Is that stuff going to be in your book?

PS, I was the one shouting “Stats!”

Dr Aust said,
June 5, 2008 at 3:53 pm

The last time we were discussing this sort of thing over on Dr Crippen’s blog (in the context of abortion misinformation, Mad Nad Dorries and Joanna Jepson, as I recall) a real journalist opined that it was also largely to do with the “slant” that the editor(s) told the journalist(s)to put on stories – I guess this also relates to the perception of “what sells”.

I think this is largely true. There are certain considerations discussed every day at national press editorial meetings – news priority, slant/spin and, if there’s a story about someone rich and famous, can they afford to take legal action.
It always struck me as particularly ironic when the press and public started to complain about political spin, when the biggest perpetrators were, and always have been, the press. Spin is what they do, and it’s all geared to (undemocratic) influence and sales. The public are regularly taken for fools and suckers by the gentlemen and women of the press.

Historically, information sources provided to American citizens were limited due to the few methods available to the public. And also this information was subject to being filtered and, in some cases, delayed. This occurred for a number of reasons, which included political ones.
Now, and with great elation, there is the internet.
Soon after the advent of the internet, web logs were created, that are termed ‘blogs’. At that time, about a decade ago, the blogs were referred to as personal journals or diaries visible on line. As time passed, blogs became a media medium, and blog communities evolved on topics that often were not addressed in mainstream media. In addition, blogs provide immediate contributions by others instead of the cumbersomeness of opinion and editorial pieces historically and not always presented in such media forms as newspapers. The authors of blogs vary as far as their backgrounds and intent of what they present are, just as with other media forms. Furthermore, they are not exonerated from the legalities of what is written, such as cases of libel. While we can presume that they like to write, they may not be quality writers.
Yet presently, blogs have become quite a driving force for those with objectives often opposed by others, and are a threat to big business and politics both who presently monitor the progress and content of blogs that provide instant information on events, which might affect their image and activities not yet exposed.
This includes information released from whistleblowers
While one disadvantage of blogs is the potential lack of reliability, blogs however do allow the posting of documents that typically are not created for view of others besides perhaps a select few. For example, blogger Dr. Peter Rost, a whistleblower himself, not long ago posted a newsletter on his blog site given to him by pharmaceutical maker AstraZeneca employees who called themselves the ‘AZ Group of Seven’ to bring to the attention to others the illegal activity of off-label promotion of one of their cancer drugs. Yet this is not what caught the attention of so many with all of the content of this newsletter. It was instead a comment stated by former regional AZ manager Mike Zubalagga, who in this newsletter referred to doctors’ offices as ‘buckets of money’. Again, the statement was authentic and in writing in this newsletter.
Mr. Zubalagga was fired the next day due to this comment. His manager resigned soon afterwards.
And there have been other whistleblower blog cases in addition to this one, so blogs have become a very powerful and threatening medium of information release that does not allow others to prevent such releases. This is true freedom of information, free of alteration or omission. One step closer to social utopia.
Yet again, the information on these blogs should not be taken as absolute truth without proof to verify claims that may be made. Of course, documents that are authentic are in fact proof, as illustrated with the above example. And this, in my opinion, is the blog’s greatest value, combined with the comments on blogs from the growing number of readers who are allowed to contribute to the subject matter so quickly, which fuels the objectives of the blogs.
Because we, the public, have a right to know what we are entitled to know and what we want to know. This is especially true if the information could potentially be adverse to our well-being.

“Information is the seed of an idea, and only grows when it’s watered.” — Heinz V. Berger

Dan Abshear

The first time I read Johann Hari’s column I obsessed over him for about a month. The novelty of someone writing a column that wasn’t vomit-inducingly self indulgent was a little too much for me to handle. So yes, he’s another key favourite. Also keep my spirits up with a bit of Armando Iannucci, Janet Street Porter (I think I’m constantly entertained by how little her writing annoys me despite the fact that I presume it will), Charlie Beckett does a good blog on the media and Anna Pickard makes me laugh. Oh and Charlie Brooker of course – who doesn’t love the grumpbag?

I’ve got too short an attention span for a regular dose of Oliver Kamm. Ooh that almost rhymed!

This is a particularly depressing read:

http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a9807630/STEP6SS2006/Franklin.pdf

To be honest, your column is one of a collection of my favourites that has repeatedly kept me from packing it all in. So thanks!

the answer is in your own hands: accept that you will spend more time over your copy than some other people, produce less material in a week, and so make less money.

anyone with a journalistic instinct (or appreciation for such) knows that scooping the large news outlets is a big deal, especially when you make them look foolish. the celebration is rightly due for quality of reporting. quantity of readers is rather beside the issue.

…though i imagine that if anyone sends more eyeballs their way, perhaps by *ahem* a mention in a widely read column on similar topics *cough* these bloggers would not complain.

Unfortunately this sort of thing is one of the biggest problems in the research – that dyslexia etc is hard to define, particularly as your model of dyslexia affects your definition & the diagnostic tests you use. Outcomes are also tricky to measure – performance on real-world tests like GCSEs is affected by lots of things not just your intervention, and are often difficult to interpret & don’t provide much info. More specific testing runs the risk that you are just looking for something that is theoretically important but practically irrelevant, or that only matters if you assume your view of dyslexia is correct.
That’s what makes the field so much fun.

On blogs – yep, there’s not much point to being right if no-one is listening. I *hope* I persuaded a few parents to re-read what they were being told, but I doubt it. AFIAK the point is more that the MSM really, really wouldn’t have had to try hard to find this stuff out. Just reading the abstract of one of the only two papers on Dore to appear in the peer-reviewed literature would have been enough to suggest things were more complicated than a ‘miracle’:
‘Further research is needed to determine the underlying reasons for the benefits. Possible (and potentially synergistic) explanations include: improved cerebellar function (neural level); improved learning ability and/or attentional ability (cognitive level); improved self-esteem and self-efficacy (affective level); and improved parental/familial support (social level).’
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17557685
I’m an undergrad, I shouldn’t be able to pull research apart this easily, it’s got GCSE-level mistakes about a basic ‘fair test’ right through it. Gimpy AFAIK doesn’t have any specialist accountancy-type skills, but saw the collapse coming from 2005/6 publically available abbreviated accounts. The thing is, none of what we did was that clever or difficult or complicated. It’s just disappointing that none of the MSM bothered to do even a basic check first before praising Dore to the skies.

Thanks for the encouragement!

Off-topic ramble: rather than chocolate, please bung these people something: http://www.friendsofantarauk.org

We support a psych hospital nr Kolkata, India, & recently raised the funds to build the only children’s inpatient psych ward accessible to most of the 80M people in West Bengal. Next up is a maternal & child health programme for the local villages (& yes, that does include vaccines).
Mental health overseas is a difficult one to raise funds for, it’s ~14% of the Global Burden of Disease (DALYS), but only ~1% of global health expenditure.
More of my ranting on the topic here: http://brainduck.wordpress.com/2008/04/03/mental-health-poverty-in-the-developing-world/
Thank you!

Dudley – your point seems, essentially, to be that “Without the filter of a mainstream media outlet, there is no way of telling the good honest researcher and blogger from the liar and fantasist like Mike Ruppert who asserts theories and then cherry-picks the evidence to support them.”

I’m sorry – you need to use the bullshitters and fantasists of the media [I may be cynical, but I tend to think journalists such as Goldacre, Mangan and Brooker are exceptions to the general rule] to filter bloggers and their blogs in order to find the honest ones?

How much honesty was there in the mainstream media about Dore? Were both sides of the story presented? Did You & Yours use the info Jon provided or did they sit on it? Did the newspapers run with the story on the lack of a decent evidence base for Dore or did they print only the positive news, the ‘puff pieces’? While Duck explained the methodological flaws in the Dore research, can the same be said for mainstream media outlets? Why was it left to Gimpy to break the news about Dore’s financial trouble? Why were the mainstream media silent? You refer to bloggers being fantasists, asserting theories and cherry-picking evidence to support them – do you not think that the mainstream media did this when they stated Dore was a miracle cure?

If you are worried about dishonesty, fantastic theories and cherry-picking of evidence then you probably shouldn’t be using the mainstream media to filter anything for you.

Re: “But for the majority of us who don’t have time to trawl through thousands of blogs and check their links to primary materials, the mainstream media is far more effective than relying on random anonymous bloggers.” and:
“People keep using this word “effective”. My question is: what’s the effective alternative?”
Unfortunately, the mainstream media is emphatically not more effective than relying on random, anonymous bloggers. As to what would be a more effective alternative, I think that developing ones critical thinking faculties would probably be first choice.

It’s also interesting to note that you complain about not having enough time to check links in blogs to primary materials – all too often, the mainstream media fail to link to primary materials at all. When was the last time you read a science story in the popular press that contained a proper reference to the original paper? When was the last time BBC Online printed a reference on their health website to the original research (after uncritically reproducing yet another press-release)? Blogs may not be bigger than, or more influential than, the media (as mjrobbins has pointed out), but they can be (and certainly were in this instance) quicker than, and more accurate than, the mainstream media.

seriously though folks, despite the best efforts of uncritical, unthinking and sometimes downright irresponsible ‘journalists’ (half of whom should be stripped of the right to call themselves that…), the idiocy of the Dore miracle cure has been exposed enough to send them under – let’s hope this a precedent, a warning to other woo-mongering shysters to realise that t’internet will out them and hit them where it hurts the most – their pockets…