Fire breaks out on Park Lane besides Mayfair – News Shopper thinks it’s in Greenwich
A fire broke out earlier today off Park Lane beside Mayfair which the London Fire Brigade mistakenly labelled as Greenwich. As sure as night follows day the News Shopper cut and pasted the story – though didn’t appear to read details which showed attending fire crews were from Soho, Chelsea and Lambeth.
That was a bit of a clue the fire was actually nowhere near Greenwich as was a giant image of the Queen which is not in Greenwich. The Fire Brigade have mainly corrected the story. Three hours on and the News Shopper havn’t. It sits as the fourth most read story.
Firefighters tackle electrical blaze at water pumping station in #Mayfair https://t.co/9FzPKaRQwx pic.twitter.com/TQDXlNBkvr
— London Fire Brigade (@LondonFire) July 17, 2020
This example again shows minimal knowledge of the area from News Shopper despite receiving much funding from taxpayers. A Google search for Achilles Way shows it to be Mayfair. Even being generous and looking at Achilles Street reveals that’s in New Cross. Here’s a screengrab of their coverage:
I’m not sure those at the coalface can be blamed too much as owners have reduced staffing numbers to the bare minimum and based staff miles from areas they “cover”. The top brass get paid well though.
An editor was removed last year in a process described as “undignified and unpleasant”
Despite ample public funds the site appears little more than a cut and paste factory these days. Reporting news from press releases is not a problem of course, but there’s rarely scrutiny of stories or knowledge of areas shown. The only exception is the Local Democracy Reporter stories – and they’re paid for by the BBC and carried on other websites.
Still, the money from taxpayers flows in to the site and papers’s owner Newsquest.
