Author: Harry

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Crappy journalism in action

I nearly posted a link to this story on the BBC website about cows having regional accents because I thought it was mildly interesting. But the internet linguistics police quickly debunked it.

The BBC story starts by saying “Cows have regional accents like humans, language specialists have suggested.” What actually happened was that a PR firm working for a cheese manufacturer had called a couple of linguists and asked them whether there was any possibility that cows’ moos varied geographically. The answer was something like “well, it seems very unlikely, but it’s not completely impossible, because regional ‘accents’ have been observed in birds”.

Now I don’t particularly blame the cheese people’s people. They’re a PR firm. Spinning the truth is what they do. Trading on other people’s professional authority while misrepresenting what they actually said isn’t exactly attractive behaviour, but they’re salespeople and they are open about the fact that they’re selling you something. And to be fair, the original press release clearly bases its claims only on what the farmers have said. It’s not claiming to be any more than anecdotal.

But I do blame the BBC. They are the ones who reported this as a news story on their science pages, and who failed to call the linguists in question for a bit of fact-checking. They’ve actually made it worse by cutting out all the references to the West Country Farmhouse Cheesemakers. That’s presumably because they aren’t supposed to be providing advertising for anyone, but the result is that they’ve cut out any indication that the story is based on a press release put out by the PR firm for a dairy company, rather than, oh I don’t know, a paper in a scientific journal.

You’re probably thinking “chill out, Harry, it’s only a silly story about cows having accents”. And that’s probably what the BBC would say in their defence. Well, fuck that. I know that the fate of nations doesn’t hang on it, but if something is reported as news, I want them to have made the basic minimum of effort to report it correctly. Otherwise, why bother?

It’s typical of the media’s approach to reporting science. Or indeed just about any subject outside politics. They get all up their own arses about the importance of their role as protectors of democracy and speakers of truth to power, and the seriousness and integrity of their political journalism. And on their better days, all that stuff is true. But the moment they report on science, there’s a feeling that well, no-one can be expected to understand the technical details, so it’s alright to provide a watered-down and simplistic version; and anyway, it’s not very important like the political stuff (as though most political journalism was any more than gossip), so as long as it’s mildly entertaining, who cares if it’s really accurate? And then because that’s their attitude, they get all surprised when people like me get annoyed by it, because it’s ‘just’ a silly season story about cows, and surely people are media-savvy enough to know that it may not be held to the same standards as their political reporting?

Well, no. I actually care about the truth of these stories. Even the cow story; if it’s true, it’s interesting. If it’s not true, it’s just a waste of my time. I really feel quite strongly that if they’re going to do science and health reporting, they should do it properly. At the most basic level: if they get a press release about a piece of scientific research, they should call the scientists involved and make sure they don’t misrepresent them. And if it appears to be making an outlandish or controversial claim, call someone who can be expected to know about the subject and check with them. Otherwise just stop it. Stop reporting about science altogether if you can’t be bothered to get it right.

And if you think they’re more reliable when the subject, instead of cow accents, is something vitally important like vaccinations causing autism: *hollow laugh*

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Shelley update

I’m still reading the Shelley biography. Remarkably, his personal life seems to have stabilised somewhat, I suspect mainly because his grandfather died and so, while the exact terms of the legacy are still with the lawyers, he’s not actually having to hide from the bailiffs any more.

The chances of his life running smooth are reduced by the fact that, as well as being atheist, vegetarian, republican and probably revolutionary, he’s a believer in free love of a rather high-minded sort. So the second wife in succession has had to deal with him being keen to share her with his friends. And what she seemed to find even more difficult, it rather looks like she was having to share him with her sister. The exact details are a bit conjectural because apparently there are lots of diary entries torn out from the relevant period.

It’s like Hello! for people who can’t bring themselves to read the real thing. Though I don’t suppose Jude Law’s love notes to Sienna Miller are couched in terms of high-flown philosophy.

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Ezine thoughts

Julie and Rik have both posted on the subject of what makes a good poetry ezine. Since I’ve spent rather more time recently thinking about web design than poetry, here’s some thoughts about that side of it.

Don’t try to be a print journal. The real print journals do that already, and you’re never going to look like anything other than a low budget knock-off. That means questioning your assumptions about how a poetry magazine should work. For example: why have periodic ‘issues’? Speaking for myself, my tolerance of reading lots of stuff onscreen at once is lower than reading it in print, so if a large issue of your ezine appears, I’m probably going to read a couple of poems then move on to something else. That happens with print as well, but at least if I have a physical copy of the journal lying around my house I’m more likely to pick it up again and read some more. On the web, it’s that much less likely.

After all, an electronic publication isn’t bound by the physical constraints of print, so make that a virtue. Instead of the thing coming out in a big gobbet every few months, have frequent new content. Give people a reason to drop in regularly to see what’s new. I very much like the idea of using print-on-demand technology to produce occasional anthologies, though. That way you can have the best of both worlds; a continual supply of new material that builds up indefinitely into an archive of work, and periodic physical issues for people who like something they can read in bed and put on their bookshelves. At this point ‘journal’ and ‘ezine’ start looking like they might be the wrong words, although I don’t have a better one.

You can always provide an RSS feed so that people know when you’ve added something. Just because a site has RSS, it doesn’t have to look or feel like a blog. But why not also have a blog associated with the ezine? Have the editorial staff jointly contribute to it, with input from interesting guest bloggers. You could invite everyone whose work appears on site to also provide a guest post for the blog. It would help keep the ezine in people’s minds, hopefully create some goodwill, and act as a venue to make announcements. It would also provide a way people could engage with the site by posting comments.

Another technological advantage the net has over print is the ability to incorporate other kinds of content. Most obviously, that means audio and even video. But it’s also true of photographs. For a print journal, the decision to include glossy colour photography would dramatically increase the cost of production. On the web, it’s no harder than text.

And on the technical front: No tables. Definitely no frames. And use a proper CMS, so that adding new material is no more complicated than posting a new entry on a blog.

Aesthetically speaking: again, don’t try to look like a print journal. Particularly a rather dated looking print journal. Nor on the other hand should you get all web-happy and produce an intrusive animated Flash interface. Especially one that insists on pop-up windows.* The main thing is to present the content as sympathetically as possible, and to look current without being a fashion victim. And get the design basics right: make it easy to navigate around the site, without letting all the menus and buttons distract the attention from the poems. Make sure it at least looks professional.

I also think it would be no bad thing to widen the focus beyond just poetry. Get poets to write articles on other subjects. Have fiction reviews, or whatever. Something to introduce a little variety. I’m not suggesting turning it into a general arts journal, just making it poetry plus. But if you are going to engage with the broader culture, take it seriously. Don’t include artwork and photography unless it’s at least as good as you think the poetry is. In fact, since you probably know more about poetry than art, err on the safe side and hold it to an even higher standard.

Most of what I’ve said isn’t actually poetry-specific, of course. It would apply if you were running an internet ‘magazine’ on any subject. The scare-quotes being, of course, because I don’t think a magazine is really the right model. I’m really imagining something more like a poetry repository. A cairn. A midden.

*I was originally going to post links to specific sites that I thought served as examples of these problems, but I think I can live without that particular pissing match today.