Read This Book

[Bellend Sebastian]

Anybody else read Bad Science yet?

I'm about halfway through it. It's brilliant, but quite alarming with it. And I haven't even got to the bit about the MMR scare yet, which never fails to make my blood boil whenever it's mentioned

[BoneDog]

I've got this book but have not got round to reading it. Will make it my next one, after I've finished reading 'Blowing Up Russia'. Oooooh it's a good book.

[Bellend Sebastian]

You might not be keen if you're a big fan of Gillian McKeith

[BoneDog]

I have just finished reading this book.

It's genuinely brilliant. It's not ranty, meticulously put together, reasonably fair and balanced (it attacks media campaigns from, say, Greenpeace and The Mail - both of which are equally well explained) and has left me not looking at news the same way again. I feel completely cut adrift after having read it, it fact. If he's even half right, which I fear he is, then there's very little news I/we can trust at all.

The section that talks about the media looking for accuracy rather than truth, and putting quotes from both sides in every story however weak one might be (as well as the proliferation of comment) is something I think explains the coalescence of parties and opinion around the political centre.

Buy it, read it.

I'm halfway through this now and it is an eye opener for sure. It was sitting on my shelf for a while and when you bumped this thread I made it my next book to read. I've read loads of stuff similar to this and never really trusted the media but this book is full of facts that I never knew and now I've lost all faith in mainstream media!

There are still some real journalists thankfully like Hersh, Pilger, Fisk etc. who go out and about checking facts and travelling the globe but they are in the minority (or are hard to find).

On a side note, I have just been reading about how Rupert is starting charging for reading news online next year and banning Google from putting any news from his empire on their search engine! We will have to pay to read propaganda!

[BoneDog]

You might not be keen if you're a big fan of Gillian McKeith

Is that the Bad Science book you mean? Not read that one yet.

Please elaborate on the Gillian thing! And why does the MMR thing make you angry? Sorry for being nosey

[Zingari]

a bit similar to these but a bit more light hearted is "Superfreakonomics " BY LEVITT AND DUBNER

[Bellend Sebastian]

Is that the Bad Science book you mean? Not read that one yet.

Please elaborate on the Gillian thing! And why does the MMR thing make you angry? Sorry for being nosey

I'm sorry for making you wait 18 months for an answer, but I don't like to rush into things, as you know

In 'Bad Science' poor old 'Doctor' Gillian McKeith is only a doctor in the broadest sense of the word (she was given her doctorate by a distance learning course of dubious academic standing) and most of what she's ever done or said has little or no scientific basis even though commercially she's does very well out of it all (although perhaps not any more, given that Channel 4 have since dumped her, presumably leading to her less than triumphant, and somewhat desperate appearance on 'I'm a celebrity, don't make me eat that'.)

The MMR thing winds me up because it was common knowledge, even before Bad Science came out, that the whole MMR scare was based on extremely questionable research (the bloke that did it having since been completely discredited), but because it was a good story the media persisted with it for ages longer than they should have done, the net result being that even now you meet parents that refuse to immunise their kids, without any justification whatsoever, so now kids are at risk from diseases that had been pretty much wiped out largely because of shit journalism at crap newspapers (and one in particular).

Anyway

I finally got round to reading 'Flat Earth News' on my recent holiday. I thought it was excellent, but it wasn't half depressing. Most of us are savvy enough to be wary of what gets printed in even the better papers, but the extent of the inherent problems in the world of journalism today portrayed in the book is still shocking. It's always funny reading about what complete bastards people like Piers Morgan and Rupert Murdoch are though, but the stuff on the Daily Mail wore me down because it's such an evil entity, but one that bewilderingly a lot of people put a lot of trust in

[Finnegan]

I too read it on holiday last year, when I went to Hong Kong. And yes, it most certainly is depressing.

It's a very heavy read in that he's clearly a better researcher than writer but it was excellent all the same and very informative.

Highly recommend it. And not just to lefties, either, I think he manages to stay largely neutral on the political spectrum and I think no matter where your politics lie you can (and should be) disappointed by the current standards of news reporting in the West.

[Zingari]

I read both books some time back and found both to be fairly interesting but far too repetitive . Some of the issues were hammered to death.

( I don't think i finished flat earth news , it just seemed to be a constant whine about how much better journalism was in the old days when reporters checked out all the facts diligently before putting anything to print , yeah right )

I reckon they could both have been trimmed down to a couple of pages in a decent magazine article , without losing much impact or getting the same points across .

Far better than either of these in my humble , is Silent State , by Heather Brookes ( she of the MPs expenses scandal expose )