Don’t drop into the ‘churnalism’ trap again – check the data and its provenance before putting up the headlinesThere’s natural alarm over “churnalism”: overstretched newsrooms simply shovelling PR handouts through the system,no time for inquiry, no time for thought. But what approximately the greatest, or most humiliating churn of the lot? The simple,jaw-dropping fact that all the newspapers and broadcasters got last May’s general election wrong.
Ah! But that wasn’t us, guv. It was the blinking pollsters. They misled gallant journalists; they gulled bemused politicians; they sent the spin doctors into a tailspin. possibly their pointers to a hung parliament, or with much scary prognostication over an SNP-Lab pact,even decided the whole campaign. Call Mr Benjamin Disraeli to rail approximately “lies, damned lies and statistics”.
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Source: theguardian.com