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Fun fact: It's nearly been a year since Coyne blamed the Science Media Centre for this:
http://jcoynester.wordpress.com/201...udy-of-therapy-for-persons-with-schizophrenia
Not surprising that the SMC often operates as effectively a public relations organization for scientists. It wasn't set up to critique science or provide nuanced debate, it was set up to facilitate more scientists to engage with the media. It depends on appeals to the authorities of their approved "experts"/members. So, do Wessely et al view the SMC as "fellow travellers"* on the road to quality science journalism, or do they view the SMC as "useful idiots"* for providing good publicity?
* I couldn't help using those terms given Fiona Fox's links to Living Marxism and the Revolutionary Communist Party.
http://www.nature.com/news/science-media-centre-of-attention-1.13362
Hyped, misleading media coverage of a study in Lancet of CBT for persons with unmedicated schizophrenia left lots of clinicians, policymakers, and especially persons with schizophrenia and their family members confused.
Shilling at Science Media Centre: Thou shalt not shill.
http://jcoynester.wordpress.com/201...udy-of-therapy-for-persons-with-schizophrenia
Not surprising that the SMC often operates as effectively a public relations organization for scientists. It wasn't set up to critique science or provide nuanced debate, it was set up to facilitate more scientists to engage with the media. It depends on appeals to the authorities of their approved "experts"/members. So, do Wessely et al view the SMC as "fellow travellers"* on the road to quality science journalism, or do they view the SMC as "useful idiots"* for providing good publicity?
* I couldn't help using those terms given Fiona Fox's links to Living Marxism and the Revolutionary Communist Party.
Ivan Oransky, head of the health team for news agency Reuters in New York, does not think that the well-sourced journalists with whom he typically works will need such help, but he says that local newspapers and websites without that expertise could use an SMC. Still, he worries that such a centre could end up having an undesirable influence on the news. “If it's a force for smoothing over some of the legitimate disagreements that scientists have, if it is a force for putting science in the best possible light because of who the funders are, I don't think it's really doing all that much,” he says.
http://www.nature.com/news/science-media-centre-of-attention-1.13362