Irresponsible Journalism ??

Don, it's the headline that's misleading, not the story itself.

The subs are responsible for that - it's certainly an attention-grabber, which is part of a sub's job.

That said, the decline in quality of journalism at the Tele the past few years has been remarkable. Bill Deedes will be turning in his grave!

Follow-up story here on the BBC site:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19755695

Hi Kevin,

Yes, thanks. i'm aware of the BBC article, that's where I first identified this story - i'm in Canada at present so don't see the UK newspapers too often !

I am (obviously) not a member of the press, so consider it irrelevant as to whose job it is to raise eye-catching headlines or ensure that facts are properly researched and accurately reported.

But IMHO, such grotesquely distorted headlines are manifestly wrong, even if the associated article immediately (and I do mean immediately) makes it clear that the headline was merely an attention-grabbing joke !

The Press has a hugely important role in society and it seems to me it is not always living up to decent standards, never mind excellent standards these days. It should report facts, make clear when these facts are unverified, and make doubly clear when they have moved on from fact to opinion.

All IMHO. Others might be happy with the current state of affairs, and I might be a bit too sensitive on these sorts of things. Such is life and it would be dull if everything was perfect !

I'm not saying it's a good thing Don, just that it's always happened, and always will. It's part of the game, although I agree with you that this is a particularly egregious example.

But these days, particularly on the internet, it's all about grabbing attention. The more clicks the publication gets on a story, the better stats they can give to advertisers. It's known in the trade as "clickbait". The Mail and Guardian are usually the worst offenders.

The Guardian failed many people with its reporting of the alleged link between autism and MMR vaccine at  the outset of that story. Due diligence and some background research should have stopped that story at source. The effect of that story is still doing damage. It did apologise some years later but these stories have massive impact and it failed in its responsibilities.

I was interviewed by the Guardian last week about a health related story (our surgery just won an award) so I now think it is a much better paper-look out for my ugly mug next Wednesday probably!

The Mail was the worst on the MMR story Bruce, spreading disinformation deliberately (as they so often do on health matters).

They jumped on a bandwagon but the initial story was a Guardian 'scoop' I think? Whatever, the whole event did real harm.

The health reporting in the DM is utterly atrocious. I expect the Grauniad to do better though.

Bruce

I appreciate your diagnosis is realistic. Things won't change without significant intervention. I am suggesting that significant fines might change the behaviour of the press.

The fines would need to be draconian and accompanied by generous compensation to anybody adversely affected.

If people believe this won't work, then I consider we need to re-think financial penalties in general. even for relatively trivial offences such as speeding or parking. Perhaps we should send irresponsible journalists to prison instead ?

Just accepting the status-quo doesn't seem reasonable to me at the moment. I can however, see that we don't want to have a censored press.