Comments on: Personal comments detract from original MMR / LBC debate

By: Judith Townend

Judith Townend — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 15:36:09 +0000

Thanks for your thanks. If any further developments, I’ll update again.

By: theholyllama

theholyllama — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 23:53:07 +0000

Judith

Thanks for the further update and for trying to seek answers to some of the questions posed here. The silence speaks volumes, and I imagine that email address is going to get rather busy…

James

By: pv

pv — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 22:31:21 +0000

I’ve been following this from the outset and I have read all the comments above. I have to say far from the comments on her blog being abusive, it is both Jenni Barnett and LBC who come across as abusive, manipulative and bullying. On the whole commentators on her blog were to the point with regard to the subject matter and reasonably polite. It would take a leap of imagination to describe any of it as abusive – which make me question the motive for removing the comments.
We have an accusation of abusive commenting and the removal of the evidence. Indeed. Fortunately much of it still exists on the Internet. We had a legal threat about copyright infringement that bears all the hallmarks of a cover-up and an attempt to stifle criticism of what was a shockingly ignorant rant against the interest of public health from someone who credits her knowledge to being advised by homeopaths.
The real surprise in all of this is that there weren’t any abusive comments of Jenni Barnett’s, because Ms Barnett’s attitude and LBC’s bullying attempt to defend her are so worthy of the utmost contempt.

By: JohnED

JohnED — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 18:38:24 +0000

Judith

Thanks for the updates and the clarification. This is now a very interesting blog entry and gives a small incite to how Jeni is being advised and the “if we ignore it, it will go away” attitude her “team” seem to be taking.

I think many of comments, received on this piece, stem from the strap line you have given the article, as most feel that the debate has been conducted in a very reasonable and factually based manner.

Finally, an apology for the harshness of my second comment and questioning your professionalism, you have more than proved your worth with such comprehensive updates.

Regards

JohnED

By: LBC - laughable, blustering, canting (updated) « Dr Aust’s Spleen

LBC - laughable, blustering, canting (updated) « Dr Aust’s Spleen — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 17:41:03 +0000

[...] interesting post has appeared over at the blogs bit of journalism.co.uk, where Jeni Barnett’s agent, Robert [...]

By: Judith Townend

Judith Townend — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:24:33 +0000

just to clarify that Common’s comment was not from a press release. He made the first statement to me in an email, after I first contacted him by email, and then had a couple of phone conversations with him.

By: Oli

Oli — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:03:26 +0000

Wow.

That really is an excellent and revealing post!

Thank you Judith for following this one so closely- I find it amazing that Common’s (and hence Jenni Barnett’s) position has been exposed by something so simple as a handful of questions thrown together from comments on his own press-release!

Excellent stuff- I really do hope this takes off! It really does deserve to into the mainstream primetime news!

All the best-
Oli

By: Judith Townend

Judith Townend — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:19:50 +0000

@Oli: Good questions raised Oli. It’s all a bit of a minefield and one that Goldacre’s work certainly addresses. Nick Davies’ book ‘Flat Earth News’ has some good examples of the press release driven nature of news, and some examples of how PR infiltrates/influences journalism. You’re right – many quotes in the news are either from agency-obtained quotes (AP/PA etc) or from press releases and often journalists don’t speak to the people themselves.

From a Journalism.co.uk perspective: we get sent press releases (about media and journalism although completely irrelevant ones too) every day from either external PR companies on behalf of their clients, or companies and organisations (or individuals!) directly. Our policy here is to always reference a quote to a press release ‘……[insert quote] he said, in a release’ for example, and link to it directly (where possible). It’s not as easy as saying using press releases = bad journalism because sometimes they include important or interesting announcements. We also have a system of putting releases straight to our blog in a category ‘media releases’ e.g in this manner: http://blogs.journalism.co.uk/editors/2009/02/11/media-release-dow-jones-grants-515000-in-newspaper-fund/

That allows us to publish announcements quickly without spending too much time repeating what will probably be covered elsewhere on other news sites. Readers can then read the press releases themselves and make their own judgements on them and what is (or isn’t being said). If there are important points to be pulled out or investigated we would do that.

You ask if there’s a repository. Well, funnily enough we host one here, separate to the part of the site which reports on media and journalism – a press release service called PressGo: http://www.journalism.co.uk/66/ Companies can register to have their press releases uploaded and they are circulated to journalists via a newsletter and a Twitter account http://twitter.com/pressreleases (chris@journalism.co.uk for more details). I think there are other similar services but I don’t have experience of them personally.

But PR-journalism relationship is perhaps an issue to expand on in another blog post…

@James: Point taken – I could have been clearer in labelling it as a claim by Common and I hope the updates now clarify this was the case. I maintain that it’s not my position to judge whether there were or were not offensive comments made; I have absolutely no way of knowing that. I would stress that Common said his remark refers to unpublished comments and emails -a statement I have no way of further researching as we cannot verfify the nature or volume of these (so cannot be compared in volume to the inoffensive comments that were posted).

One more update coming now – see post.

By: Cannonball Jones

Cannonball Jones — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:17:33 +0000

Strange, every comment I read on Jeni’s blog seemed to be reasonable criticism of her programme. Some were a little harsh but certainly nothing which could be construed as offensive, unless you’re offended by people pointing out when you’ve made a massive mistake.

I wonder if anyone has started research into whether peoples’ epidermal layers are shrinking in recent years. It seems the slightest comment about anyone’s opinion, religion or anything else is suddenly offensive and such speech must therefore be banned immediately. It’s a bit depressing really.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 13:45:30 +0000

That’s a fantastic update – that’s true investigative journalism and I’m glad to read it. This is frankly what the Internet revolution that we’ve all been promised – the ability of a journalist to report on a press release and the reader’s ability to post a comment that says “Whoa, hold on here” and the ability of the journalist to go back to the source with the questions and additional sources that the comments have raised.

I think Common has a rock solid case there “You can’t see them but, my god, there’s hundreds of nasty comments.” To make an analogy – I have a bridge, you can’t see it but I’ll sell it to you anyway.

I suggest that Common familarise himself with the horror stories of random online cranks (“an hero” being the terrible archetype) before he suggests that it must have been something that Ben Goldacre has control over. People can be very nasty without an NHS doctor leading them.