Liberal Vision

If News International had employed Savile how different things would be

I see that Tory MP Philip Davies wrote a few days ago to Ofcom boss Ed Richards demanding that the BBC face a “Murdoch style” investigation “the BBC (should) face the test into their probity following the Jimmy Savile sex abuse revelations and the subsequent cover up that has emerged in the last few weeks“.

Spot on.

Given how (a) tardy and (b) inaccurate the BBC has been in supplying information to date on this issue and (c) the scale of the News International inquiry, we should all be demanding that the BBC should NOT be allowed to run its own “independent” reviews. If News International had been the orgnisation at the centre of this scandal we would rightly expect that any investigation be conducted, and overseen, by an arms length organisation. Indeed there would already be further widespread calls to investigate whether Sky/News International were “fit and proper” to hold a broadcasting license. We should expect no less a standard of scrutiny of a state broadcaster.

Phone hacking is a considerably lesser crime than any of the following (a) failing to take all available steps to protect children in your care, (b) failing to investigate thoroughly suspicions of abuse of minors by your staff, (c) failing to forward such serious suspicions to the police for investigation. These appear to be the very accusations that have already been laid at BBCs door.

Add to that, the deeply worrying incident of a Newsnight item on Savile being pulled. It has been said by the editor that the reason for not broadcasting the item was based purely on their belief that they had insufficient evidence to broadcast the item. Now we learn however, that the BBC has been forced to issue an embarrassingly lengthy correction to his blog saying it was “inaccurate or incomplete in some respects”.

Frankly, anyone who has ever worked in broadcast journalism will have already raised an eyebrow at the suggestion that an item had actually filmed before the decision was taken that there was insufficient evidence to broadcast.   There is also the serious question as to why they did not pass their files to the police? And we have yet to find out just how much George Entwistle (recently appointed Director General) knew of the Newsnight item. Maybe the BBCs Panorama documentary tonight will shed further light on the matter? Although I for one do not wish to be told by BBC journalists what actually occurred on Newsnight (and certainly not one as inept as this) any more than I want BBC appointees to tell me what occurred elsewhere.

All of this just feels too cosy for my liking. Who is willing to bet that we will see little more than a couple of token hacks hung out to dry (i.e. pensioned off),  much hand-wringing and an assurance that current  child protection and whistle-blowing policies are fit for purpose.

Not good enough in my opinion. We cannot have one rule for the state (broadcaster) and one rule for everyone else.  If phone hacking deserves a Leveson inquiry, then unchecked wholesale child abuse and journalistic cover ups deserves Leveson++.

In a shockingly lame reply to a question in the House last week, Nick Clegg said

“I certainly accept there may be a case for an inquiry and if an inquiry were to be held which is as broad ranging as you suggest it should be, it should be independent to look at the full range of the shocking revelations as they have come to light”

Not good enough Nick. Nowhere near good enough. What are you waiting for?

UPDATE: Excellent post here from Liberal England on how the BBC lied, and lied, and lied.

Tags: BBC, Jimmy Savile, Leveson, News International, Newsnight, Nick Clegg, Panorama

Lies, damn lies, statistics & meta-analysis – their contribution to the weak case for minimum pricing

Few days go by without the public being subjected to some health scare or miracle cure delivered to them by an ill-informed but very enthusiastic media. Generally, these stories refer to “a new study” or “latest research” implying that “scientists”, “doctors” or “experts” have actually performed a novel experiment that has scientifically demonstrated something new and potentially useful.

In the vast majority of cases, this isn’t true. What has often happened is that a special interest group has reviewed some historical data, re-analysed it, applied a bit of spin in support of their case, published it somewhere not over insistent on scientific rigour such as a medical journal and issued a press release usually full of impressive sounding numbers.

These reviews appear in many formats but all suffer from the fundamental problem that they tend to conclude whatever the authors want them to. The most advanced form of this data manipulation epidemic is the meta-analysis, which can be viewed as a sort of amplifier. The idea is to take a number of studies that may be individually insignificant or even contradictory and combine them in a way that enhances consistencies.

Two major limitations of the approach as identified by numerous academic sources are publication bias and agenda bias. These factors are especially problematic in public health which is observably doctrinaire.

Publication bias normally refers to the tendency for positive results to be more likely to be published than those that support the null hypothesis thus distorting collective analysis of outcomes. Public health publications are often policy driven rather than objective or evidence based and the dogmatic nature of this approach fuels a more extreme form of publication bias caused by suppression of non-conformist ideas.

The depth of this problem was exposed in 2003 when the BMJ published Enstrom and Kabat whose work suggested that passive smoking appeared to be less lethal than previously claimed. The authors were set upon by the public health industry and The BMJ itself was subject to attack for its heretical challenge to public health orthodoxy. The vast majority of critics didn’t even address the content of the paper. The unsavoury incident led Ungar and Bray to write Silencing Science in which they conclude that an intelligent debate on the effects of passive smoke has become impossible. Irrespective of the debate over its content, the reception of the BMJ paper serves to illustrate the extreme extent of publication bias in public health.

Public health also suffers from agenda bias. The bedrock of science is sceptical objectivity and this is particularly important with meta-analysis because freedom to choose which studies to include, how to weight them and how to interpret the results introduces a degree of subjectivity.  In science the tendency to use this freedom to engineer favourable outcomes is usually offset by the value placed on scientific /academic integrity. Such ethical considerations are less restraining in public health where the discourse is dominated by policy driven orthodoxy rather than a desire for genuine discovery and the adversarial exploration of competing hypotheses.

In public health the authors of meta-analyses are all too often wishful thinking medics or public health activists who exhibit a depressing tendency to make the data fit the theory. Attempts to justify smoking bans by claiming dramatic post-ban falls in heart attacks have unsurprisingly produced some of the most unconvincing meta-analyses including this from Stanton Glantz a man obsessed by his personal war against tobacco and this produced by a cardiologist from Kansas

The outcomes of these meta-analyses are pre-determined by biased study selection. The authors chose to ignore the poor quality, methodological weaknesses and arguably fraudulent nature of the selected studies highlighting another weakness of meta-analysis. The authors should have been exposed by the “success” of their efforts which imply that 15-20% of heart attacks are caused by passive smoking. This is implausible to the point of being ridiculous but amazingly, their output is still referenced.

The dubious use of meta-analysis is not confined to tobacco control. Many of us have been left scratching our heads by claims made for minimum alcohol pricing. The notion that a modest financial measure that would not inconvenience the majority could have a significant impact on problem drinking and youth drinking appears counterintuitive and depends on some odd assumptions about price elasticity and behaviour.

The politician’s claims are based on the work of Petra Meier who derives much of her theory from meta-analyses. Based on Gallet’s 2007 interpretation of 132 studies dating back to 1945 she concludes “if the price of beer is raised by 10%, beer consumption would fall by 3.5%; if the price of wine was increased by 10%, wine consumption would fall by 6.8%; and if the price of spirits increased by 10%, spirits consumption would fall by 9.8%.”

In some ivory towered fairyland perhaps but in real life here in the UK, the leap from Gallet’s findings to “A 50p limit should cut alcohol consumption among moderate drinkers by about 3.5%, or half a unit for women and two-thirds of a unit for men” together with rest of the hyperbolic nonsense in this fabulously biased BBC article is hard to understand or justify.

I can imagine the Scottish government falling for this on the basis that any data however ridiculous is an improvement when you are used to your health secretary simply making up the numbers to support her agenda, but surely David Cameron should be better advised than this?

Reading Craig Gallet’s 2007 paper on which Meier relies heavily and being mindful of her claims with respect to targeting young drinkers, I was struck by a line in the conclusion:

“… if we are particularly concerned with teenage drinking, since we find that teens are least responsive to price, then perhaps the best approach to reducing teen alcohol consumption should involve alternatives to taxation, such as education campaigns.”

This is not the only inconsistency in this classic case of torturing the numbers to fit pre-determined policy.

By Chris Oakley. Chris has previously posted on Liberal Vision:  Smokers-State Aprroved hate and Intolerance is UK policy,   Alcohol is Old News – Minimum Pricing for Digestives is the “Next Logical Step” , Soviet Style Alcohol Suppression Campaign Called for By Public Health Activists , Alcohol Taxation: The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth , A Liberal Tolerant nation? ,  What hope is there for liberty if truth becomes the plaything of political lobbyists and Public Health Success?

Note from Editor

You might also find the following posts interesting:

BBC And Guardian Played Like Fools On Minimum Alcohol Pricing by Dick Puddlecote 3/10/2012

A black market in booze fearmongering by Chris Snowdon for Spiked! 3/10/12012

Lies, Damn lies and Sheffield University by The Pub Curmudgeon 3/10/2012

Tags: BBC, Guardian, meta-analyis, Sheffield Univesity

BBC on drugs?

I don’t know quite what the BBC was on yesterday – but the excitement of the past 48 hours clearly got to them.

Whilst covering the emergency debate in Parliament – the BBC also felt it necessary to show images of a jet taxi-ing at Luton… with the dramatic headline “RUPERT MURDOCH IS EXPECTED TO LEAVE COUNTRY” ….

Is that really news? Still it wasn’t quite as mad as the earlier incident – when BBC News channel cut off an interviewee in mid-sentence to “cut to (equally un-)dramatic pictures of ……..David Cameron getting into a car ! – on his way to Parliament…..

Let’s hope the summer recess will allow all those BBC journalists to go and lie down in a quiet dark place for a while. And let’s hope that BSKYB don’t pull the plug on Sky News anytime soon if this is the best the BBC can do.

Tags: BBC, Hackgate, Rupert Murdoch

BBC ban on term “electoral reform” even more preposterous

As recently noted, the BBC powers-that-be have decided to ban the term “electoral reform” being used by its correspondents because the word “reform” sounds too positive (see previous post on why this in itself is preposterous).

But now it looks even more absurd!

The Prime Minister – who is standing with the NO campaign is still using that self-same term.  In his speech on Friday (and i will say this again!), arguing against AV, David Cameron himself uses the term “electoral reform” again and actually defines AV as a type of reform …quoted on the BBC website…

“(David Cameron) said he believed the Alternative Vote was “completely the wrong reform” and would be “bad for our democracy” – leading to unfair results and an unaccountable political system” (source bbc website)

If AV is -according to the PM – the “wrong sort of reform” ..then definition-ally it is “reform”. Any reason why we can ALL agree that this vote is about ELECTORAL REFORM – except the BBC? 

Surely there is something very odd going on…The Prime Minister of this country can make a speech against electoral reform in which he uses – once again –  the term “electoral reform” … and in that speech define  AV as a type of reform (if the wrong one). That the BBC can report that speech, quoting the PM using the term “electoral reform” and showing the highlights of the speech in its website. BUT the BBC journalists are banned from using the term themselves? 

The dictat looks more preposterous and untenable with every day that passes. 

On a related issue – any reason why the main BBC News political story on AV runs with the title “Votes referendum: Cameron rejects Clegg AV call” . Is that really fair? to headline the story with reference to Cameron’s view (what’s wrong with “Clegg and Cameron go head to head over…..”) …. is it really impartial to list the PMs objections extensively at the top of the article and drop in Nick ‘s arguments much further down the piece?  Maybe it doesn’t matter – but for a BBC that appears obsessive about impartiality this seems a tad..oh how can I say this…biased?

Tags: ban, BBC, David Cameron, electoral reform, Nick Clegg, no to AV, yes to AV

So why has the BBC banned the term “electoral reform” ?

About a fortnight a story emerged that BBC journalists had been sent an internal document from the top brass demanding that their staff stop describing “electoral reform” as “electoral reform”.

I raise it now (late) because having missed the revelation at the time I assumed “word had got out there” about it, so I let it pass. I am however surprised to find how few people who are usually “in the know” – don’t know. Here are the basics….

In an internal BBC memo leaked to The Independent, Ric Bailey, the corporation’s chief political adviser, said: “Please can we make sure that we don’t describe this – in our own scripts, headlines, etc – as the referendum on ‘electoral reform’. When the [BBC’s] Guidance is published ahead of the referendum period, it will make clear that, in the context of the referendum, that is not an impartial term – ‘reform’ explicitly contains a definition of ‘improvement’.”

 So if “reform” is “not an impartial term” why is it that changes to the public services and laws of this country can be described in terms of “reform” by the Government – and parroted by the BBC…. NHS reform plans will strenthen NHS,says Government. BBC October 1st 2010. Welfare benefit reforms unveiled by Government. BBC October 2010. Government to press ahead with radical NHS reform plans. BBC December 15th 2010.  “When ministers drew up their plans for radical reform of the NHS, schools and the welfare system..” Norman Smith Chief Political Correspondent, BBC Radio 4 , February 2nd 2011. and so on……

Why is it that a term such as “electoral reform” causes such offence to the BBC but all other Government reform is OK?

You could argue I suppose that the reason why”electoral reform” is on the forboten list and “NHS reform” isn’t, is because there is to be a vote on electoral reform. But then surely that must mean that the BBC is openly admitting that it frankly doesn’t give a toss about the language it uses day-today, but does care when it comes to a vote.

Slack, lazy reporting on a day to day basis BBC? Maybe. But I suspect that it is not that. Could it be that the BBC is running scared of the Government? Could it be that the BBC has been got at by the highly influential No campaigners with their slick suits, armed with promises of who-knows what  post election by those in the corridors of power?  So BBC,  are you incompetent, lazy,or just plain “got at”. It doesn’t look good any way you look at it.

And here is why this is oh so puzzling.. “electoral reform” is a term that has been around longer than the BBC. It is part of the language of politics. Of democracy indeed. We all know what it means.

Significantly it was this Government  that made a pledge to introduce a vote on electoral reform. Not “electoral change”. Not “electoral alteration”.. It is there in black and white. A vote on electoral reform.. “We will bring forward a referendum on electoral reform” … (Coalition Agreement)… “Next May, there’ll be a referendum on electoral reform”; (David Cameron speech to Conservative Party) ..

And so, The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill 2010-11 has thus been called, ever since, as the “electoral reform bill” by all the main news sources in the UK – including the  BBC….. “Lord Falconer and Lord McNally debate whether the house of Lords should pass the electoral reform bill”  (source BBC)….  “Peers’ threat to AV voting reform referendum defeated” (source BBC)…

 So if the Prime Minister and the Coalition Government can and have promised this country a vote on electoral reform -and  the newspapers and broadcasters of this land have thus described it, and the bill that will enable it, as “electoral reform” / “electoral reform bill”, for the last 12 months, why has the BBC decided in its infinite wisdom to ban the term now?  On whose say so?

The BBC should not be allowed to rewrite history, or skew the debate. Nor should any shiny suited boys, with an eye to their own future prospects, be allowed to threaten or cajole the BBC into actions that suit them now.

 Yes to Fairer Votes are writing a letter to the BBC condemning this action, which you can sign here: Reform” isn’t a dirty word: Cosign our letter to the BBC.  It is a start but it is almost certainly not enough if what we get in May is a free and fair vote. We need more questions raised in every public place, and to the BBC at every opportunity. And frankly, a lot more answers…

Oh…. and if any BBC employee  out there is willing to spill the beans and tell us what is really going on – please email me – I will happily publish your post – anonymously if necessary. Surely one of you cares more about journalism than just plain self interest?

Tags: ban, BBC, coalition, David Cameron, electoral reform, Nick Clegg