The Big City

World Briefing on the BBC World Service ran a three and a half minute piece today by a man they described as a Washington based journalist, James Srodes. In fact they ran it at least four times, maybe more. It was based on a letter which Mr Srodes said was written by British comedian John Cleese after the recent US election. The letter started:

To the citizens of the United States of America, in light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.

The letter went on to criticise American pronunciation and spelling, among other things. James Srodes mounted a robust defence, arguing that US English is now the accepted language of commerce around the world. Unfortunately the letter was not written by John Cleese and in fact started life on the internet in 2000, in the days before the world-wide-web made it very easy for journalists to check the accuracy of this sort of urban legend. If only James Srodes had drawn on his “30 years of experience” and done a little bit of actual journalism and investigation before he launched himself onto the airwaves.