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Adrian Van Klaveren, I notice that the "most read" and "most emailed" stories on the BBC website are very often not the headline stories but the funny or sensational ones, so do you think that there is an argument for giving the funny and sensational stories more prominence?
Asked by sunnyday on Nov 22 2007 1:38:25 PM and supported by 23 members
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Answer

I think the argument is a slightly different one. I think the argument is making sure that it is possible for people to find them, that its possible to search for them, that we’ve actually made the navigation to get to those sorts of stories as simple as we can and that’s something that we’ve been working on. You know we now have an index on our website called “Also in the news” which is the home for that kind of story because you’re absolutely right, I mean there are a lot of people who are keen to read, watch or listen to that kind of content and we have to make it possible for people to get to that and it is a part of what we do. Equally, we can do things through interactive TV in terms of offering that kind of story for people who want to find that through the menu, so I think there’s a role for us in aggregating it and making it findable. I actually think giving it more prominence….I don’t think that the vast majority of our audience feel that what we should be doing, is saying in the end that funny story about the man who was locked in the toilet is more important than what’s going on in Kosovo – they’re not expecting us to do that and actually we would be getting it wrong if we would be doing it that way. It is simply saying they do have a place in what we offer and we’ve got to make it easy for you to be able to get to those stories that we’re not ashamed of them, we don’t hide them away, they are there and for those that want them and want to bookmark it and go back to it, absolutely fine, you can do that. MORE!

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