- These days every media outlet in the UK parrots dodgy statistics straight off the press releases. How can the public get smarter when everyday they are fed a distorted picture of the world.
- It seems there is a desperate need to get Journalists thinking critically.

It's good that tools are available to help them.
- what's the source ?
- Check with Google
- whoknowswho.channel4.com
- Try www.spinwatch.com, www.lobbywatch.com (but beware they are spinwatching spinners they will only list rightwing organisations, seems leftwing & green spin is OK with them)
- infowars (info on leftwing lobbyers)
- does it originate from a press release ? Check on www.Churnalism.com
- what's the motivation ? use your brain for that
- Check if anyone mentioned it on twitter topsy.com search
- doubtfulnews.com watches for woo woo in the media, accompanying Podcast, http://twitter.com/DoubtfulNews
- Doubtful & Spinwatch exhibit "true believer" behaviour when it comes to catastrophic Climate Climate & won't question any supporting reports

Error listing sites
- regrettheerror.com good to see when he points out the errors people put their hands up and correct it
- The Guardian correction page
- Reuters
- wow there is a sudden epedaemic of correction pages in the UK press now they've fallen from their pedaestal : Mail, Mirror ..emm they don't correct online errors

Statistics Watching
- a great article on numberwatching
- watching for dodgy stats in the media http://fullfact.org http://twitter.com/#!/FullFact & straightstatistics.org http://twitter.com/#!/Straight_Stats
- & BBC More or Less
- The expert on Understanding Uncertainty
- His very good article 2845 ways to spin the Risk 2845 ways to spin the Risk
- Short Video from Channel 4 shows some of the ideas

fact databases- Both channel 4 & The Guardian maintain fact databases - but they are not very good ..thefactlab.com from the Guardian largely empty

Tabloid bashing
- http://tabloid-watch.blogspot.com/ - http://twitter.com/#!/tabloidwatch
- http://pressnotsorry.wordpress.com/ - http://twitter.com/#!/press_not_sorry
- http://twitter.com/#!/FactCheck C4 News FactCheck too political
- http://pcwatch.blogspot.com pretty right wing
- http://twitter.com/#!/UKStatsAuth bit noisy
- http://twitter.com/#!/doubtfulnews http://twitter.com/#!/journalismnews - I unfollowed as they send out too much trash

- Public Investigative Journalism from US , is it good or is it left wing propaganda ?

- more from More or less OU,
- Abuse of stats in the media
- interesting piece showing how the media can drive a story by only reporting studies which support their prejuduce

- Media will hype the scare, but ignore the positive possibilities
- from US blogger : "Who argues that we don’t need to wait for science to prove something’s bad in order to regulate and ban it? The precautionary-minded left"... is he Right wing ?

- Amercan blogger error spotting oldwordwolf.blogspot.com
- he seems unaware that newspaper photos are always faked

-Ideas : 1. Maybe all journalists should be be licenced before they are allowed to report statistics by attending a "BBC More or Less" course
- 2. perhaps reporters should trun their stories past the in-house statistician in the same way they run stories past the in-house lawyer.

How the F can they overestimate the poulation by 1m ? ...that's 2%

Is BS a good thing ? No, in a world where we need a BS detector the media feed us more

- Here's some notes on the prog "What is news ?" it wasn't amazing but it was a good start on such an important subject. - I know you don't have time for reading, but the subject is super important as : News Editors are super beings. My opinion affects no one, but their decisions affect millions. Secondly they kill & destroy people. Explanations after these programme notes

- Comments on the prog
... God the professionals were stunned that no one in the audience was interested in celebrity stuff. This seems to confirm :
1. UKmedia is living in a media bubble.
& 2. Complexity Denial : Failing to realise that we don't live in a simple black and white world we live in a rainbow world and although there might be a red band of people interested in X-factor, Strictly and Big Brother, there is also an orange band of people who aren't interested, aswell yellow band of people who are interested in sport.
3. Confusing most popular with majority : Only 20% of people watch those shows , even come a Saturday most peple don't watch TV sport maybe 30-40%, but certainly not a majority. You don't serve the majority by dealing with just what is most popular.

- PR hijacks the News agenda - It's important news editors have good rules for deciding the news agenda - Advertising works that's why people from PR, political, lobbyiests and SIGs are keen to get their news into UKmedia

- Is Twitter really the future ? : property is about location, news is about credibility. 1. most super active people on Twitter these days seem to be publicity accounts. 2. ask Jules Stenson about trusting twitter, his account was hacked.

- Oh the NOTW got those Pakistani cheating cricketers . That's like saying Hitler was nice cos he fed his cat. We know the NOTW staff only have morality when it suits them. The phonehacking scandal was hardly a surprise we have known they are devious criminals riding over normal people lives, harassing by doorstepping, "monstering" them etc.

- News isn't news these days it's infotainment. The panel didn't specifically realise this, but it did come up when the editor mentioned being chastised for putting on a bad news story at Christmas.

- Some notes on News Editors being Super Humans and their decisions being more important than millions of normal people.
1. Garbage In= Garbage Out ... We can invest billions in education to increase reasoning skills, but how can the UK public think properly when they are given a fake and distorted picture of the world by the media.
- By choosing the news agenda News editors are gatekeepers responsible for bringing quality info to the public & keeping the garbage out.

So News editors 1. control peoples view of the world, but secondly
2. News Editors Kill people : Children died when their parents or parents of neighbours babies decided MMR was too dangerous based on a view of reality caused by news editors deciding to give equal prominance to Dr Andrew Wakefield and the medical establishment. www.jennymccarthybodycount.com. Same for HIV denial
- By discouraging the use of livesaving medicine and promoting alternatives which don't work. http://whatstheharm.net
- I am sure they have killed other times by hyping up racism or promoting gun ownership, or by giving information to people hunting other people, inciting a war or preventing a war etc.

3. News editors Destroy people : Newspapers regularly monster both the guilty and some innocent Even the BBC has been crucifying people in the edit. One normal man cannot destroy the family life and career of a normal working class person, but a news editor can. They have done that and often called wrong, but just walked away unharmed themselves.

- News isn't news these days it's infotainment. The Print and commercial media has a duty to entertain to provide a platform to sell advertising, this supercedes the motivation to educate & give a true picture of the world. The BBC these days seems to get their agenda by looking at what the other media are carrying.

- * Monstering example "It was a classic stitch-up, what the tabloids call ‘monstering’ someone. They often do it to celebrities, because they think they’re a bit up themselves, or because they’re a ‘public figure’ who might have done something naughty, like take drugs or go swimming without their top on. Basically, because they sell papers."

- BS DETECTION or BS INJECTION ? what's your moral responsibility #UKmedia journalists ?

- BS DETECTING or BS INJECTING ?

-#NewsInt #hackgate of course #UKmedia has always had a mafia culture acting as if above law & being "upholders of neighbourhood morality"

- media-friendly experiments faked A prominent Dutch psychologist who once claimed to have shown that thinking about eating meat makes people behave more selfishly has been found to have faked data throughout his career.