When news reports "translate" measurements, they potentially open themselves up to error. In the United Kingdom, the law states that it is illegal to hold a demonstration within one kilometre of Parliament without prior authorisation from the Metropolitan Police. The BBC have often reported this on their website as being "half a mile" from Parliament. When I see this, I contact the BBC and point out that would be extremely embarrassing for them if somebody were to be arrested for protesting 900 metres from Parliament and as part of their defence produce the BBC report. When I check the relevant BBC report a few hours later they have invariably corrected the report. To put this into perspective, the distance from Nelson's Column (middle of Trafalgar Square) to Big Ben (part of the Houses of Parliament) is 805 metres.
-----Original Message----- From: USMA [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: 21 April 2020 20:14 To: USMA List Server Subject: [USMA 1358] Metric News Reporting Fox News's Benjamin Hall, reporting from London this morning, sdiscussed the Coronavirus in Europe, giving all lengths in meters: 2, 100, 500, with no translation. Hall himself is British. Fox News in the United States carried the report with no changes. I believe that this is another example of what I call the "laziness factor." It is just too hard to translate these measurements into non-metric units in a live report, especially with the rate at which news updates are coming these days. Thus, the press just leaves the metric units untranslated. I have noticed this phenomenon in the print media too. Many reports are now coming from international sources. Because these reports are used not only in the United States, but worldwide, the metric units remain unchanged, and the American public becomes more used to hearing them. _______________________________________________ USMA mailing list [email protected] https://lists.colostate.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/usma _______________________________________________ USMA mailing list [email protected] https://lists.colostate.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/usma
