The Bristol Post is not particularly renowned for the quality of its journalism. <\/p>\n
This point of view was borne out by its report today<\/a> on public works in Weston-super Mare, which features the following paragraph:<\/p>\n The species to be planted include silver birch, hazel, Scots pine, Himalayan plain, London plain and common alder. Work on removing the trees is due to start this week.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Himalayan plain? London plain? The Post should be sent to sit in shame in homophone corner until it learns the difference between a plain tree and a plane<\/em> tree and promises not to make such elementary sub-editing errors in future.<\/p>\n However, the Post is not only guilty of falling victim to homophony and failing to do a bit of basic sub-editing. Indeed it is also guilty of churnalism<\/a> – “a form of journalism in which press releases, wire stories and other forms of pre-packaged material are used to create articles in newspapers and other news media in order to meet increasing pressures of time and cost without undertaking further research or checking”.<\/p>\n Checking back on the source of the story in question, one arrives at a North Somerset Council news item<\/a> of 20th February 2013, where – lo and behold – the following sentence appears:<\/p>\n The species to be planted include silver birch, hazel, Scots pine, Himalayan plain, London plain and common alder.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Thus the anonymous Post hack quoted initially has merely repeated the error of the original author of the news in North Somerset.<\/p>\n