Tyke02

You sound like a US teenager. I could have named some, but no point in rattling their cages. Well it was immediately obvious based on a misleading selective quotation to journos at Sky, ITV, Daily Mail and Telegraph, and many people on Twitter the same day. Most people as you say do not go look at stuff, but enough journos do that it would be naïve for anyone to make a claim like the one specified (year to Nov 21) without expecting it to be exposed pretty quickly. No, for reasons given above, this is irrelevant. In this case unnecessary, as the original stories were modified by the authors as soon as their error was noticed. Some residents didn't seem to notice though, I admit. Sure there are partisan media, with extremes at each end of the political scale whose output is more ideological than logical and evidence based. It is a spectrum though, with more objectivity in the middle ground (or at least equal levels of criticism from the extremes). I am not defending them, but asking for evidence supporting claims that they have biased reporting on covid. I have no problem with justified criticism of the BBC, but unless the evidence supports the assertion I'm likely to call it out.

No breakdown there. You are saying he was implying that it was not that significant. I happened to hear that programme too and did not draw that conclusion; I think you are reading too much into it because you are desperately seeking anything that could be said to show bias. In fact I think I have that podcast on my phone so I might give it another listen. You are getting a bit needy requiring a response in less than half an hour. Some of us have a life you know. It is also a bit rich when you are less than assiduous in responding to the questions in my posts.

There's no point in coming up with hearsay if you haven't got anything verifiable. If you have a link for the story you mentioned I'll be happy to read it and comment.

It wasn't an exclusive statement as you can tell by the word "often". We (or at least I) wasn't talking about an instance of political bias, as all major parties took a similar line on Covid. Some have said there is a conspiracy by the government to use the media to play up the risks of Covid,, that's what I was referring to. But you knew that really.

Saying that some people with comormidities are in general good health and expected to have a normal lifespan is not the same as saying that is the case for everyone with comorbidities. That's obvious isn't it? You are reading something into what he said that wasn't there.

All that was left to report once Sky and all had changed what they were saying was that they had admitted to previously misrepresenting it. That's hardly front page news. You seem to be making a determined effort not to understand this. There may well be evidence somewhere of BBC bias but this isn't it. As I said, I don't see a way to verify the content of one of your half remembered radio snippets.

Yes, that article goes on to say: "A spokesperson explained Ms Pritchard was using August data to make a comparison with the latest available figures for elective operations. In an article in the Health Service Journal on 8 November, Ms Pritchard wrote: “The latest monthly figures show that in August, for example, diagnostic tests were up around a fifth and elective procedures up around a third compared to a year ago despite admitting 14 times more covid patients in hospital.” So they are saying the same as I was above, that 14x higher in 2021 was incorrect for November. The false verdict refers to Yahoo's reporting of the issue, and FullFact say the action taken as a result was to ask Yahoo to take the report down. Did you read it? Yes it was a well known story for less than a day amongst responsible media who acknowledged the flawed reporting, and for rather longer with some folk with an axe to grind. "Some flawed reporting of statistics occurred that was rapidly corrected" does not make for a strong story. It was for the people who published inaccurately to correct their output, and they did. How do you explain that the August statistic was quoted in the HSJ article published before the media round.

Some good news for tops - Musk has removed twitter's covid misinformation policy...

Happy to help. I was posting yesterday about the perils of selective quotation and the importance of following up sources to check the context and validity. This is a bit of a case study on that. The telegraph article that you referenced cites two sources, Sky News and the Health Service Journal. the telegraph quotation is indeed from Sky (https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-people-urged-to-book-jabs-as-nhs-warns-hospitals-coming-under-record-pressure-12463729), but look at the context: "There is no doubt that the NHS is running hot and there are some very real pressures on health and social care," she said. Ms Pritchard said there was "14 times the number of people in hospital with COVID-19 than we saw this time last year" - based on the latest published month-on-month NHS data for August. "We also had a record number of A&E attendance and a record number of 999 calls," she added. Seems likely that it was pointed out to Sky after first publishing that they were inaccurately representing the position, and they decided to edit it. I wouldn't be surprised if they supported that request by referencing the HSJ article that was released before the round of interviews that was clear that the reference was to the August collated hospital data, for which the "14 times" claim is correct. (It's not uncommon for people to contact the journalist responsible and ask for the record to be corrected.) That's supported by what one of their reporters wrote the same day on social media: Ed Conway @EdConwaySky Nov 8, 2021 For anyone wondering, we’ve now deleted our original @skynews tweet reporting the NHS CEO’s comments. I’ve also written some words explaining why that number is so dodgy - they’ll be up online soon. We don’t always get this stuff right. But we’re trying our hardest… If you read to the end of the telegraph article you quoted there is also an explanation of what data was being referred to, and why. I can see why the BBC might have thought a story that said "it was reported that someone got the stats wrong, but now we understand that they were quoted out of context" might not be of high editorial quality. As to coverage on the BBC, the telegraph reported two days later on an interview with the Health Secretary on BBC Radio where he was asked about the reports on what Pritchard said. Sadly no longer available on BBC Sounds. These sorts of things can often be explained by **** up (as above) or conspiracy, and I see many on social media have gone the latter route. Two things suggest to me that it wasn't conspiracy are: that with the Nov 2020 and 2021 data freely available it would be immediately obvious the 14x is wrong for November the HSJ article stating that it was August data being referred to came out before the press interviews

Last time you said this I gave you chapter and verse on when he said it and the evidence from the vaccine rollout showing what level of reduction in transmission vaccines offered at that time with the then current variant.

"Just to clarify" LOL You really are an expert in reading what wasn't said into what others have written. Perhaps that's why when you say X happened and proves Y I always want to verify what was said and in what context before reaching any judgement. Have I not been clear on attitude to the BBC? I do not automatically assume the accuracy of anything based on the source, as everyone has different prior experiences that affect their beliefs, and also reporters can misunderstand things or be hoodwinked. What matters to me in each case is the logic of what is being put forward and the evidence that is cited. I remember JHB asking some questions at those briefings, so you seem to be tarring her with the same brush as all the others.

I really don't, and if you want me to understand you'll need to explain.

What's to say what the clip is presenting? I see a Palestinian flag being waved, and a banner with the word sovereign on it. Were they common features of lockdown protests?

I generally assume that there's going to be at least a grain of truth in what comes from any source, that's part of the misinformation playbook to make what's being said plausible. Personally I spend more time examining things that might be evidence against the picture I've got of what's going on. I'm more interested in testing that picture against evidence that means it would need to change. Yes I buy a licence, primarily for the drama, comedy sport and science coverage.

It is indeed, where there is reliable evidence to support any reporting that's produced. Otherwise those doing the reporting will soon have Ofcom on their back and suffer the indignity of retracting the story.

The FM radio in my car picks up GB News. But we are back to remembered stories about what was on the radio, and can't now be verified. We've already been through all the stuff on vaccines and transmission, I'm not going over it again for you.

My pointing out you keep changing your story is more a symptom of you going round in circles. Why won't you say how you decide which social media sources are reliable? I've told you how I do it.

Checkers said that the BBC didn't platform alternative views, so I did a search on the names of some of the key people to see what came up and those were the first few results. I remember reading a couple of them at the time, which means they likely came up in my newsfeed at the time.

You are missing that less than 40% of the most vulnerable age groups have had a vaccine, and the CCP have declined offers of the more effective vaccines. So now it's a link to a TV article, not a clip or a transcript. Do make your mind up. Apart from trivia, I trust very few sources without verifying where their information comes from, and the logic of what they are claiming based on it. But feel free to carry on making up things that people didn't say if you can't come up with any better arguments.

Sigh. You said you knew what was in broadcast media because there were TV clips on social media. Changing the subject already. Personally if I see something on TV or on social media that makes claims that are interesting and says there's evidence I go to the source of the evidence, rather than just believe what someone else is telling me about it. What interview transcript did you have in mind? You haven't answered my question about how you decide which of those social media sources are trustworthy.

You mean there weren't reports like this? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54442386 or this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000l80g or Heneghan and Woolhouse comments in here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54785032

That's pretty much the same as watching a terrestrial broadcast, except that it gives the person posting the opportunity to selectively quote or otherwise distort the material to put their own spin on things. Which at least answers the outstanding question asked many times about what you regard as trustworthy sources. Of the many things posted on social media, how do you evaluate which are trustworthy and which aren't. Or are you just being led by the nose towards what someone else wants you to believe?

If by "it" you mean confidence in vaccines, that could well be true for people who don't require objective evidence to make their minds up, and can be scared into belief by shock videos like #died suddenly that don't provide any.

Then how do you know what it says, in order that you can decide it is untrue?

https://www.google.com/search?q=london+covid+protest+"bbc.co.uk"+before:2021/07/31+after:2020/03/01 Given the nature of google, you may not get exactly the same search results that I did