http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/01/cnn-is-spun-right-round-baby-right-round/langswitch_lang/de

I’m starting to worry about a few other media outlets too – CNN have apparently sacked their entire science team, according to this link I found via http://www.realclimate.org –

http://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/cnn_cuts_entire_science_tech_t.php

You are not the only one worried about the fall of the BBC’s standards. BBC news was always my news channel/bulletin of choice and the BBC News website was always my daily fix for the days news but in recent years I’ve started to notice a noticeable decline.

I often find myself saying now, “Where’s the unbiased reporting gone?, why is he/she considered an expert?” etc but worse is when they have guests or ask opinions of people who have a huge vested interest – such as someone selling a product!

DetoxInABox is one example but one other which really irked me was on the story of Britain’s energy future. They had a politician( trying to remember his name) and the expert they chose to was a businessman who owned a solar panel company. he spent the entire time selling his products and the reporters didn’t even blink.

This media-apathy is spreading so it’s not only the scare mongers that are adding to the misinformation miasma but now once reputable news outlets are at it.

A fight that helps to ensure that all stories, reports etc are up to a good scientific standard while at the same time engaging and comprehensible is a fight worth taking part in.

What starts with the correct reporting of a relatively small company/issue can be replicated across the board.

This should hopefully return the trust we could have in media outlets.

January 12, 2009 at 12:20 pm

Yes, there is a market for it, but it is a market that one gains entry to by lying and cheating. Why is this any different from any other form of fraud, where people make untrue claims?

I’ve been saying this for years about homeopathy and all forms of quackery. It’s against the law to make false financial claims (even using the words “apparently” and “allegedly”) in order to swindle people out of their money. But when it comes to sCAM products the same fraudulent claims are ok even though people are being taken for suckers and their pockets being raided. Fraud is fraud. It’s still lying with intent to extract money, and it’s disgraceful.

There’ve been a couple of other examples of woo/other rubbish making its way onto the BBC – the ‘society caring more about Downs Syndrome’ story (Radio 4); ‘Britain’s happiest places mapped’, loads of Dore stuff, plus that wierdy pipe thing that was supposed to produce green energy. Not to mention an entire episode of Panorama – Panorama, for Chrissakes! – devoted to panicking people about WiFi.

I suppose it’s a media-wide problem, as Ben never tires of highlighting, but it’s still depressing to find out they just pull half their bloody stuff off the wire.

At least, in their defence, they occasionally give Ben some airtime.

One understands the tension between poms and frogs but it is galling to see English mispeaked.

but there is a more general issue, on how you go about critically appraising the ideas and claims of a vast army of small players who collectively hold sway and represent the undoubted hegemony? especially if you want specific claims that are good examples, rather than uninformative handwavy generalities.

You’re quite right to say that there are bigger fish to fry. Ben wrote about this incident because he experienced it first hand. It was implied that he was confused or foolish when in fact he was right on the money. Us lot then fixated on DetoxInABox in a manner which was probably disproportionate to how important that service is in the grand scheme of woo. But they got caught denying the easily provable, and so bad stuff happened.

Boots are certainly far more worthy of our attention, but you’ll also find them to be far more careful. They’re a huge company who have been flogging the “detox” concept for many years without any major challenges. But they’re also not making the sorts of barndoor foolish claims that Nas’ site was making.

“”[B]eliefs that clearly demonstrate magical thinking, uncritical acceptance of things for which no good evidence exists. This includes, but is not limited to, psychic phenomenon, ghosts, the paranormal, “energy healing,” the use of “colon cleansing” and “liver cleansing” to rid oneself of “toxins,” homeopathy (especially quantum
homeopathy), and a wide variety of other mystical and pseudoscientific beliefs. Woo is resistant to reason. Indeed, woo has a double standard when it comes to what it considers to be good evidence. It is very
accepting of a wide variety of fuzzy, mystical ideas, but is often incredibly distrustful and skeptical of anything having to do with “conventional” science or “conventional” medicine. Woos tend to be very quick to react to defend their particular brand of woo and very unforgiving of its being questioned.”