Jousting with the Lancet: Pajamas Media Interviews Professor Gilbert Burnham
This is an engaging debate.
What I wonder is why, after The Lancet’s story on this study was splashed across front pages, headlined on the BBC and NPR, and otherwise given an unquestioned free run by the mainstream media for about two news cycles, why, I ask, are all of these good questions being pursued only in the media backwaters of a weblog? Other than the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, has any paper of note, or any broadcast network said, “We need to do some real journalism with regard to the JHU study. We need to ask some hard questions so our readers/viewers/listeners can understand these sensational claims.”
The recent problems in journalism have little to do with the stories that journalists have done. It is the non-stories that they have fumbled so badly; Rathergate, Plamegate, Foleygate… And let’s not forget the protests over a Dubai-based corporation from owning an interest in U.S. ports management in the name of “port security”, and yet allow dock workers with felony records to work there to satisfy union interests.
