The media and other idiots

I've been reading with interest the comments stemming from Andrew Collins comments about the LHC (which is a collider not a corridor, I am a mong). Not wanting to enforce my opinion about everything on Mr Collins, I thought I'd rant quietly in my own corner.

Attention was drawn to a report of an Indian girl who committed suicide over fears that the world was going to end. The thought being that the media are responsible for this girl's death.

Now, I am not shy of criticising the media for the sensationalistic lies they present as fact. I still get angry thinking about all the parents who did not get the MMR for their toddlers because they were anxious about the supposed link with autism. Measles is something your child can catch, autism is not. Nobody knows for sure what causes autism, but it is more than likely that it is something a child is born with and nothing to do with anything that happens after birth. Yet, even after the MMR link has been categorically disproven, there still remains lingering doubts and some parents still think they won't take the risk, thus leaving their child susceptible to measles, which can cause blindness, brain damage or even death, as well as endangering all the children who are too young for the vaccine and who would be even more vulnerable.

In 2000 in Worcester, we witnessed first hand the discrepancy between what was really happening (flood plain flooded) and what was reported on the news (Worcester underwater, all residents now amphibeous).

Having said this, the media provide what is asked for. The general public lap up sensationalist crap, evidenced this week by everyone thinking the LHC was interesting purely because we might all die and not because of the implications of the research. In fact, each and every quip about it added to the frenzy. We love to read of doom and gloom, people's downfalls and general errors, we buy the papers and watch the programmes. The sheer existence of celebrity magazines like Hello and OK show the public's need to indulge in speculative doom mongery, albeit restricted to cellulite and divorce. The truth doesn't sell, sensation does, and that is down to the public for buying it. One would hope that the public would in turn show a little discretion and exercise the ability to identify sensationalism and actually either accept that they don't know anything* about something, or find out the truth before acting upon a news story.

I wouldn't expect a 16 year old girl to have that ability, but one has to question her father for "diverting her attention" and not helping her find out the truth. You don't need to understand the science, you just need to know that IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.

*the day Joe Public realises they are in fact an ignorant muppet will be a wondrous day.

Cruelty

The New Scientist tells me that hackers can modify pacemakers to wear down the batteries or give the wearer electric shocks. And apparently other hackers sent flashing images last year to the Epilepsy Foundation website to try and trigger attacks.

Can people really be that cruel? That's beyond being a prankster.

In another entirely different and far less sinister type of cruelty, I find poor Jools Oliver being targeted as a victim in a loveless marriage again, contrary to the ongoing evidence of a sweet little family that deal admirably with inevitable difficulties. (Or maybe I'm naively believing in true love and it's all a sham). An interview she did with Red magazine contained the confession that she was considering taking fertility drugs to conceive again as "Jamie would do anything for a boy". This was an aside at the end of an interview, but is the quote that made the cover, and I've seen several reports that admit to taking the information from that Red interview, which take the "Jamie Oliver forces his wife to have IVF such is his desperation for a child" angle as if Jamie is a monster interested only in his needs. And Jools mentions nothing of IVF, only of taking fertility drugs, which she details in her book "Minus Nine to One" and is not something she kept hidden. I recall Davina McCall saying, in one of the Channel 4 snippets of celebrities answering a question, that she would like to "give her husband a son" - so what of it? Many men make no secret of the fact that they'd like a son if they have daughters. But the media are determined to prove that the Olivers can't possibly be as happy as they seem to be, there must be cracks somewhere...


(yes, I know, the pukka thing's annoying, but he is an amazing chef and he is a hero for school dinners, chickens and Sainsburys. She's a poppet).

Why do the public delight in reading of other's downfalls? Clearly they want to read about celebrities suffering or the stories of such wouldn't sell. The greedy consumption of gloom fuels the media's cruelty.