Here’s a video of the bloggers’ session at the totally excellent Convention On Modern Liberty a few weeks ago. My bit starts at 11min:10secs, and I speak in a crescendoingly impassioned manner in praise of chaotic puerile disseminated investigative journalism, this time in relation to the Dore “miracle cure for dyslexia” saga.
Blogs vs mainstream media
Ben Goldacre
The Guardian,
Saturday May 31 2008
You will remember last week we were talking about the £2,000 Dore “miracle cure” for dyslexia, invented by paint entrepreneur Wynford Dore. It had been pushed unrelentingly in the media, despite multiple Ofcom and ITC judgements, and through personal endorsement by Kenny Logan, who, it turned out, was paid for at least some of his promotional work. This was despite the fact that the evidence base for the programme was spectacularly poor, although the relentlessly positive media coverage might be explicable, since Dore has been known to be heavy-handed with those who speak out.
Read the rest of this entry »
Dore – the media’s miracle cure for dyslexia
How do you judge if an intervention is effective when you hear about it in the media? Perhaps you tot up the balance of opinions. Perhaps you do it unconsciously.
You might have noticed the Dore “miracle cure” for dyslexia, invented by millionaire paint entrepreneur Wynford Dore. It’s hard to ignore. In fact just recently you may have seen “Strictly Come Dancing” star Kenny Logan – a rugby superhero, with 70 caps in 13 years – promoting the Dore Dyslexia Program with his own personal testimonials on the Jeremy Vine Show, Channel Five News, Radio Five Live, BBC London, ITV Central, ITV Yorkshire, in the Daily Mail, the Daily Record, Scotland on Sunday, and many, many more.
Dore – The Miracle Cure For Dyslexia
Ben Goldacre
Saturday November 4, 2006
The Guardian
Wouldn’t it be great if there really was an expensive proprietary cure for dyslexia? Oh hang on, there is: paint tycoon Wynford Dore has developed one, with NASA space technology. It’s only £1700, it has celebrity endorsements, it involves some special exercises, but it has been proven with experts. “A revolutionary drug-free dyslexia remedy has been hailed a wonder cure by experts,” said the Mirror on Monday, in fact. And in the Mail: “Millions of people with dyslexia have been given hope by a set of simple exercises that experts say can cure the disorder.”
This most recent wave of publicity was prompted by a paper on Dore’s miracle cure published in the academic journal Dyslexia. The story of why they should publish such a flawed study is, perhaps, for another day. But what Read the rest of this entry »
