alex3619
Senior Member
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- 13,810
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- Logan, Queensland, Australia
Hi Sing, I fully agree. However its the nature of politics to use deceit, misdirection, empty rhetoric and a whole lot of other methods to achieve goals. One of the aims is to get people to like you to achieve your goals. This can easily compromise rational responses. So I would call what you are asking for an ideal state of affairs, but I don't see how to achieve it in the current world. Maybe it can be done, I am sure it can be done in parts and if only part of the system can be fixed that has to be worth something.
In theory what you are describing is what should happen in a democracy. However this presumes everyone has the public wellbeing at heart, and everyone is fully informed on the issues.
What we can do however is to set examples. While we are looked at very negatively by many (as an ME or CFS community) its possible to reach rational people. To do that it helps enormously to behave rationally. Emotional rhetoric is good for reaching large numbers of people, but I think we need a good number of medical professionals on our side for real progress. Many of those will respond rationally if presented with the facts - not all, but I hope enough.
The Science Media Centre has made itself the one stop shop for media releases. We should not use their methods, but we should counter it with a media centre of our own. Journalism is getting lazy, not because journalists are failing but because media management is cutting costs. If the SMC continues to release the kind of press releases it has been, and we instead issue detailed releases with opportunities to follow up with accurate research, we might capture some of the journalist population. This is still all very vague and woolly for me, I am still figuring stuff out, but one way to gain credibility is to adhere to careful and factual statements, if we can. I wonder if other advocacy organizations for things like ME, autism or fibro would be interested? I think this is worth another thread, I might start one in a few days, but in the meantime if anyone wants to start it off in a new thread please do so.
Bye, Alex
In theory what you are describing is what should happen in a democracy. However this presumes everyone has the public wellbeing at heart, and everyone is fully informed on the issues.
What we can do however is to set examples. While we are looked at very negatively by many (as an ME or CFS community) its possible to reach rational people. To do that it helps enormously to behave rationally. Emotional rhetoric is good for reaching large numbers of people, but I think we need a good number of medical professionals on our side for real progress. Many of those will respond rationally if presented with the facts - not all, but I hope enough.
The Science Media Centre has made itself the one stop shop for media releases. We should not use their methods, but we should counter it with a media centre of our own. Journalism is getting lazy, not because journalists are failing but because media management is cutting costs. If the SMC continues to release the kind of press releases it has been, and we instead issue detailed releases with opportunities to follow up with accurate research, we might capture some of the journalist population. This is still all very vague and woolly for me, I am still figuring stuff out, but one way to gain credibility is to adhere to careful and factual statements, if we can. I wonder if other advocacy organizations for things like ME, autism or fibro would be interested? I think this is worth another thread, I might start one in a few days, but in the meantime if anyone wants to start it off in a new thread please do so.
Bye, Alex