“A story on Page 1 of Tuesday’s Telegraph quoted a White House official explaining that a Q-and-A session with dozens of teenagers in Nashua High School North on Monday was “off the record.” However, the explanation about the talk being “off the record” was, it turns out, also “off the record” and should not have been quoted.” – The Telegraph (New Hampshire)
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11:59 AM - February 5, 2010
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This should, of course, be categorized with the recent much hyped rediscovery of the allegedly "scientific" finding from the 1970s of the imminent ice age. In fact, a quick look at google finds that of almost 30,000 articles in 6000 refereed scientific journals, there was not a single mention of an approaching ice age. This did not stop the pop science press--including the BBC News, the London Times, the Christian Scientist Monitor, the Guardian and others--from proclaiming, "in the 1970s scientists announced an ice age is upon us." (so how can any scientific findings about AGW be believed?)
The lesson is obvious.
Now, what about, "bananas are becoming extinct?"
#1 Posted by BostonEddie, CJR on Sun 7 Feb 2010 at 04:20 PM
botch |bä ch |
verb [ trans. ] informal
carry out (a task) badly or carelessly : the ability to take on any task without botching it | he was in a position to hire people, and he botched that up | [as adj. ] ( botched) a botched attempt to kill them.
• patch or repair (an object or damage) clumsily.
Why does the subheading, and the article itself, suggest that it "appears the Sunday Times either grossly misunderstood his findings, or simply did its best to sex up the story"? Either the scientist, who has published in one of the most prestigious journals in his field, is lying, or the writer has fabricated a quote and falsely attributed something to the research.
#2 Posted by MA, CJR on Tue 9 Feb 2010 at 12:35 AM
you are in a war right now!
#3 Posted by Tank, CJR on Fri 10 Jun 2011 at 09:39 AM
it's rather funny that the corrected BBC article, as linked in this article, subtly states in a footnote that dr. Sell made clear "that his research had set out to test the link between temperament and attractiveness, rather than hair colour, for which he said the link was weaker."
why is it so hard for people, especially anonymous people like news organizations, to simply state that they were wrong? fabrication, which as comment #2 mentions is a more likely means by which the original erroneous article came to be, is a different matter of course, but saying you got it wrong is at least somewhat closer to the truth. furthermore, why do they find it hard to mention dr. Sell doesn't refer AT ALL to hair in his article (as suggested by this article - one can't be too careful nowadays)? why 'weaker'? it's just plain infantile.
#4 Posted by JB, CJR on Wed 21 Sep 2011 at 03:47 PM