"Metman2012" wrote in message
...
On 20/07/2013 19:09, Graham P Davis wrote:
On Sat, 20 Jul 2013 11:18:20 +0100
"Alastair McDonald" wrote:


"Joe Egginton" wrote in message
...
On 20/07/2013 09:58, Graham P Davis wrote:
On Sat, 20 Jul 2013 09:40:43 +0100
yttiw wrote:

On 2013-07-19 23:06:37 +0000, Adam Lea said:

On 19/07/13 19:57, Jim Cannon wrote:
A month ago we were told 10 rubbish summer seasons were due.

Another one who doesn't understand probabilities.

If I said Miami has a warmer climate than London, would the fact
that one day last week London was hotter than Miami disprove that
statement?

No, but you can guarantee that that fact would be headline "news"
in all the tabloids and repeated every 15 minutes on the tv
rolling news programmes.

Such is life with the ignorant and sensationalist media we now
have in this country.


'We now have'? My first realisation that the media wasn't to be
relied upon came sixty years ago, albeit in a fairly trivial way.
Since then, I've come across numerous times when articles have
been inaccurate through bias or incompetence.

A short story I read some years ago also portrayed the press as
being totally unreliable; I can't remember whether it was by Mark
Twain or Edgar Allan Poe.


I realised the press wasn't gospel, 35 years ago. My last year at
secondary school, two pratts set fire to a settee in the assembly
hall, and some of the corridors were smoke filled. In the local
paper, the following evening, they made out that my school was on
fire, and the teachers and pupils made a lucky escape. It was Mark
Twain that said, "Don't let the truth get in front of a good story".


It is not the fault of the press. The public don't want to hear about
the banal truth. They want a good story. So the press has to give
them good stories or pack up shop.

What scientist have to do is understand this. If they want to get a
message across to the public, they have to wrap it up in an
entertaining story. The BBQ summer was a good story, but it
backfired. So feeding the press is not an easy job :-(


It doesn't matter what you say to the press, or how you say it, they
will print what they want. forty-odd years ago, I read a 2-page article
in the Mail about severe ice conditions off East Greenland which
contained a lot of quotes from someone in the long-range forecast group
at the Met Office - Ratcliffe, I think - which were total rubbish. When
I got to work, he phoned me to ask if I'd seen the article and to state
that none of the quotes attributed to him bore any relationship to what
he'd said.

Unconnected to the Met Office but pertinent to the above event, I was
talking to someone about ten years ago who had been misquoted by the
press many times so, for the next interview, he took along a recorder
and asked the interviewers if they agreed to him recording the
interview; they had no objection. The article appeared with a load of
quotes that had nothing to do with what he said. He asked for a meeting
with them to discuss the matter. They went through the recording and,
for each quote, identified a word from one part of the recording and
another from somewhere else, etc. Their defence was - and they couldn't
see what was wrong with it - a version of the Eric Morecambe defence of,
'we printed all the right words but not necessarily in the right
order.'


Graham , you beat me to it. I was gong to mention Mr Morecambe and Mr
Preview (sic). When I worked in the MO press office I had a Sun journalist
who said that he had heard that we had said it was going to be the coldest
winter for 10 years. This was about the 3 December and in the early 90s. I
gave him the facts - which basically said 'no we didn't'. The headline
over the article the following day was: Met Office say it's going to be
the coldest winter for 20 years.

My experience was the good journalists did try to be truthful but that the
editors and owners wanted to sell newspapers so that all articles had to
be sexed up (now where have we heard that expression before?). My tag for
many moons was "If the newspapers got it right, it was probably a
misprint". Twenty years later I haven't changed my mind.

What I was trying to say is that you have to give the journalists a sexed up
story, but keeping it truthful is the problem.

From my experience, some jounalist are quit happy for you to write their
story. It gives them less work; but then the sub editor writes the headline
without reading what you wrote :-(

Cheers, Alastair.

"Lawrence13" wrote in message
...
On Saturday, 20 July 2013 11:37:38 UTC+1, yttiw wrote:
On 2013-07-20 09:43:00 +0000, Joe Egginton said:



On 20/07/2013 09:58, Graham P Davis wrote:

On Sat, 20 Jul 2013 09:40:43 +0100

yttiw wrote:



On 2013-07-19 23:06:37 +0000, Adam Lea said:



On 19/07/13 19:57, Jim Cannon wrote:

A month ago we were told 10 rubbish summer seasons were due.



Another one who doesn't understand probabilities.



If I said Miami has a warmer climate than London, would the fact

that one day last week London was hotter than Miami disprove that

statement?



No, but you can guarantee that that fact would be headline "news" in

all the tabloids and repeated every 15 minutes on the tv rolling news

programmes.



Such is life with the ignorant and sensationalist media we now have

in this country.





'We now have'? My first realisation that the media wasn't to be relied

upon came sixty years ago, albeit in a fairly trivial way. Since then,

I've come across numerous times when articles have been inaccurate

through bias or incompetence.



A short story I read some years ago also portrayed the press as being

totally unreliable; I can't remember whether it was by Mark Twain or

Edgar Allan Poe.





I realised the press wasn't gospel, 35 years ago. My last year at

secondary school, two pratts set fire to a settee in the assembly hall,

and some of the corridors were smoke filled. In the local paper, the

following evening, they made out that my school was on fire, and the

teachers and pupils made a lucky escape. It was Mark Twain that said,

"Don't let the truth get in front of a good story".



Ok, I take the point; but I still think that over the last 15-20 years

with the advent of 24 hour rolling news channels, the media have so

much news space to fill that the endless regurgitation of the same

sensationalist junk has lowered the standards much further.

Just remind me: we are talking about the same organisation that took time
to praise Al Gore on his Noble Peace prize yet failed to comment when he
sold his ailing liberal media outlet to fossil fuel accumulated wealth?

He sold out to the organisation to the only media outlet that, especially in
the US, reports global
climate seriously, eg:

More severe weather hits southeastern China
http://www.aljazeera.com/weather/201...247485899.html

Thousands still missing after India floods
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2...301365495.html

Torrential rain hits Korean Peninsula
http://www.aljazeera.com/weather/201...003020312.html

Typhoon Soulik hits eastern China
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-p...944685786.html

Tropical Storm Chantal hits Hispaniola
http://www.aljazeera.com/weather/201...150339645.html

The heat is on
http://www.aljazeera.com/weather/201...453900520.html
Images of the prolonged heatwave on both sides of the Atlantic

Hotting up in the USA
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inp...812384764.html
'Sauna-like' conditions grip the northeastern states.

Cheers, Alastair.

On Saturday, 20 July 2013 21:00:16 UTC+1, Alastair wrote:
"Lawrence13" wrote in message

...

On Saturday, 20 July 2013 11:37:38 UTC+1, yttiw wrote:

On 2013-07-20 09:43:00 +0000, Joe Egginton said:







On 20/07/2013 09:58, Graham P Davis wrote:



On Sat, 20 Jul 2013 09:40:43 +0100



yttiw wrote:







On 2013-07-19 23:06:37 +0000, Adam Lea said:







On 19/07/13 19:57, Jim Cannon wrote:



A month ago we were told 10 rubbish summer seasons were due.







Another one who doesn't understand probabilities.







If I said Miami has a warmer climate than London, would the fact



that one day last week London was hotter than Miami disprove that



statement?







No, but you can guarantee that that fact would be headline "news" in



all the tabloids and repeated every 15 minutes on the tv rolling news



programmes.







Such is life with the ignorant and sensationalist media we now have



in this country.











'We now have'? My first realisation that the media wasn't to be relied



upon came sixty years ago, albeit in a fairly trivial way. Since then,



I've come across numerous times when articles have been inaccurate



through bias or incompetence.







A short story I read some years ago also portrayed the press as being



totally unreliable; I can't remember whether it was by Mark Twain or



Edgar Allan Poe.











I realised the press wasn't gospel, 35 years ago. My last year at



secondary school, two pratts set fire to a settee in the assembly hall,



and some of the corridors were smoke filled. In the local paper, the



following evening, they made out that my school was on fire, and the



teachers and pupils made a lucky escape. It was Mark Twain that said,



"Don't let the truth get in front of a good story".







Ok, I take the point; but I still think that over the last 15-20 years



with the advent of 24 hour rolling news channels, the media have so



much news space to fill that the endless regurgitation of the same



sensationalist junk has lowered the standards much further.



Just remind me: we are talking about the same organisation that took time

to praise Al Gore on his Noble Peace prize yet failed to comment when he

sold his ailing liberal media outlet to fossil fuel accumulated wealth?



He sold out to the organisation to the only media outlet that, especially in

the US, reports global

climate seriously, eg:



More severe weather hits southeastern China

http://www.aljazeera.com/weather/201...247485899.html



Thousands still missing after India floods

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2...301365495.html



Torrential rain hits Korean Peninsula

http://www.aljazeera.com/weather/201...003020312.html



Typhoon Soulik hits eastern China

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-p...944685786.html



Tropical Storm Chantal hits Hispaniola

http://www.aljazeera.com/weather/201...150339645.html



The heat is on

http://www.aljazeera.com/weather/201...453900520.html

Images of the prolonged heatwave on both sides of the Atlantic



Hotting up in the USA

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inp...812384764.html

'Sauna-like' conditions grip the northeastern states.



Cheers, Alastair.

How were they funded? Please remind .

On Friday, July 19, 2013 7:57:30 PM UTC+1, Jim Cannon wrote:
What an utter DISGRACE this organisation is. A month ago we were told 10 rubbish summer seasons were due. A month later we are all dying of heat exhaustion. Who on earth is running this bunch of showers? Any other organisation that was run so INEPTLY would have gone under years ago. Come on Cameron make these cuts to the MetO immediately and give the cash to another weather organisation that knows their arse from their elbow

You appear to have run away "Jim Cannon"............

I havent 'run away' - I am not scared of anyone - least of all my old dungeon master. At the request of a media agency I am merely putting together my solution to the mess that we currently find ourselves in. You, and a number of others on here, are part of that solution.

On Sunday, July 21, 2013 5:43:35 PM UTC+1, Jim Cannon wrote:
I havent 'run away' - I am not scared of anyone - least of all my old dungeon master. At the request of a media agency I am merely putting together my solution to the mess that we currently find ourselves in. You, and a number of others on here, are part of that solution.

laughing