Skip to main content

Journalism, Churnalism and Media Bias - December 15th PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD

-->
CFI UK and Conway Hall present

JOURNALISM, CHURNALISM AND MEDIA BIAS

Ben Goldacre, Rich Peppiatt, Michael Marshall, Greg Philo

How much journalism is churnalism - the uncritical regurgitation of press releases? To what extent can we trust what we read in the press about medical and other scientific discoveries and breakthroughs? How impartial is mainstream media coverage of key political and economic issues? And just how much of tabloid news is just, well, made up?

Saturday, 15th December 2012

Conway Hall
25 Red Lion Square
London WC1R 4RL

11am-5.15pm (10.30am registration)

£10 (£5 students concessions). Free entry for Friends of CFI UK.

Bookshop and signings.

Tickets on the door and from the BHA website here:http://www.humanism.org.uk/meet-up/events/view/196

Introduced by Stephen Law
Speakers include:

Ben Goldacre (Guardian columnist, doctor and author of Bad Science)

Michael Marshall (expert on press-release-based churnalism)

Rich Peppiatt (a former tabloid journalist, now touring a show based on his experiences)

Greg Philo (Research Director of the Glagsow University Media Group). Greg will be speaking about the role of the media in the production of public confusion and consent.

Comments

Bob Churchill said…
Very cool. (But no dyed-in-the-wool, unapologetic tabloid journo to take part?)
Stephen Law said…
Thought about it, but decided on balance better like this...
Unknown said…
Would it be rude to ask whether Nick Davies was a consideration for this event? I for one had never heard of 'churnalism' before reading his 'Flat Earth News'. What a gem that was...
I don't entirely understand the world of British tabloids. In America, there have have been a few rare cases where a tabloid scooped the MSM on something, and everybody is like, "wait, the tabloids ran a story that wasn't made up? How did that happen?"
Stephen Law said…
Nick wasn't available Adzcliff.

TUQ - not just talking about tabloids, of course.
Mike said…
This looks very interesting but I'm surprised there's no mention of Media Lens or any of the books written by the editors Davids Edwards and Cromwell like Guardians of Power, Newspeak in the 21st Century or the recent Why Are We The Good Guys? (by David Cromwell).

I think the diligent and essential work, of holding the corporate media to account, carried out for free by Media Lens and endorsed by the likes of Chomsky and Pilger should have made them top billing.

Popular posts from this blog

EVIDENCE, MIRACLES AND THE EXISTENCE OF JESUS

(Published in Faith and Philosophy 2011. Volume 28, Issue 2, April 2011. Stephen Law. Pages 129-151) EVIDENCE, MIRACLES AND THE EXISTENCE OF JESUS Stephen Law Abstract The vast majority of Biblical historians believe there is evidence sufficient to place Jesus’ existence beyond reasonable doubt. Many believe the New Testament documents alone suffice firmly to establish Jesus as an actual, historical figure. I question these views. In particular, I argue (i) that the three most popular criteria by which various non-miraculous New Testament claims made about Jesus are supposedly corroborated are not sufficient, either singly or jointly, to place his existence beyond reasonable doubt, and (ii) that a prima facie plausible principle concerning how evidence should be assessed – a principle I call the contamination principle – entails that, given the large proportion of uncorroborated miracle claims made about Jesus in the New Testament documents, we should, in the absence of indepen

Why I won't be voting Labour at the next General Election, not even to 'keep the Tories out'.

I have always voted Labour, and have often been a member of the Party, campaigning and canvassing for them. For what it’s worth, here’s my feeling about voting Labour next General Election:   1. When the left vote Labour after they move rightwards, they are encouraged to just move further right, to the point where they are now probably right of where e.g. John Major’s Tory party was. And each time the Tories go further right still. At some point we have got to stop fuelling this toxic drift to the right by making the Labour Party realise that it’s going to start costing them votes. I can’t think of anything politically more important than halting this increasingly frightening rightward slide. So I am no longer voting Labour. 2. If a new socialist party starts up, it could easily hoover up many of the 200k former LP members who have left in disgust (I’d join), and perhaps also pick up union affiliations. They could become the second biggest party by membership quite quickly. Our voting

Aquinas on homosexuality

Thought I would try a bit of a draft out on the blog, for feedback. All comments gratefully received. No doubt I've got at least some details wrong re the Catholic Church's position... AQUINAS AND SEXUAL ETHICS Aquinas’s thinking remains hugely influential within the Catholic Church. In particular, his ideas concerning sexual ethics still heavily shape Church teaching. It is on these ideas that we focus here. In particular, I will look at Aquinas’s justification for morally condemning homosexual acts. When homosexuality is judged to be morally wrong, the justification offered is often that homosexuality is, in some sense, “unnatural”. Aquinas develops a sophisticated version of this sort of argument. The roots of the argument lie in thinking of Aristotle, whom Aquinas believes to be scientifically authoritative. Indeed, one of Aquinas’s over-arching aims was to show how Aristotle’s philosophical system is broadly compatible with Christian thought. I begin with a sketch of Arist