Comments on: How not to break news online

By: Suw

Suw — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 21:16:58 +0000

Hi Rachel. Yeah, we still use miles for long distances, and metric for weights and measures. Bonkers if you ask me, cos I still think in imperial most of the time.

I was born the year that the UK decimalised, 1971, and was taught both, so my mental measuring system for distance goes like this:

thous (thousandths of an inch); mils (millimetres), centimetres, inches, feet, yards, miles, solar units, light years.

Notice the absence of metres and kilometres. This caused some significant problems when being forced to buy fabric in metres as I had no idea how long “3m” was. Turned out to be “lots”.

By: Rachel Clarke

Rachel Clarke — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 17:12:52 +0000

Did I miss something when I was away? When did we change to km for speed???? As far as I know it’s still mph, both on road signs and on car spedometers.

I still think imperial for weights and measures - converting if needed, and for many distances, except I use both cm and inches. I was only ever taught metric though.

By: Kevin Anderson

Kevin Anderson — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 13:10:36 +0000

Mark, North America, the US. The metric system still isn’t what most people in the US use as their day-to-day measurements. Yes, we were taught the metric system, especially in science classes. But if you asked someone from the US how far away something was in kilometres, they either wouldn’t have a clue or would have to think about it and convert. I thought that this was common knowledge. Oddly, even in the UK, they still frequently use miles for distance, even though they use kilometres for speed.

Rachel, I agree with you and Spence. The TV coverage was light on information and heavy on emotional coverage. Hey, they’ve got 24 hours to fill. It’s quite clear to anyone but the folks who work in rolling television news that this is flawed way of working. There needs to be a more creative way of dealing with the gaps than padding them.

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 18:29:55 +0000

News sources should hire some people who know how to speak “technical.” If I want credible information, I look to sources like Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_BA38

By: Rachel Clarke

Rachel Clarke — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 17:46:32 +0000

I’m with Spence on the rolling TV coverage though - too much ‘how did it make you feel’ and not enough actual news and information. It’s one thing I really dislike about 24 hour news reporting is that when they have to fill with the biggest story, they oftenpad out the time when they are learning nothing new with reporters trying to force out the emotional reaction they think will play best. Get the information, don’t pad.

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 17:39:23 +0000

What part of America are you from that you are not well versed in the metric system? North, Central, or South?