Recently the British Medical Journal published a report compiled by researchers from various universities, including Oxford, Cambridge and University College London which suggested as many as 120,000 people have died as a result of Tory austerity since 2010:
Unlike other media outlets, the BBC refused to report the story, claiming its ‘independent’ scientific advisers had recommended they ignore the figures, because they were “highly speculative” and should be treated with “caution”:
So who is this mysterious ‘Science Media Centre‘, which is so influential on the BBC that when it comes to science, its opinion trumps the British Medical Journal and both Oxford and Cambridge Universities?
Shockingly, it turns out the SMC is not independent at all. It is an organisation with a history of pushing corporate interests as well as anti-environmentalism, funded by industry and headed by a controversial genocide-denying journalist with no background in science who was awarded an OBE by the Tories in 2013.
Remarkably, apart from industry giants such as BP, Unilever, GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca, the SMC’s biggest funders include the UK government:
Oh, and don’t forget the Daily Mail:
So totally unbiased and completely independent then …
.
PS: Here’s an opinion from the US, that claims the SMC will never work over there because Americans would not be gullible enough to fall for its claims of independence:
Listen guys. We’re in real trouble if Americans think we’re more gullible than they are …
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Why does the BBC need external fact checkers? Who checks the BBC when the have an exclusive? They need a couple of guys with PC’s and WiFi its All there if you can be bothered to look
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Tweeted @melissacade68
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Explains why Nigel Lawson keeps getting onto the Today show I suppose
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‘suggested as many as 120,000 people have died as a result of Tory austerity since 2010’
It doesn’t. You haven’t read it.
‘Unlike other media outlets, the BBC refused to report the story’ – you could just as easily say that the BBC, in common with the majority of other media outlets didnt cover the story.
I would think it a good thing BBC News takes advice from reputable scientific organisations before reporting science stories.
SMC is independent. You haven’t shown otherwise. Yes, some media organisations contribute to its funding. I guess that’s why they can then go to it for advice……
Conspiracy theories are for dumb mammals who are incapable of weighing evidence against self interest.
Grow up.
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Reading the SMC stuff, it struck me that the same criticisms given by the quotes can be levelled at ANY research. There are always uncertainties, particularly where there are variations in the populations as is inevitable in social or medical research. In my opinion, the BBC should have covered the story, along with the criticisms/warnings of the uncertainties involved.
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The SMC have also proved to be unreliable in its reporting of the illness ME/CFS. Like its founder & board member Sir Simon Wessely the SMC treats ME/CFS as a psychosomatic disease where as recent research shows it to be the result of mitochindrial dysfunction.
Dr David Tuller of UC Berkely has written about SMC bias here
http://www.virology.ws/2017/08/02/trial-by-error-the-science-media-centres-desperate-efforts-to-defend-pace/
Dr Jame Coyne of Pennsylvania University has also documented bias here
https://mindthebrain.blog/2017/09/17/embargo-broken-bristol-university-professor-to-discuss-trial-of-quack-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-treatment/
Any person who challenges the psychosomatic narrative is then accused of harassment!
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/aug/21/chronic-fatigue-syndrome-myalgic-encephalomyelitis
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When it comes to science reporting, the UK is definitely more gullible than the US.
The Science Media Centre played a key role in spinning results from the £5 million PACE trial, part funded by the DWP. While the SMC was planting stories in the UK media about critics of this work being dangerous anti-science militants, US journalists were examining the evidence, and picking apart the spin. Here’s an example in the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/18/opinion/sunday/getting-it-wrong-on-chronic-fatigue-syndrome.html
The Science Media Centre seems to have played an important role in destroying the culture of scepticism and investigation in UK science reporting. People like the BBC’s Tom Fielden now get awards just for regurgitating spin fed to him from the SMC. It’s very sad, and this credulity for junk-science seems to have played an important role in the government policies on disability which recently led to condemnation from the UN Committee on the Rights of Disabled Persons. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dr-simon-duffy/the-misleading-research-a_b_9726490.html
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“an independent body that peer reviews scientific news”
That is an odd and meaningless phrase. News does not need any peer-review. Things just happen and that’s that.
Peer-review is a formal procedure for publication in a scientific journal. A basic sanity test to check if an idea is worthy of consideration – not an attempt to guarantee that it is correct. A paper must have no obvious technical flaws, it must be original, and it must be important.
The study had already passed these tests according to the publisher, the BMJ. There is no role in the scientific process for another, self-appointed arbiter like the SMC.
Of course the real test for any study is not peer-review it is the post-publication reaction of the wider scientific community as the paper becomes available for wider scrutiny. Pending this reaction, the BBC would be correct to to exercise caution in presenting the paper’s findings as established fact. At the same time they were absolutely wrong not to mention it at all. In what alternate reality are deaths in six figures are not a matter of concern to the public? That is a shocking neglect of their duty.
Any professional news organisation would have jumped on this with glee. It’s a story which could run all week and beyond in news bulletins and in in-depth current affairs programs. The study’s findings. The reaction to the findings. The reaction to the reaction. The importance of the issues at stake – avoidable deaths on a massive scale, the UK’s economic strategy for most of the last decade – could put several big-hitting politicians in front of the cameras.
This is not news…? In which alternate reality?
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I get my news from Channel 4 nowadays. Its far more objective than BBC news which sounds increasingly like a government mouthpiece.
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If you read the SMC page on the ‘austerity deaths’ report, it consists of two academics raising concerns about how accurate the report is.
So what?
That is not justification for the BBC not reporting the story.
It is only justification for presenting a ‘balanced’ view of the story.
You know, that fair, impartial, objective reporting the BBC keeps claiming is its raison d’etre.
To use the opinions of two people to blank a major story is a staggering neglect of journalistic duty – or a convenient way of continuing to be a state broadcaster.
Compare the BBC’s coverage of the move of the European Medicines Agency.
The SMC’s reaction is overwhelmingly negative.
http://archive.is/4WrQ5
The BBC reports it in a banally factual way – as if the SMC – and its opinions – so important in the ‘austerity’ story – did not exist.
http://archive.is/k1zTt
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There seem to be two points here.
Firstly is SMC independent? DMG contribute about £10,000 towards a nearly £600,000 overall budget. Hardly enough to be of influence. In addition contributions are also made by Oxford and London Universities amongst many others.
Secondly I agree that perhaps the BBC gave too much weight to the opinions of two people on behalf of SMC on this issue. Perhaps they should just have used these to give some balance to the BMJ report rather than simply dismissing it out of hand.
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My understanding is that SMC didn’t question the figures, only the proposed causality. 120,000 excess deaths has not been disputed. This is a newsworthy fact on its own, even without implications of causality. The BBC have not reported the ONS releases either.
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