GIVING NEW MEANING TO THE TERM “COVERING THE NEWS:”

Just 48 hours before Lord Hutton delivers his verdict on the controversy surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly, the BBC has begun an advertising experiment that involves buying up all internet search terms relating to the inquiry.

Despite being one of the main players in the drama, anyone searching for “Hutton inquiry” or “Hutton report” on the UK’s most popular search engine Google is automatically directed to a paid-for link to BBC Online’s own news coverage of the inquiry.

No other news broadcaster or any newspaper has paid Google for this facility, leaving the corporation’s move even more conspicuous.

As one of the chief “interested parties” in the Hutton inquiry into the apparent suicide of Dr Kelly, the move will strike many as worthy of comment, not least because the BBC’s online news pages will not be the most obvious place to go for the most comprehensive coverage, which is bound to include painful criticism of the corporation.

Lame.

UPDATE: Several readers email to say that if the Beeb is doing this, it isn’t working. They seem to be right — when I googled “hutton inquiry” the first story that came up was the Guardian item quoted above! Hmm. Either The Guardian is wrong (no!), or the Beeb’s actions haven’t taken effect yet, or the Beeb pulled back when the story broke. We’ll see. Reader Grahame Young emails:

BTW: I don’t see any of the typical Google sponsored links (either at the top or on the right side). Did BBC/Google change something after this story? Can you buy “rank” from Google in the normal search results? Is it only serving “sponsored links” to UK residents (e.g. Google knows I’m Canadian when I search for “low air fares”)?

Any feedback from the UK?

Seems to be the same for UK searchers, based on a couple of emails, anyway.