News Sniffer: Revisionista

The latest News Sniffer project went live today: Revisionista. It tracks changes in corporate news articles and marks the differences. So you can choose a BBC news article and see how it’s changed since it was first created. Most changes are on breaking new articles which get updated as more information becomes available, but some changes are rather telling of policy.

Currently only the BBC is monitored, but it’s pretty easy for me to add support for any site with an RSS feed.

Some examples:

“Many Palestinians feel Mr Blair has ignored their suffering” changed to
“Mr Blair met with the families of captured Israeli soldiers”.
http://newssniffer.newworldodour.co.uk/articles/918/diff/12/13

On Cuba, the following quote disappears: “In the US, many investors are hoping for a share in the spoils of any future development”
http://newssniffer.newworldodour.co.uk/articles/874/diff/0/1

Ismail Haniya’s negative quotes regarding Blair disappear.http://newssniffer.newworldodour.co.uk/articles/890/diff/2/3

US sanctions responsible for Iran plane crash? Of course not!
http://newssniffer.newworldodour.co.uk/articles/114/diff/7/8

Accusations of US torture become claims of “clandestine CIA activity”.
http://newssniffer.newworldodour.co.uk/articles/661/diff/0/1

Iran may well claim its nuclear programme has the sole goal of generating civilian power, but the BBC would rather you forget that.
http://newssniffer.newworldodour.co.uk/articles/552/diff/2/3

I wonder what the threshold is that turns “a small number of protestors” into “Thousands”
http://newssniffer.newworldodour.co.uk/articles/462/diff/0/1

Negative quotes about the government disappear.
http://newssniffer.newworldodour.co.uk/articles/383/diff/8/9