Anorak

Anorak News | Oh the Irony: Lord McAlpin tweeter George Monbiot bemoans bias

Oh the Irony: Lord McAlpin tweeter George Monbiot bemoans bias

by | 14th, November 2012

THE world according to George Monbiot, Guardian columnist. In October 2012, Monbiot wrote to Media Lens:

Our brief correspondence on Twitter caused me to wonder why it is that Media Lens, a project whose purpose is to engage and persuade progressive journalists by critiquing their work and encouraging people to write to them, so often seems to alienate and antagonise them…

While I love debate, I do not love receiving scores of almost identical messages from people who sound as if they haven’t thought through an issue for themselves, but are parroting a line – often the exact words – formulated by someone else… you often seem to ascribe to people the worst of all possible motives…

The third issue is what I perceive as confirmation bias: that you appear to have begun with a conclusion…then sought evidence to support it. Take your recent alert about the Guardian’s coverage of climate change. It seemed to me that you were cherry-picking a few lines of comment to support an otherwise unsupportable conclusion. I challenge you to conduct a comprehensive assessment..rather than just plucking out the items you disagree with, and seek to decide, as dispassionately as possible, whether or not it really conforms to the propaganda model.

That’s the same Mobiot who in November 2012 wrote on twitter:

“I looked up Lord McAlpine on t’internet. It says the strangest things.” 

Such are the facts…



Posted: 14th, November 2012 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink