If, like me, you use the BBC news website to catch up on what’s happening in the world, you may have seen evidence of the presentation of news items being skewed by external influences. I just saw something on the site today which leads me to believe it’s still happening, despite them being aware of the problem.

There’s a screenshot below of a section of their site which displays the most popular and most shared text news items and the most viewed video stories. There’s one story shown in the most read section, “Beer with 32% strength launched” about a Scottish craft  Brewery called Brewdog who have created a beer which has a very high alcohol content. Trouble is, the story was from November – why is it suddenly appearing as a ‘most-read’ story in the middle of February?

I have a suspicion that this story could be an example of one being bumped up the list artificially. It may be no coincidence that the brewery concerned are skillful in the art of viral marketing (as well as making excellent beer) and they have a share-ownership scheme which is coming to a close and has been widely promoted over the past few days.

OK, so if you like Brewdog (and you think their viral marketing methods are doing this), you may think they’re clever in the way that they’re getting national news coverage for free. However, if nothing else it should make everybody think twice about the way our news is presented and the fact that we’re constantly manipulated by all kinds of marketing and political / religious / commercial  lobbying ploys.