Nearly all science journalism sucks. But that is two cracking examples on the same page. You should tell NTK so they can put it in their next Anti-News section.
and in a related but differently-qualified way: all BBC online (and much of their regional at least) journalism sucks.
There's no mandatory proofing stage (submitters can just directly publish) so there's always the scope for an online Gilligan in the future.
As to televised news, I still have a soft spot for the claims that there are 200 prostitutes in Bristol; and "almost all of them, 99.9%, have a drugs problems".
My favorite, and commonly repeated, journalistic pratfall is the headline percentage increase in something nasty. e.g. 30% increase in the incidence of lukemia for those that live within 2 miles of a landfill site. This is usually followed up by describing this increase as 'significant'. Obviously the baseline incidence of 1 in a million is never quoted so we can all run around in a panic. I suspect that the stress induced by reading these stories causes more health damage than the subject of the stories themselves sometimes.
Bad news sells. If it needs to be badly written to make it bad then so be it, seems to be the attitude of your average media outlet.
Comments 5
But that is two cracking examples on the same page.
You should tell NTK so they can put it in their next Anti-News section.
Reply
There's no mandatory proofing stage (submitters can just directly publish) so there's always the scope for an online Gilligan in the future.
As to televised news, I still have a soft spot for the claims that there are 200 prostitutes in Bristol; and "almost all of them, 99.9%, have a drugs problems".
Reply
Bad news sells. If it needs to be badly written to make it bad then so be it, seems to be the attitude of your average media outlet.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment