by Dick Puddlecote
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DickPuddlecote/~3/P_skNyA0hnk/a-squeak-corrects-daily-mails-roaring.html
A Squeak Corrects Daily Mail’s Roaring Inaccuracy On E-Cigs Just before Christmas, I predicted that the Daily Mail were about to receive a second telling-off of 2013 for their unfathomably crap reporting of e-cigs. They had already seen a previous article in January pulled but crucially – as Clive Bates pointed out at the time – not retracted.
The Mail’s December nonsense was just as stupid and inaccurate, bearing this headline.
‘E-cigarette smokers inhale MORE nicotine and toxins than regular smokers’: Study finds ‘users are unknowingly inhaling’ a host of dangerous chemicals
Sadly for the inept author, Emma Innes, the study had found no such thing … mostly because it hadn’t even begun. My comments at the time reflected this.
This is just an announcement of a study which will take place in the near future, not – as Emma states – one that has already concluded and declared results.
This is a new low for junk journalism about junk science. We’re now very well used to “science by press release” whereby conclusions are sent to the press before biased research has been peer-reviewed and published – if, indeed, it is ever published. But at least the studies have normally been completed before some ignorant hack pumps out their garbage.
Emma Innes has just told the world about conclusions from a study which hasn’t even started yet and, as such, I expect her lies to round off the Daily Mail’s year with another humiliating retraction.
Well, the PCC have finally – three months later – released their decision, and if anything it’s less satisfactory than the one which preceded it.
The amended headline has been altered to this, with a small 37 word footnote the only evidence of the article’s previous form.
‘E-cigarette smokers may absorb MORE nicotine and toxins than regular smokers’: Study to investigate risk of using ‘healthy’ tobacco alternative
For three months or more the Daily Mail’s vast readership has been stumbling across a significant falsehood, yet only now once traffic has died down has it been changed, and even then to something which doesn’t materially alter the claim being made; that e-cigs are likely to be more dangerous than smoking.
Now, I suppose it’s too much to expect the Daily Mail to prominently announce their journalist’s piss poor research in an entirely new piece, but it would be nice to think that they’ll be more careful in the future. Or maybe – a slim chance, I know – to report something wildly positive by way of balance.
I won’t be holding my breath, mind. The Mail enjoys unnecessarily scaring the public far more than putting the wind up tax-sponging tobacco controllers who truly deserve it.
