My colleague Andrew recently highlighted a case where the Beeb re-wrote a company’s press release and called it news. He felt, he said, a Mandy Rice-Davies moment coming on.
Here’s another instance where Mandy’s wisdom should be heard. NHS Blog Doctor pointed out this BBC story.
Nearly 80% of 500 doctors polled by the medical taskforce Act Against Allergy thought their colleagues confused milk allergy symptoms with other conditions.
Experts say the problem lies…
And who or what are the “medical taskforce”, Act Against Allergy? The makers of a milk substitute.
I’d be the first to argue that the company’s vested interest does not necessarily make them wrong. Indeed I often like to point out that non-commercial bodies and experts are not themselves immune from having vested interests. But the commercial link is something one wants to know when evaluating the story, don’t you agree? The BBC showed laziness in simply repeating Act Against Allergy’s self-description as a “medical taskforce”, as if the prime minister had appointed them.
UPDATE: Follow-up post concerning stealth-editing of the BBC story here.
I don’t mean to diminish the truth of this post, but it’s certainly not news: the BBC (and other MSM) regularly do this sort of thing, usually with the introductoray words, ‘A report published today, shows….’
Even more serious is the uncritical way in which favoured charities, trade unions, pressure groups and NGOs have their press releases used as a substitute for news. Quite frequently an entire day’s news agenda can be led by some nonsense cooked-up by a PR for one of these bodies.
Also this “experts say” rubbish is so often used.
they do this all the time in their reports on anything to do with computer technology and I.T.
The worst ones are the surveys instigated and published by The Guardian e.g. “George Bush is more dangerous than Pol Pot according to new survey” – which the Beeb then picks up and broadcasts in its famously impartial tones to the four corners of the world.
To be fair to the Grauniad, it’s not that controversial to say that George Bush is more dangerous than Pol Pot these days…
I work in PR and this is classic PR news generation. I think you would be shocked to find out just how much of the news is generated through PR agencies and internal departments.
For example in yesterday’s FT there was 500 word article in which every word was written by my company and simply handed to the journalist who changed the order around a bit.
Any time you read “according to a survey/new report/” that’s PR. The whole of Metro and London Life and the other freesheets are stuffed to the gills with it.
Agreed. A lot of it with highly dubious methodologies. You find less of it on the beeb and the broadsheets than in the tabloids, but it is there every day.
Most of it is harmless, but it is increasingly finding its way into political surveys too.
DifferentAnon writes:
“You find less of it on the beeb and the broadsheets than in the tabloids, but it is there every day.”
Is that so? My impression is that the BBC is one of the worst offenders – particularly with regard to NGOs, SIPGs and charities.
Neither do I share your faith in the broadsheets: the Guardian and Telegraph (to name just two) seem rather more prone than the Sun, for example, which doesn’t like to bother its readers with the dreary subjects so beloved of the ‘worthier’ elements of the MSM.
Whenever I hear the words “according to a recent study, Scientists blah, blah, blah…” I switch off as it’s very often nothing to do with either science or news but everything to do with propaganda. Wonder when the annual bird flu ‘pandemic’ scare will resurface, just after Christmas as usual?
Yes, just when everyone is contemplating the bony remnants of the traditional* christmas turkey – and, in my family’s case, thinking about how much soup could be made from it (recycling don’tcha know). Yes, stuffed to the gills with avian flesh they will turn on the breakfast news on December the 27th and find a slightly ruffled, bleary-eyed BBC news team screeching about how everyone is going to die from avian flu conveniently packaged with the turkey giblets.
*tradition my bottom! The traditional christmas meal used to be a rack of beef or pork, or a whole suckling pig if you could afford it. And lots of spiced wine and beer. Yums!
“seem rather more prone than the Sun, for example, which doesn’t like to bother its readers with the dreary subjects so beloved of the ‘worthier’ elements of the MSM.”
what like news and stuff?
although having said that ‘Striker’ and Dierdre’s photo casebook are worth the 35p alone.
Cockney writes:
“what like news and stuff? ”
Strange how Leftists can so often be such snobs.
I stopped buying my daily broadsheet a few months ago and occasionally have looked at one of the tabloids when I’ve stopped at a cafe.
In fact (as opposed to fancy) there’s very little major news that the better tabloids miss. It may be put in simple English, you may not get the yards of analysis, speculation and opinion, but they don’t do as bad a job as Graduina readers would like to pretend.
GCooper:
It may be put in simple English, you may not get the yards of analysis, speculation and opinion, but they don’t do as bad a job as Graduina readers would like to pretend.
——–
I’ll second that. At its best, the Sun’s writing is concise, and clear, and its political analysis first rate.
Cheers
F***ing hell chaps, if you get all the news you need from the tabloids then good luck but I sure as hell hope you’re never put in charge of anything important.
having two brain cells to rub together is a sinister leftist plot to deceive the stout bulldog masses now is it?
Two priceless things about the Sun, especially when Kelvin Mckenzie (The man who rumbled the sham known as Street-Porter) ran it.
1. Gotcha
2. Up yours Delors
Cockney writes:
“F***ing hell chaps, if you get all the news you need from the tabloids then good luck but I sure as hell hope you’re never put in charge of anything important.”
Now read again what I wrote.
If you seriously believe you get a better rapid news briefing from a comic like the Independent which habitually runs fantasy speculation stories as its FPl as opposed to, say, the Mirror then… ah, but hold on, what was it you said you did? ‘Something in the city?’ Ah… yes… ’nuff said.
kulibar tree writes:
“I’ll second that. At its best, the Sun’s writing is concise, and clear, and its political analysis first rate.”
I have to say that I don’t like the Sun (or the Mirror, for that matter), not least becase of the blatant political bias. But that’s the point, of course. I can, and do, choose not to pay for it. With the BBC, I get bias without the option.
It’s much more difficult to get a story over in 200 words than it is in 1,000 which is why the tabloid guys are so sharp.
Best McKenzie headline was when Georg Michael got arrested in a public toilet:
Zip me up before you go-go!
Zip me up before you go-go!
Some are real class. Now if only the bbc ……. Oh forget it.
crap bbc employing crap people.
It’s what we do…
On The World At One item today about the mobile fingerprinting experiment, all the questioning was from the viewpoint of civil liberties. We weren’t told anything about possible benefits in terms of improving detection rates.
Definite pink bias.
Yeah, well, the idea used to be that you fingerprinted convicted criminals, after due process, and all that – not building up a national database of traffic offenders, many of whom may indeed not have committed any indictable offence.
Cheers.
Kulibar Tree
Can I butt in.
I think the mobile device is only for searching existing fingerprint databases, not adding to them.
On KB’s point about indictible offences:
The Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 permits police to retain DNA samples from everyone who is charged, regardless of acquittal.
In October, Tony Blair called for the database to be expanded to everyone.
Fingerprinting is backdoor to a national ID scheme if fingerprints become mandatory for anyone who wants a new (biometric) passport. Approximately 80% of UK citizens have a passport.
Given that biometric passport RFID has already been cracked and fingerprints can be relatively easily spoofed, look out for more ID theft fun and games.
TPO –
But you’ve got to BE fingerprinted in order for the database to be searched for a match, and as with DNA samples (as DiffAnon points out), do you imagine the police will simply dispose of non-matching roadside-acquired prints?
Cheers
Another BBC one is “…but some analysists say…”
What`s an analysist ?
An ‘Analysist’ is obviously a BBC proof/context/newspeak/toilet inspector – silly you, didn’t you know — sheesh!
“TPO -But you’ve got to BE fingerprinted”
There is a picture of the device in this article. Its not the full set of prints, just one index finger.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/23/ncrime423.xml
“There is a picture of the device in this article. Its not the full set of prints, just one index finger.”
Well, so what? When the police dust a crime scene for fingerprints, do you imagine they always get a full, neat set?
I’m sure the police’ll be just as happy to build up a national database of index fingerprints.
Cheers.
Its true GW is more dangerous (now)than Pol Pot. The danger of Pol Pot rising from the dead and shambling around groaning and mumbling like a zombie is remote (sudden mental image of Ozzy Osbourne!). Let alone taking charge of the Khmer Rouge again.
While al beeb goes ito overdrive about the evils of Putin’s ‘regime’ in defence of their Chechen comrades and the highly dubious Litvinenko, they omit to tell this story about Putin (could it be they don’t mind the Putin ‘regime’ selling arms to Iran?)’Russian rocket deliveries to Iran started’
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/11/24/061124134543.qth288nm.html
Kulibar Tree
‘When the police dust a crime scene for fingerprints, do you imagine they always get a full, neat set?’
I last took a set of fingerprints in 1994. It was always a messy business. Two full sets taken, One for the National Identification Bureau and one for the Force Fingerprint Bureau. Also one set of palmprints. I wasn’t that good at it and usually got ink on my shirt.
I can say, hand on heart, that I never once attended a crime scene where the offender obliged by leaving a full set and I doubt if any one else, serving or retired has.
I’m sure things have changed since my day, but then fingerprints were taken after an offender was charged. It didn’t matter if you’d arrested and charged the same person the previous week, you still took them again.
If someone refused then you would apply to the courts who would order them to be taken, by force if necessary (an even messier job).
If memory serves me right, if someone was aquitted then the prints had to be destroyed. More by cockup than by conspiracy this wasn’t always done. The police have managed to mire themselves in bureaucratic nightmare.
If you think that the police all over the country are going to flout the legislation by retaining the roadside samples then I doubt that I could say anything to persuade you otherwise.
By the way it’s not the police who ‘dust’ the scene it is a civilian Scenes Of Crime Officer. If you’ve ever watched some tosh called ‘The Bill’ you’ll know that they are referred to as SOCOs.
Keep posting…. regards
As I understand these machines, they don’t actually store a copy of the fingerprint taken, and it’d be useless if they did anyway since there’s no identifying information to go with it. They scan your finger and make a unique hash based on certain key points, which is compared to the hashes of prints already stored in the database. In a purely technical sense, therefore, they’re nothing to worry about. The problem is the assumption of guilt if you refuse assent to a scan, and the possibility of being stopped and scanned without justification.
Fingerprint checks at airports mooted
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/27/ntravel127.xml