So in doing this is it making news dumber? I ask this because this week information came out regarding antidepressants and whether they work. I think this particular information was from a medical journal but my point is a big news story came out of it. People on antidepressants were worried and doctors were even more worried. Most of the experts that spoke about it made it clear the study was on specific drugs with specific people, it wasn't a generalisation. However, the impression from the news stories made it seem like it related to everyone on antidepressants.
So where am I going with this?
Well, this was one journal, one piece of information and it really scared alot of people.
Freedom of Information can have this same effect. Someone asks for a piece of information, they receive it and before we know it a huge news story has erupted which may have only looked at the information provided, not the context etc.
Could we consider dumb news to not only be "not intellectual" news but also news that isn't really worthy of being news but something that has been built up to be something it's not? Surely that's just as dumb.
When I studied Psychology I discovered alot of medical studies have a very small sample size, like the contraversial MMR and autism study. That study caused huge ripples and made parents stop giving their kids vaccinations in some cases. The trouble is often the person writing the journalistic piece doesn't take into account the sample size and just sees the story. Granted that's what we're trained to do but it can be very risky, like the MMR controversy shows. Whoever wrote that autism and the MMR jab had a link was dumbing the news down. They'd missed out some key facts and I think that classes as dumbing down.
We, as journalists, have a responsibility to not leave out facts and figures. We have to research thoroughly otherwise we're just as guilty of dumbing down as some of these dumb news channels.
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I think we're right to be concerned about the accuracy of health reporting - but I think this is an issue which covers all sectors of niche journalism.
I have encountered varying degrees of hostility towards journalists during the making of my PFW radio documentary - and most of it stems from this issue of ignorance (or the appearance of, in our ‘dumbed down’ news). Yesterday I trekked to Porthcothan to interview a man about climate change and - while we chatted over soya-milked coffee in Howard's humble abode, i.e. a tin shed on the side of a cliff which he shares with too many cats - he expressed concern over journalistic ignorance, specifically where we are reporting on climate change.
I'm the first to admit I grimace when I hear Al Gore on his soapbox - and wince when I hear climate change, global warming, el nino, greenhouse gases, carbon footprints and any other green buzz-word lumped into the same sentence. As Howard explained, it took months of committed research for him to get a grasp of the issues surrounding climate change - and required a broader reading/viewing list than ‘An Inconvenient Truth’.
As an example, there seem to be many misconceptions in society and the media about the energy sector... Events in history have seen the word 'nuclear' attract a nasty label and, as a result, nuclear energy is too often dismissed by the public as being evil. In actual fact, while there are negatives to creating electricity/power from nuclear fission (the finite supply of uranium, the storing of nuclear by-products, and the placement of power plants), advocates argue that, in comparison to the alternatives (wind, coal, gas), it still remains our most sustainable and carbon friendly option. Plus, it would negate our reliance on foreign oil supplies.
Needless to say, Howard was not entirely pleased by my fence sitting on the energy debate. And, with the knowledge that one of his cats had attached itself to my jeans/coat, I listened to his concerns over climate change related journalism. Essentially, he was gravely, gravely concerned about the state of the planet and believed journalists were too focused on buzz words and failed to paint an appropriately dire picture. He believed journalists should be increasingly more honest about the realities of global warming - and that British journalism seemed blinkered to the effects of the rapidly industrialising third world (specifically China and India). That is, Howard thought energy-sector-journalists were a breed of sugar-coaters.
But would a more drastic approach be anything less than scare-mongering? A criticism already levelled at the media?
The PFW lecture we had a few weeks ago on the environment was a big eye opener for me - and made me realise just how little I actually knew about climate change and the environment. And for a journalism student – one who absorbs news of all sorts, and who has grown up in a family of mining engineers and uranium chemists - to know so little about the realities of the resource sector is worrying.
Suffice to say, I think the media should be more concerned: because the case in point is not simply about ‘leaving out information’ - it's about not knowing the stats and figures in the first place.
That's almost as concerning as a life, thus far, entirely funded by creating giant holes in the earth...[Amy blushes].
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