Category: Media

Right. So a ten year study into the possible link between mobile phones and brain tumours finds no evidence that phones cause cancer. How do you report that then, newspapers of the word?

The Daily Mail: “Long conversations on mobile phones can increase risk of cancer, suggests 10-year study”

Daily Express: “CANCER LINK TO HEAVY USE OF MOBILE PHONES”

The Daily Telegraph: “Half an hour of mobile use a day ‘increases brain cancer risk'”

The Times: “Heavy mobile users risk cancer”

The Age: “Study unable to rule out link between mobile phones and brain cancer risk”

Leave it to the excellent NHS Choices blog to talk some sense, with its usual sober and sensible reporting of the actual science behind the tabloid hysteria. I do hope that they survive whatever massive cuts are on their way for the NHS under the new regime…

[Take home quote for me from the NHS Choices report, btw, was this one: “The researchers say that much of the research into a supposed link between mobile use and cancer is to address public concern rather than any particular biological principle: the frequency of radio waves used in mobile phones does not break DNA strands, and therefore cannot cause cancer in this way.” Hmm. I wonder where the public got that idea?]

Clearly The Age have given up on proof reading altogether…

“Gangland daughter Katie Peirce found dead“:

Mr Ser, an outreach worker with the Father Bob Maguire Foundation, told The Age in the statement that rumours of the overdose “are yet to be made official”.

He said the family were dismayed at the rumours “as it is totally out of character for her to have died from an alleged overdose”.

Er. Yeah. I’m pretty sure she’s never died from an overdose before…

“Flying off the handle: a day with the Dalai Lama, a night with Jetstar“:

“I’d just spent three days with the Dalai Lama and just looked at him really dismissively and said ‘f— off’ and we kept going,” she said.

That’s not a very nice way to treat the Dalai Lama, now, is it?

I read this story about a teenager getting a cabinet (when she wanted a cab, init–DYSWTDT) in the Metro of the bloke sitting next to me on the tube this morning. It’s also for some reason made it into El Reg (er, technology angle?) who appear to have just copied it out of the Daily Mail.

How many ways is this clearly the fabrication of a desperately unfunny PR department at the furniture company?

Let us count the ways…

– This “19 Year South Londoner”. What has her name? No? Funny how you’ve managed to get in the name of the company that supplied the cabinet, though, isn’t it?

– Since when did teenagers not off of Eastenders use cockney rhyming slang? I’ve never heard anyone call it a “Joe Baxi”. Have you?

– If she lives in London, home to 6 major airports, why was she flying from Bristol?

– Didn’t they ask her what type of cabinet she wanted? Size? Colour?

– Did the people selling her the cabinet not think it was odd when she said she wanted this cabinet to take her to Bristol? (And why travel there by cab in the first place?)

So well done, display company PR people. I’ll give you a B+ for effort, but next time you want some free publicity, maybe try something that’s moderately believable, ok?

And this is also notable for some speak your branes level commentary from the unwashed illiterates who read the Mail and the Metro:

“Looks like this is another one who will be kept by the taxpayer for life on benefits. How can these people expect to get a job when they can’t talk the language?” — Brian Lightfoot, Birtley Co. Durham

“She definitely should not have received either an apology or a refund. The woman is one of our Nulabour illiterates, a product of our wonderful education system taught by teachers who have threatened strike action because they are “underpaid”. Unfortunately good English is seldom spoken or understood by the text generation. God help Britain because our children will not be able to.” — Ken, South London

“Serves the idiot right.” — Mr. J. Smith, Birmingham, England

“Well, if she had asked properly, then no mix up would have occurred. A sign of the times, I suppose, innit?” — Sandie Seward, Basildon U.K.

“Why should the furniture company apologise? If the idiot girl had spoken correctly in the first place she would have got the taxi she wanted.” — Simon, Nottingham England

So that’s “benefit scroungers”, “the yoof of today”, the “text generation”, “Nulabour”, and “striking teachers”… If someone could just find a way to pin this one on the immigrants then I’d have a full line of my “right wing middle england” bingo card.

Thanks, one and all, for thinking carefully before responding rather than just trotting out your lazy prejudices. Well done everyone!

Excuse me while I put my grammar hat on for a second here, but I couldn’t help spotting this in the indie on Saturday:

“Two held over woman’s head found on beach“. I can’t see how dangling the suspects in the air is going to help solve the crime, but what do I know about modern policing. (Perhaps this is some kind of bizarre pagan ritual…)