Forums » Off duty » News & media » Do you hate journalists?
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Do you hate journalists?
posted at 7/11/2011 7:08 PM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 470
First: 12/7/2010 Last: 14/4/2012 |
This piece on the BMJ by Ray Moynihan made me realize how much I hate journalists now a days. It's hard to find something which not paid news. Most of what is written about health is absolutely drivel and obviously written with an agenda. Every morning when I open the newspaper a fitness expert or a nutritionist gets my goat and makes me wince due to the sheer non-sense. Should journalists come under scrutiny? Absolutely yes, it's about time they start taking responsibility for their drivel. |
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Re: Do you hate journalists?
posted at 7/11/2011 7:55 PM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2072
First: 10/3/2009 Last: 16/5/2012 |
What I find is their lack of rigour in presenting information. Most articles have a smoky flavour of marketing in them. Few seem to have any scientific knowledge. On the other hand, in Australia there are some excellent radio programmes by journalists with scientific and medical backgrounds and even one TV programme called Catalyst which is good. Journalists like editors ride a different bicycle from medical practitioners. I still would prefer a society with freedom of the press (a relative term) and some courageous journalists who pull no punches than precise journalists run by the state collective which censors everything. I spent an hour on the radio this year with a good compare and had a very pleasant time talking mainly on sleep so it is horses for courses. Our most notable export was Rupert Murdock who has colonised Magna Britannica Defuncta.
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Re: Do you hate journalists?
posted at 8/11/2011 10:51 AM GMT
on bmj.com
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*Moderator*
Posts: 593
First: 17/11/2008 Last: 15/5/2012 |
Some of my best friends are journalists and I worked as a health journalist on a newspaper in the UK for a couple of years. Some health journalists are excellent and really understand the resrearch. What can go wrong are the following: |
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Re: Do you hate journalists?
posted at 8/11/2011 11:55 AM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2072
First: 10/3/2009 Last: 16/5/2012 |
As much as you think you might hate them, nearly everything new we learn has been found out second hand. Very little of our perceptions of the world are from first hand experience regardless of how erudite and independent we think we are. Herodotus, the Greek historian was really a journalist writing a travel log and was one of the first great reporters. The four Gospels and the writings of St Paul are the writings of journalists telling us what they saw and when you read them they convey the intimate details of every day life then. Homer's detailed Hollywood-style epics have the same journalistic style. Tonight an Australian reporter told a story about the widespread and reckless use of asbestos (mainly from Quebec) throughout India. Each reporter can add twists and have deletions but as I know this area, I found the story balanced and credible. Tonight I saw on ABC TV a tribunal set up by our federal government about the abuse of power by the large media magnates like Rupert Murdoch and how this should be restricted lest our society become dominated by a few with the ultimate suppression of and distortion of the truth in the quest for power, influence and money. Our Opposition said that this attempt by the government was to quieten critical voices in the newspapers, particulary the Australian. Thus we depend on journalists for our opinions and views of the world. Freedom of the Press is one of the fundamentals of a civilised society governed by the rule of law. When a political or religious group muffles freedom of expression, we ultimately end up with tyranny, regardless of how well intentioned it may have been in the beginning. The New England Journal of Medicine and other journals are also run by journalists under the guise of editors and their staff. What you read in the journals is no accident but all too often influenced by drug company money, political considerations, vested interests and competing research teams doing the dirty on the opposition. We buy the journal so they make it. So when you say you hate journalists, think. Why are your views the way they are?...mostly genetic, familial and national (the race and religion your were conceived in). Your views then are just as predictable and influenced just a bit what prejudice you sucked up in this mornings tabloid run by a multinational company. We need a free press and good and courageous journalists.
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Re: Do you hate journalists?
posted at 8/11/2011 3:45 PM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 838
First: 12/3/2010 Last: 15/5/2012 |
Deb, Ed, Others, I fear you are reading the wrong newspapers! Try the Guardian. A campaigning newspaper with, yes, a liberal (small 'l') and a leftist stance, but with a wide view that does not trivialise or commodotise important mattersm, medical or otherwise. See yesterday's report by Amelia Hill of her three weeks in the Court of Protection. The Court has allowed for the first time, the Guardian and only the Guardian, this insight. Ms.Hill's report is sympathetic to the cases she saw - many with a medical background - and deals with the controversy about reporting the CP impartially. John |
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Re: Do you hate journalists?
posted at 8/11/2011 4:34 PM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 470
First: 12/7/2010 Last: 14/4/2012 |
@Luisad - Obviously there are exceptions and thank god for them. What I feel is that there should be accountability. Compare a journalist with a doctor, if a doctor with questionable practices gave those reasons would it be acceptable? @Odysseus - I agree that free press is an absolute necessity for a democracy but freedom should not be divorced from responsibility. Why do I hate them? The reasons are mostly related to the local and national press. For example - One newspaper here follows this practice - whenever any allegation of malpractice arises against a government hospital arises, they give the full details, with the doctor’s and hospital’s name. But when the similar allegations are raised against private facilities there is no mention of their name. Why this dichotomy? Also why should someone's name/photo be splashed in the papers when there is only an allegation which has not been substantiated? Consider the coverage given when the WHO classified mobile phone use as a possible carcinogen. Now when a study on BMJ has not found any link, no/minimum coverage is given to it. Once in 2009, during the first swine flu death here there was almost a trial by the media. Even when the doctors on the panel discussion repeatedly explained the situation the journalists kept attacking with pointless rhetoric. Their central argument was – if the doctors did nothing wrong then how did the patient die? This was after the doctors on the panel repeatedly explained everything.
We identify the influence of Big Pharma but when the revenue of the newspapers comes from corporate advertisement the idea of a free press will be just that, an idea.
At least the doctors acknowledge the conflicts of interests. The journalists criticizing the doctors should begin by accepting it.
I had to change my newspaper subscription because the spin doctors.
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Re: Do you hate journalists?
posted at 8/11/2011 4:40 PM GMT
on bmj.com
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*Moderator*
Posts: 623
First: 7/4/2011 Last: 16/5/2012 |
Response on Twitter: LAnekwe 4:27pm via TweetDeck Ouch, now that hurts. Luckily I'm a 'health' journalist with thick skin
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Re: Do you hate journalists?
posted at 8/11/2011 5:30 PM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 4
First: 8/11/2011 Last: 26/1/2012 |
Of course I don´t hate them. Why should I? With my perspective as a physician and a freelance journalist I would like to add just a few more things to the moderator comments, which I share 100%. When I began to know health journalists I realiced that many of them intend to do their best, like any other person in any other field. Beside, I also know real good health journalists which job helps to spread doctor´s scientific research (something we actively look for) and improve many people´s knowledge regarding health. If we, as health proffesionals, are critic with ourselves, we will realice that we commit mistakes to, with the only difference that most of them -unless we do something really wrong- will not ever be public, as a journalist´s work is. For instance, according to Clinical Evidence, only 34% of therapies we use are known to be effective or likely to be effective, whereas 51% are of unknown effectivness: Should someone hate us for that? Well, I am not sure. But in fact, this has not to do specifically with medecine or journalism. It has to do with life. We, humans, commit mistakes and sometimes we learn from them. And that happens everywhere. The only thing that makes the difference is the will to improve. And that is not something that depends on our job, but in our humanity. Best regards for all. Aser García Rada Paediatrician at the Hospital Infantil Universitario Niño Jesús in Madrid, Spain, and freelance journalist |
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Re: Do you hate journalists?
posted at 8/11/2011 9:54 PM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 1317
First: 7/3/2009 Last: 15/5/2012 |
I think hate is the wrong word..I dislike and disagree with some journalists' methods of publishing information.I really don't like when something I know well is distorted in press, misrepresented or when journalists go for the sensational instead of giving the more objective perspective. On the other hand I have to admit that many things were subjected to better inspection after they have been published, there were numerous times when journalists exposed information that led to serious investigation and findings that had impact on healthcare here. So it is not black and white, but there is a lot of smoke and sometimes exaggeration of information that takes things to extremes and absurd. So I believe that whatever is written should be approached with these thing in mind. There is a lot to be said also about the differences between old and new journalism.Some new journalists tend to go for the easy,fast, selling, popular and scandalous items instead of doing the work thoroughly. Present media status doesn't help, because it is a battlefield and all want to be first to bring out the juicy stuff... |
Forums » Off duty » News & media » Do you hate journalists?
