhere.
