Many viewers get in touch with the BBC not about the content of
the news, but about how it is delivered. Wrong pronunciation of
words is something that clearly annoys a large number of people.
Tim Gossling called NewsWatch about the way foreign names were
being pronounced on the news. "Names like Vladimir, Milosevic,
places in Poland, Welsh names like Blaenau Gwent. There's
absolutely no consistency in the way people pronounce names at
the BBC," he said. "I don't know why this should be apart from
the general British attitude that there are only two languages
in the world - English and foreign. "I really think the BBC's
image would be much improved if it tried a bit harder."
NewsWatch invited Tim to see how the BBC deals with the issue
and how the information is passed to the reporters and
presenters at the sharp end. He said he'd always had a vision of
a BBC pronunciation unit consisting of one person in a basement
room surrounded by piles of dusty dictionaries. Tim Gossling:
BBC could do better The dictiona