Journalism

Don’t Believe What You Read

~ Cheryl

I have occasionally expressed the view here that British newspapers are not entirely to be trusted. This is rarely more the case than when they are talking about young people and the Internet. Some of you may remember a few months back a story about a young girl who held a party while her parents were away and advertised it on Facebook, with the result that it was gatecrashed by a huge drunken mob and the house was trashed. Well today The Guardian reports that the girl’s mother has successfully sued eight newspapers and Sky News because most of the story was a complete fabrication. They didn’t even manage to get the social networking site right: the party was advertised on Bebo, not Facebook. And the damage to the house was minimal.

I remember seeing some people blogging about this story when it first broke. Hopefully those who did so will see this too.

We Are All Such Children

~ Cheryl ~ 4 Comments

Today’s moral panic in the UK is all about the “infantilising” effect of the Internet on human minds. Lady Greenfield, a professor of synaptic pharmacology at Lincoln college, Oxford, and a director of the Royal Institution, no less, is very worried:

the mid-21st century mind might almost be infantilised, characterised by short attention spans, sensationalism, inability to empathise and a shaky sense of identity

There’s lots more like that here, including concerns that kids who play video games and read stuff online are missing out because they don’t get the in-depth experience of reading real books. I was tempted to suggest that Lady Greenfield read The Ten-Cent Plague, because I’m sure that very similar concerns were expressed about the dangers of children reading comic books. Then I decided she’d be much better off being sat down and given a good talking to by danah boyd.

Which is not to say that methods of social interaction are not changing, and in some ways no doubt for the worse. But I’m never much impressed by “new technology will destroy us all” rants.

In other news scientists in the US have discovered a correlation between kids who listen to music with sexually explicit lyrics and underage sex, and the journos have concluded that this “proves” that pop music makes kids have sex. That one, at least, hasn’t changed in decades.

A Tale of Two Reports

~ Cheryl

Last night I watched the final of the current series of University Challenge. I’d seen several of the earlier rounds and I knew that both of the teams in the final were very good. I wasn’t disappointed, it was an excellent contest, and I wasn’t surprised to see it reported in the papers today. Interestingly, however, The Guardian had two reports: this one by Leigh Holmwood and this one by Sam Wollaston. Check them both out. I would be interested in opinions.

Update: Via Christine Burns I find some interesting material on the BBC web site that not only shows Gail Trimble in action, but talks about the perils of being known as a clever woman.

Sun Takes on Onion

~ Cheryl ~ 5 Comments

British tabloids are odd beasts. Mostly they specialize in football (soccer), naked boobies and casual bigotry (especially racism and homophobia). They do not generally publish articles about people like Bat Boy. But maybe all that is about to change. Today The Sun published a story that is suspiciously Onion-like. It tells about how someone studying the floor of the Atlantic on Google Ocean found what scientists now believe to be the remains of the city of Atlantis, and it comes complete with commentary from a “top philosopher” called Plato who is apparently an expert on the lost city.

This discovery is credited to one Bernie Bamford, 36, of Chester, an aeronautical engineer. Mr. Bamford told The Sun:

It looks like an aerial map of Milton Keynes. It must be man-made.

From which I believe that a follow-up article is planned, because everyone knows that Milton Keynes is not man-made. It was built by demons and fish-men at the behest of tentacled beings from beyond the stars.

Pigs Do Fly

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

It is rare that I have anything good to say about the Daily Mail, and this is probably an accident, but it is rather amusing. As some of you may remember, Russell T Davies thinks that Doctor Who can never be a woman because it would mean that fathers would have to explain sex changes to their children. Well, the Mail, ever in search of salacious news, has discovered that Matt Smith, the young man who is to take over the role of the Doctor after David Tennant, has appeared on stage in drag. Oh horror! Will fathers now have to explain transvestism to their children? Should we ban the Daily Mail to save our kids?

Those of you who want to see what Mr. Smith looks like in drag can click here.

Real Life Not Fiction

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

This morning Nalo Hopkinson produced this entertaining blog post about an author reacting snarkily to an interviewer who assumed that his novel was somehow autobiographical. The snark itself is amusing enough, but it got me thinking about why this sort of thing happens.

Journalists, I’m afraid, like to link writers to the characters in their books because they are looking to spice their interviews up with a bit of “real life” drama. They do that for pretty much the same reason that reality TV exists – people like to think that real life is full of drama.

But, as Mr. Whitehead pointed out, it isn’t. And consequently we humans spend an inordinate amount of time and effort trying to make it so. I don’t just mean people getting overly dramatic on LiveJournal, though that’s clearly part of it. The whole conspiracy theory thing is also part of the same phenomenon. Kevin is fond of saying things like, “never assume conspiracy when a simple cock-up could have produced the same result”; but people do, all the time. Even the quest to find “meaning” in the failure of the Seattle in 2011 Worldcon bid is a natural part of this basic human tendency to try to find the “real story” behind mundane an often accidental events.

PZ Myers might comment that the whole of religion arises from the same impulse. Natural disasters happen, we humans need to find meaning in this, so we invent gods.

Generally I’m pretty positive about the role of fiction in society. I think it is good for us to think about how other people live, and how the world might be different, but sometimes I think that our loves of stories can also be a cause of much stupidity.

Copy Editor Needed

~ Cheryl

The Bay Area Reporter reveals that the court case over the validity of Proposition 8 will be heard on March 5th. It says:

The court will address whether Prop 8 was such a wholesome change to the state constitution that prior to being placed on the ballot it needed to be approved by two-third majorities in the state Legislature.

“Wholesome” Oh dear me, I think not.

Save WaPo Book World

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

There are rumors around that the Washington Post is planning to axe it’s popular Book World supplement. As you probably know, this publishes many good people, including Michael Dirda and Elizabeth Hand. Henry Farrell suggests that we should let the Post know how much we value intelligent discussion of books. Details here.

Don’t Believe What You Read

~ Cheryl

I have occasionally complained about the poor quality of science journalism in mainstream newspapers. Here’s an post by Ben Goldacre that illustrates the extent of the problem.

Not only does the Telegraph completely misrepresent the research they were reporting, and quote its author out of context to support their erroneous report, they also blocked his comments when he tried to post a correction.

I’ve become increasingly annoyed at the way that British newspaper web sites use comment threads to allow them to “publish” hate speech that would never be allowed in their original articles, all in the name of “controversy”. Now we discover that when they get things wrong they censor attempts to put them right. Not very responsible, is it?

(The US is, of course, a different matter, as it has freedom of speech legislation.)

Danger, Comics!

~ Cheryl ~ 5 Comments

I very nearly passed over this Guardian article about the ongoing lawsuit regarding ownership of the rights to the Watchmen movie. After all, Hollywood people sue each other the way normal people shake hands (“Hey, good to see you buddy, here’s a law suit, no hard feelings…”). However, I was struck by the opening line:

Watchmen, the violent, bestselling graphic novel of all time…

Violent? Watchmen??? What, you mean like Sin City? Or 300? Or even Judge Dredd. Nope, I suspect this is just knee-jerk journalism at work. It is a popular comic, therefore it must be full of graphic and unnecessary violence.

NYT On Lady Horror Writers

~ Cheryl

I actually knew about this article in advance because I was staying with John Clute when Liz Hand phoned to tell him about it. While I’m not exactly impressed with the article, I am absolutely delighted that Liz is getting such fabulous exposure. Here’s hoping the article sells a lot of books for her.

And Mr. Rafferty, can I suggest Margo Lanagan?

Cramer on Depression in SF

~ Cheryl

Kathryn Cramer has written a response to the Damien Walter blog post I highlighted yesterday. You can find it on Tor.com. Kathryn’s piece is much more of an NYRSF approach to the question, whereas Damien was, I think, just trying to stir up comment in an io9 sort of way. I think I’m glad that a web site run by a leading SF publisher can take a much more intellectual approach to questions than a supposed leading national newspaper, but I guess that just proves that I’m an elitist snob.

Worldcon Interviews

~ Cheryl

It appears that I was not the only person doing podcasts and vidcasts from Worldcon. (And yes, I know I still have a whole bunch of stuff to process and publish.) A web site called Pacific Fen Spotlight has just posted a number of interviews which you can find here. The one on Worldcon bids is entertaining as it includes a chat to the XERPS Ambassador, who has some interesting things to say about Roswell and anal probes. There is also an interview with a handsome and erudite chap called Kevin Standlee.

A Nation of Doomsayers

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

With the Large Hadron Collider due to start operation next week, papers in Britain are all getting back on the “end of the world” bandwagon. The Guardian has a helpful poll in which you can choose between the products of the LHC being a Higgs boson or a black hole that swallows the planet. Currently votes for the black hole are running at between 25% and 30%.

While this is still nowhere near the percentage of Americans who believe in angels and UFOs, it is still the sort of thing that is likely to get Gordon Brown meddling with the education system. I foresee a new compulsory exam on the benefits of high tech engineering projects. It will, of course, be run as a public-private partnership in conjunction with British Energy and EdF.

I suspect that similar polls are going on all over Europe right now, and there are probably already proposals being written for academic papers that will study the comparative mental health of different European countries based on their reactions to these polls. So, will Britain turn out to be the nation in Europe with the largest population of Marvin-like depressed doomsayers? Or is it just the country with the largest number of mischievous science fiction fans who are voting for the black hole for a laugh?

Life Imitates Science Fiction

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Yesterday I blogged about Karen Traviss’s gloomy predictions for the future of journalism. Today the BBC reports on a new news aggregation site where users will be asked to vote on whether they believe the stories or not. Rory Cellan-Jones is nervous:

My worry is that sites like NewsCred will become playgrounds for lobby groups and obsessives on issues ranging from the Georgia conflict to the 9/11 conspiracy theories. Isn’t it likely that those with passionate views will rush to judge the credibility of news stories according to their own prejudices, while the rest of the internet population just won’t bother?

The comment thread on the post is quite interesting.