lavendersparkle (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lavendersparkle) wrote2009-04-19 03:10 pm
lavendersparkle) wrote2009-04-19 03:10 pm
If I were in charge of journalism...
I just wanted to tell you all abut the start of a new series which is what all journalism would be like if I were omnipotent broadcasting doctator. The show is More of Less on Radio 4, which can be down loaded as a podcast from their site. It bills itself as a show to looking behind the statistics we hear on the news.
This week was an example of the intelligent, reasonable journalism it exemplifies. They tackled drugs and religion without the need for shouting matches or hyperbole. They brought on the author of a study estimating the costs of drugs prohibition. He immediately admitted to the limitations of any kind of study of this kind and that his figures were highly speculative. They couldn't get anyone from the home office to speak against him so they brought in another academic from the field, whose main criticism was that he didn't feel that the 'worst case scenario' from the study was bad enough as one could argue that heroin consumption might more than double if it were legalised. They then had a very reasonable and accessible discussion about how one could estimate the effects of legalisation upon consumption, compare usage across countries, compare usage across substances or look at historical events like China during the opium wars.
On to religion, and the figures quoted about church attendance and how newspapers managed to come up with the idea that Muslims would outnumber Anglicans in England in a few decades. The different ways of measuring Church of England members were explained leading to the less exciting revelation that Church of England attendance has pretty much levelled out, after a sharp decline a decade or so ago, and anyone who thinks that half of all English Muslims regularly attend the mosque should go and speak to an average imam.
Just for fun there were some bizarre allegories for the credit crunch and correcting a former minister for education about his maths.
This week was an example of the intelligent, reasonable journalism it exemplifies. They tackled drugs and religion without the need for shouting matches or hyperbole. They brought on the author of a study estimating the costs of drugs prohibition. He immediately admitted to the limitations of any kind of study of this kind and that his figures were highly speculative. They couldn't get anyone from the home office to speak against him so they brought in another academic from the field, whose main criticism was that he didn't feel that the 'worst case scenario' from the study was bad enough as one could argue that heroin consumption might more than double if it were legalised. They then had a very reasonable and accessible discussion about how one could estimate the effects of legalisation upon consumption, compare usage across countries, compare usage across substances or look at historical events like China during the opium wars.
On to religion, and the figures quoted about church attendance and how newspapers managed to come up with the idea that Muslims would outnumber Anglicans in England in a few decades. The different ways of measuring Church of England members were explained leading to the less exciting revelation that Church of England attendance has pretty much levelled out, after a sharp decline a decade or so ago, and anyone who thinks that half of all English Muslims regularly attend the mosque should go and speak to an average imam.
Just for fun there were some bizarre allegories for the credit crunch and correcting a former minister for education about his maths.