I suppose I should try to respond, having spent the last three years of my BBC career helping to set up the online news service.

Sloppiness and inaccuracy are inexcusable and unfortunately commonplace throughout journalism, I would suggest.  There are some honourable exceptions, of course - Reuters springs to mind.  But wherever I read or look or listen, I notice mistakes on a daily basis.

The BBC News Online team are turning out a very large number of stories (at least 300 a day) which unusually for daily journalism remain available indefinitely for everyone to look at and criticise.

They do make mistakes, of course - but not very many.  I usually email them once or twice a week to draw their attention to something that's wrong. They always respond promptly. They have a culture of self-criticism, traditional methods of quality control (including the liberal use of the fierce bollocking) and a lot of pride in their work.

I'm not at all surprised, after something like 1.5 million stories, all of which are still available to be read, that they are being sued for libel (though I don't know anything about the case in question).  What mature news organisation hasn't been sued for libel at some point?

So, without detracting from David's perfectly proper annoyance at mistakes, I think they do a very good job.  And the BBC News Online database, after five years in operation, is a fabulous resource to have available via the Web.

It will however, help to keep them on their toes if everyone pounces mercilessly (well, more or less mercilessly) on every mistake....