Can anyone explain to me why the BBC website insists on using quotation marks in article titles to 'quote' the text that follows? Usually the quote isn't even a direct one - it's just one or two words randomly put inside quotation marks for no apparent reason. For instance, an article entitled Australia's Howard 'loses seat' doesn't contain those two words in order, and an article entitled Iran rejects EU 'disappointment' contains the word 'disappointing' but not the noun. What information is conveyed, or what purpose is served, by putting those words inside quotation marks? I just don't get it.
I have always assumed that it's to show that it's not the BBC's thinking, it's the person involved. It doesn't imply that anyone used those words. So if the BBC are reporting that Agency X says that Howard has lost his seat, they will use quotation marks; if it has been officially confirmed, they won't. Or if they'd written "Iran rejects EU disappointment" it would imply that the BBC think something is disappointing.
(I suspect this stems not only from a love of precision-- it's somewhat helpful if we can tell the difference between a report about a report about X and an official announcement about X-- but from the British libel laws, which are notoriously biased towards the person written about.)
I did wonder about the libel angle, but it's a very odd way to use quotation marks. And I find it hard to see how making a factual assertion like 'Howard loses seat' can constitute libel - it's not defamatory in any way. And meanwhile they have the un-quotation-marked Blood feuds blight Albanian lives among many other potentially inflammatory statements.
No no, "Blood feuds blight Albanian lives" is bylined. Therefore it is a report from a correspondent. Therefore it contains the correspondent's personal opinion: it's not an assertion made by BBC News as such. If Howard is supposed to have lost his seat but it hasn't been confirmed yet, and the BBC runs "Howard loses seat" without the names of correspondents on it, and it turns out to have been wrong, the corporation loses face. If blood feuds turn out actually to be improving Albanian lives, only the correspondents in question stand to lose face.
Hmmm ... well, if it is just a matter of losing face, then I'm just as likely to think badly of the BBC for publishing tripe written by a poorly-chosen correspondent as I am for them publishing tripe by an anonymous figure. But I'm also unlikely to say "Oh, well, they put the title words in quotes, so that's all right". If there's a legal issue, I still don't see it, and if it's just a matter of reputation, I'd argue that putting all these things in quotation marks is a sign of a lack of confidence in their reporting.
Unfortunately, the quality of reporting by BBC Online correspondants has been steadily decreasing - I've seen an awful lot of bias, opinion, and unexplained slang (I don't recall any examples, but it was of the order of "x groks the situation") in articles on the beeb website recently.
I think marnanel is probably right. I also think that "Howard loses seat" could be libellous in English law if untrue. The test is whether the public at large will think less of the person as a result of the libellous statement, and I think it's at least arguable that being reported as only the second Australian PM to lose a seat at a general election would expose a person to sufficient ridicule to meet that test. As for it being a factual assertion, that's almost a precondition for a libel action - if it plainly isn't intended to be taken as factual, it's very unlikely to meet the test. Also, libel reading (i.e. vetting copy for potential libel) is done under immense time pressure, so you won't get absolute consistency, and most readers will tend to err on the side of caution.
I've often wondered that myself. I especially find it odd when (as frequently) it's included around the word "dead.: "Two 'dead' in shooting" -- the BBC isn't going to take the quotes off until they see the bodies themselves, I guess.
This use of inverted commas is quite common in the British press too; it is designed to distinguish conjectures, predictions or statements of opinion from the simple statement of matters of established fact. Here it presumably indicates that Howard was expected to lose his seat (on the basis of exit polls perhaps) before the result was officially announced. Nothing to do with fears of libel suits, just a concern for accuracy. In the second quotation, the inverted commas indicate that the disappointment, presumably over Iran's behaviour over the nuclear issue, was the EU's view of the matter; the Iranians themselves and their supporters may have considered that they had been acting entirely reasonably. Admittedly not too elegant.
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