Back in January, London-based LBC Radio broadcast a show hosted by Jeni Barnett that has become infamous. In an hour long segment, all sorts of wild claims were made about MMR by the host, covering the full spectrum from the vaguely reasonable to the nonsensical. Health professionals who phoned-in to the show were shouted down, while a homeopath caller was given free rein to make a range of wild accusations. In short, it was a travesty, so much so that a complaint was made to OfCom, who have today issued their ruling.
The first thing to note is that OfCom ruled that the show was not in breach of broadcasting regulations. The reasons why are quite interesting though. OfCom investigated the show with respect to two rules:
2.2 – factual programmes or items or portrayals of factual matters must not materially mislead the audience.
5.13 – local radio services must not give undue prominence to the views and opinions of particular persons or bodies on matters of political or industrial controversy and matters relating to current public policy in all the programmes included in any service taken as a whole.
Taking these two regulations in turn, LBC argued that the show did not "stray into the bounds of providing factual information that mislead listeners"; and that the phone-in format of the show with four out of six callers disagreeing with the host ensured that no undue prominence was given to the views which Barnett.
Regarding point 2.2, what's interesting is that OfCom's ruling looks at whether the program as a whole misleads the public, rather than any specific comment within it. They had some criticism of Barnett:
"At times, it appeared that during this broadcast the presenter relied upon her anecdotal experience and was not adequately briefed on the wider public health issues and prevailing medical advice which this debate would undoubtedly also touch upon."
And on the subject of bias also observed that:
"...undue prominence may include the presenter, as appropriate, paying due respect to callers putting forward a view with which he or she disagrees. For example, in this case the contributions of the two mothers who had not immunised their children were positively endorsed and appreciated by the presenter with comments such as “This is fascinating” and “Fantastic…I know I shouldn’t be biased…” In comparison, Jeni Barnett’s treatment of the nurse who criticised her handling of the topic was at times dismissive and impatient."
This is interesting criticism, but OfCom's criteria for ruling are rather different:
"In considering Rule 2.2, however, our decision was ... based on whether, taken as a whole, the content of the programme would have left listeners with the overall impression that the MMR jab was dangerous thereby influencing parents not to immunise their children."
OfCom felt that overall the arguments from the four out of six callers who questioned Barnett's stance - who included two health professionals - were enough to counterbalance the daftness. The same reasoning applied to 5.13, with the regulator commenting that the presence of the four callers provided the necessary balance to ensure that the show overall was not biased towards giving one set of views greater prominence.
In summary then, OfCom felt that the show was fair, balanced, and overall did not mislead the public. And that's where the problems start.
The first issue is that (as far as I can interpret from the ruling) if the doctor and nurse hadn't phoned-in to the show to challenge Barnett, then OfCom might have adjudicated against the show. I can see the logic of this from the point of view that the producers ensure balance by allowing those calls to be heard; but at the same time the host was clearly biased, and it seems strange to me that this is deemed acceptable within the context of the wider show.
The second issue is by fair the most glaring though, and it's our old friend: "fair-and-balanced" reporting. In adjudicating on this case, OfCom have fallen into the same journalistic fallacy that plagues much of our news output - the idea that two opposing views should be given equal weight regardless of their actual sanity.
We see this a lot in science reporting. Some crank gets a paper published with a crappy new theory that virtually nobody else in the scientific community accepts, yet the press report it as a two-sided debate, giving equal prominence to both sets of views. The result is to give the audience the impression that the fringe theory carries far more weight and support than it actually does. By striving to be "fair-and balanced" in this way, broadcasters unwittingly create output strongly biased in favour of the fringe view.
There are two sides to the MMR debate. One side has the support of the science, the evidence, and pretty much the entire global medical community. The other is pushed by a handful of fringe groups, a few scare-mongering reporters, and assorted quacks. Giving equal prominence to the two sides of this debate is like balancing a report on Darwin by devoting equal time to the view that maybe a magic man in the sky just made everything in six days. Except that in this case it's a lot worse, because spreading nonsense about creationism probably won't endange childrens' lives.
http://layscience.net/trackback/603
Stupid, stupid, stupid ruling.
I complained to Ofcom on 10 February. Having had no acknowledgement whatsoever, I phoned them on 11 March and was told they had received my complaint and would act on it and was given a case number. Imagine my surprise when I found out this morning that they have already adjudicated on this and had closed my case, but hadn't bothered to tell me anything about it. I phoned them again this morning: they apologised for not acknowledging my complaint and said they could not always respond individually to all complaints (they do it by letter, not email)! I said that they could have responded, but that they had chosen not to.
I hadn't read and understood the full ruling yet, but it is surely a dereliction of their duty not to keep complainants informed of progress and their ruling? I have no guarantee that they actually did consider my complaint (although, in this case, other complainants will have covered the same ground).
The ASA are far more professional and always send the complainant a copy of their draft adjudication before it is finally decided upon.
How long before the antivaxxers claim that this ruling vindicates their position, do you reckon?
Cracking post Martin.
The problem, as you identify, is that hosting a couple of counterbalancing arguments is sufficient to give the gloss of balance to any seemingly crackpot rhetoric these days. The Beeb is often guilty of this kind of thing, publishing 600 or so words on some fringe theory/anecdote/makebelief then 'balancing' that with a quote from a talking head that says' what a load of tripe, there's not a jot of evidence to support this nonsense.'
This has two effects - the first of which is to prevent OfCom from ruling against the broadcast/article. The second is to make the person making the counterbalancing claim look like they're dismissing the original hypothesis of the piece out of hand. Which they may well be, but this leads to the article creating the impression of both equal validity of and polarisation between two points of view/matters of fact. Which in turn makes a lot of readers/listeners think 'oh look, it's authority figures refuting dissent again...'
Anyway looks as though OfCom may have got this wrong in terms of their overall interpretation of the show - any chance the rulng can be appealed against...?
So does that mean that we can say **anything** we like, as long as someone is there to disagree? Would a conversation like this...
"Everyone should go out and kill the first person they see"
"No you shouldn't"
...be acceptable?
There are two problems I have with this.
Firstly, as a host, Jeni has more than just a "point of view" on a particular issue. She has the weight of celebrity and personality behind her. This puts a huge amount of clout behind her opinion. Even with 4 or 5 people ringing her up to disagree, Jeni's point of view has the air of legitimacy behind it, precisely because she is the host of the show. This is an oversight by OfCom and should be addressed.
Secondly, how is it possible that Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand can be punished for the little harm they did (albeit, offensive to some), while Jeni and LBC are able to get away scot free with their contribution to the increasing risk of measles epidemic?
OfCom need to look very carefully at their own guidelines. Anything that protects against broadcast of material that may incite violence, should also be extended to cover situations where bad medical advice could cause public harm
Overall, the total lack of common sense displayed by OfCom on this ruling is shocking.
Of course, people don't listen to their favourite presenters because they feel neutral towards them. They listen to them because they are entertained by them, or because they like and even identify with them.
Since the presenter is thus preaching to the choir, to a significant extent, I think the idea that the listeners can get a "balanced view" just from the proportion of callers taking the different viewpoints is somewhat naive. As Ofcom note, there is also the question of how the presenter "cues" their fans to the callers and what the presenter thinks of them.
The line one is tempted to quote is the one of Professor Paul Offit's about why he flatly refuses to go on US TV - e.g. on shows like Oprah or Larry King Live - and debate with celeb antivaccine idiot Jenny McCarthy.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090526202720.htm
"Every story has a hero, victim, and villain..." [Offit] explains. "McCarthy is the hero, her child is the victim — and that leaves one role for you"
So which role(s) was Jenni Barnett casting her callers in? I think Ofcom's statements that Martin quotes make that quite clear.
"Every story has a hero, victim, and villain..." [Offit] explains. "McCarthy is the hero, her child is the victim — and that leaves one role for you""
Dr Aust - you forgot the dumb elephant, standing in the corner of the room, beside the villainous Dr P. R. Offit: the elephant's called Buffoon and he looks just like you.
...??
..Or is that the ever-tedious Cybertiger / Celtic Leopard under yet another alias?
Anyway, don't know about elephants being dumb - I always thought of them as being quite intelligent. As well as "unhurried but formidable when annoyed".
Plus I suspect Jr Aust will be rather impressed when I tell her someone called me an elephant.
I had a quick look at the server IP logs. LuneBalloon's address isn't the same as Dr. Mar... I mean Celtic Leopard's, but that doesn't necessarily mean much.
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Well, I guess there is no monopoly on flaming craziness. Or perhaps all internet CAM and anti-vaccine trolls begin to sound the same after you have been reading their stream-of-unconsciousness stuff for a while.
"Dr Mike", our resident chiropractor, is another with the some of the same kind of, er, style.
PS Of course, they probably think the same about us.
Ooops - that last comment was me. Slip of the return key, or distracted by those annoying CAPTCHA things.
Yeah, I wish I didn't have to subject you all to CAPTCHA, but without it I was getting up to 50 spam comments a da :(
Martin is the editor of layscience.net.
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Its a true protection against the spam Martin but some programs even read this. Many web hosting service providers are using this to prevent their resources from the spammy stuff. I hope you have a minimized number of spam comments now. Best of luck with your move.
Dr Aust - you forgot the dumb elephant, standing in the corner of the room, beside the villainous Dr P. R. Offit: the elephant's called Buffoon and he looks just like you.
Just to be clear, is that an insult or do you actually think there are elephants in the corners of rooms?
It's hard to tell because you actually do believe in much crazier things.
To be fair to LuneBalloon, I am large, grey, slow-moving and cantankerous. And I have a pretty good memory. And increasingly keratinous toenails.
Annoying that the Science Daily link
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090526202720.htm
pops up filled with ads for single vaccinations! "Protect your child from MMR"