The BBC is now refusing to reveal how many staff make up its Verify team and how much they are paid. Something to hide?
The corporation is now refusing freedom of information requests on the team numbers and salary because figures “with an increased headcount and combined salary will potentially identify the salary of a small number of new recruits. Therefore, if the BBC disclosed this information it would contravene data protection principles.” Bogus…
The salary costs for BBC Verify are at least £3.4 million and have been rising over the past two years. The value of that team to the taxpayer is not hard to verify…
BBC Verify’s live service is busy “debunking” obviously fake AI images. They’re at it again…
The little-read live service today informed viewers that a “widely circulated” image of “European leaders” sitting in a White House corridor meekly is fake:
“First, take a look at the legs – artificial intelligence often struggles with limbs.
In this case, there seems to an extra pair of legs next to French President Emmanuel Macron.
If we zoom in, we can also see the knees of the woman in red seem to blend into each other and there appears to be an extra high-heeled shoe further down.
The pattern on the floor is also inconsistent – another typical issue with AI-generated images.
There’s an odd blue panel at the front of the image and then the pattern seems to become irregular the further away they are from the viewer.
The women in the picture also bear no resemblance to either Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni or European Commission head Ursula Von Der Leyen.
Their clothes are entirely different from what the real leaders were wearing at the White House.”
Verify staff have form on this – talk about overkill. Other “fact checks” were already done by American news websites 18 hours ago…
The image hasn’t been widely circulated and it is obviously AI-generated – no one character apart from Macron has a passing resemblance to any European leader. BBC Verify staff costs: £3.4 million…
Guido’s coverage of BBC Verify and the launch of his very own Verify Unit have clearly caused shockwaves over in Broadcasting House – it has started a live feed. The Verify unit is now trying to prove to licence fee payers that its staff are doing work…
At 09:49 the Verify “Live editor” (who makes no mention of such on her public profiles) announced that the team had “just finished our morning meeting.” Early start…
The editor added that on the agenda was fact-checking Trump and “geolocating and chronolocating videos to track the scale of the Los Angeles protests.” What that means is checking where and when a video the team saw on X may have happened…
To that end the BBC has “verified footage of protesters smashing windows at the LAPD headquarters – one of them can be seen using a skateboard. This is most likely to have been filmed on Sunday evening as it’s nighttime footage which first appeared online on Monday morning.” Fascinating…
The live feed, in which each different Verify hack has a go, features fascinating behind-the-scenes details. In the section titled “How does BBC Verify authenticate videos and photos?” it is explained to readers that if a “clip has not previously appeared in search results that it a good indication that it is new.” Total Verify staff: 61…
In a short piece about Trump, apparently top of the agenda for Verify today, the BBC manages to misspell Colombia as “Columbia.” Total Verify staff costs: £3.4 million…
As this story goes to pixel BBC Verify’s new live feed has 3,000 live viewers, while the BBC’s video updates on Greta Thunberg being given sandwiches by the IDF has 20,000. Uphill battle…
Back in August Guido asked the BBC why its Verify project was producing content so sluggishly and whether there had been cuts to staff. He was told it is “completely untrue to say that there have been cuts to Verify… It’s business as usual.” True to say that – nothing has changed…
Guido’s in house Verify service analysed editorial content produced by BBC Verify and found that in the last five days a total of zero articles have been produced. Total staff: 63. Total salary bill to the taxpayer: £3.4 million…
Considering that BBC Verify has only produced 14 articles in May so far Guido Verify analysis shows that each staff member is effectively being paid £281.67 per article produced so far this month. Nice work if you can get it…
Guido has long tracked the cost to the taxpayer of the BBC’s Verify project – launched in in 2023 as “a highly specialised operation” which “brought together forensic journalists and expert talent from across the BBC.” It produces about one article per day…
Recent stories include: “Viral videos claim luxury bags are made in China, is it true?” Earlier this year the BBC hiked total salary costs for the team to £3.4 million with a team of 63. It has since dropped two members of the team to 61. The cost has stayed exactly the same. Only the BBC could cut staff without cutting costs…
Guido in February launched a Verify service of its own. At no cost to the taxpayer…
Back in Spring of last year Guido discovered that the art project known as BBC Verify was staffed by an incredible 63 people with combined salary costs of a £3.2 million. And it still managed to confuse hectares for acres in its farm tax analysis…
By December the BBC had managed to shave off two staff from the team, which produces around two stories a day including such zingers as “Five key impacts of Brexit” which fails to mention anything positive about Brexit. Good news, until they tell you that staff costs have risen by £100,000 at the same time…
Now that we’re in the new year Guido can report that Verify has stuck with its 63 staff while paying them even more. Salary costs are now £3.4 million – an increase of £100,000 a month. Crucial funding for Marianna Spring be fooled by more wombat memes…
Mail commentator Dan Hodges – who was kind to Burnham during the Makerfield campaign – now concludes: “The truth is Andy Burnham doesn’t have a 10 year plan. He’s barely got a 10 week plan.“
