Rod's back! Coverage in The Spectator, 2nd November

[Tom Kindlon]

Can anyone see the PPS she mentions?

1. 
   

   [*]10:06 PM - 2 Nov 2015 Details
   'Nicholas Quinn‏@The_bed_Pan57m57 minutes ago
   @IsabelHardman hi Isabel, if you haven't done so already have a read of @TomKindlon comments after your ME article, explains real issues
   1 retweet2 favorites
   10:41 PM - 2 Nov 2015
   
   [*] Isabel Hardman‏@IsabelHardman21m21 minutes ago
   @The_bed_Pan @TomKindlon just read it. Really helpful and thanks for a thoughtful response (not v.common below the line on many articles)
   1 retweet5 favorites
   10:48 PM - 2 Nov 2015 ; Details
   [*] Tom Kindlon‏@TomKindlon14m14 minutes ago
   @IsabelHardman Thank you. @The_bed_Pan
   
   10:54 PM - 2 Nov 2015; Details
   [*] Isabel Hardman‏@IsabelHardman8m8 minutes ago
   @TomKindlon @The_bed_Pan mentioned in a P.P.S at the bottom of blog http://specc.ie/1k58gh0

 

[moosie]

 

[moosie]

@Tom Kindlon Thank you SO much for all that you do!!!

 

[SilverbladeTE]

Rod Liddle and his fanclub aren't worth engaging with. They are 100% trolls ... completely uninterested in the facts. And anyone who might be capable of rational thought would not go near his blog.

problem is, he and all those other nasty hacks build up a climate of lies and hatred
ever heard of JULIUS STREICHER?
lesson from history
if not stopped, it leads to mass murder
it already has, in fact, in the UK

 

[Tom Kindlon]

View attachment 13411

Thanks. I couldn't see it but can see it now.

 

[halcyon]

Nobody ever said Rod Liddle wasn't smart. Or gifted. He's both. It's just a shame that he uses his talents to stir things up and get himself noticed, rather than going after the truth. British journalism in a nutshell.

Not being from the UK I had never heard of this guy. After reading his Wikipedia page, he sounds like a real piece of work.

 

[Bob]

I managed to have (what i think was) a very productive private chat with Isabel Hardman. She seemed very receptive and I think she now understands that these are incredibly complex issues. I'm convinced that she wrote the article in good faith, thinking that she was being helpful. I think we lost an article today but have now gained a friend going forwards. Hoping she will consult patients next time before publishing rather than after. She seems like a very nice person. (Unless I was being manipulated, but I'm pretty sure she was genuine, as evidenced by her willingness to add the PPS.) If we can get journalists on board one by one, then one day there'll be a tipping point! BTW, there were a number of people interacting with her on Twitter. Most of it was forthright but respectful. I agree that 'ME Militants' comments were unfairly picked upon. I think she was being overly-defensive. Journalists can have a thin skin when it suits them.

 

[searcher]

I also had a long private chat with her (I think right before Bob did.) I also think she is genuinely receptive, and she has a personal connection to the illness which she mentioned on twitter but didn't go into there. I truly believe she thought she was writing a good rebuttal piece but didn't know the ins and outs of the situation. She's a political writer so has more excuse than the science writers in the UK who regurgitate the SMC line. And so much happened in the last two weeks with Tuller's piece and the subsequent analyses that she was unlikely to have known about before she published her post. We'll see how it all plays out.

 

[Starlight]

Thanks so much for all of your efforts. I'm feeling so ill tonight, there's no point in me doing more than lying here staring at the screen but I appreciate those using their energy so generously for all of us.

 

[SOC]

Yeah, he is quite agressive:

We may need some healthy supporters being hard-nosed for us. The abuse we're receiving is shocking and we're gagged because of the "militant terroristic ME-patients" propaganda. Healthy people getting angry in our defense may not be a bad thing. They can't be accused of being seriously disturbed psych patients aka PWME. And Coyne, in particular, can hardly be called an ME-militant -- at least not believably. He has no horse in this race other than his support for scientific integrity.

 

[WillowJ]

But I don't think I am logged in. I cannot cope with all these logging in procedures. .... Sorry for being a wimp.

This happens to me, too! And it also makes me feel like a wimp. I'm like, look at the others go. Go, people, go. Such good comments....

Also I don't like to register for every new site, because I cannot keep track of 60 zillion logins. (Why am I not using a login manager?)

 

[WillowJ]

It seems to me quite tricky, especially if my comments on journalists' articles are deleted as SPAM.

This is pretty common in the British press (for this specific issue--you might know better than me if it happens with other issues, too). As soon as there is really useful stuff in the comments, the comments have a chance of disappearing. Sometimes they just disable everything so the good and bad go all together. Just poof, gone.

I like the idea of you writing a regular article, if you're up for that.

 

[JayS]

She's a journalist--it's her responsibility to know the ins and the outs of a situation she's going to write on, particularly as an editor. Sure, she was likely horrified by Liddle's crap & maybe doesn't have the experience to understand that the only narrative she's ever heard is 'best evidence = CBT/GET,' 'death threats,' 'xmrv debunked,' etc. Yet she wrote a piece without a word about David Tuller's blogs or Coyne's--well before she got offended by his tweet--and then argued that the piece reflected her conclusions, rejecting the idea that those writings were relevant. Well, fine, then--she's certainly entitled to come to the conclusion represented in the original piece, before the softening PSs. But I don't have to accept anything much else positive, if she actually read the Tuller & Coyne stuff and rejected any of its criticisms of PACE.

If she takes a more nuanced view, so can I.

 

[SOC]

I think we need to be very careful here.

There is absolutely no excuse for harrassment, physical threats, or offensive or abusive emails and the like. Ever.

However....
we cannot let the bullies control us by being fearful of being accused of being "uppity". It's a common trick of verbal abusers -- they claim vociferously that the victim is being mean/hostile/abusive/cruel simply by standing up for himself. If the victim accepts that label and always plays Little Mary Sunshine while the abuser continues with his hostile and abusive tactics, it's easy to see who's going to come out on top. The victim becomes more and more of a doormat. He becomes afraid of saying, "Hell no, that's one giant pile of bullshit!" because it would sound too "mean". And the pile grows, and grows, and grows because the more powerful abuser isn't afraid to use his power to humiliate and demean the victim.

So, let's not be abusers ourselves. That's just wrong. But let's not be victims either. Polite is good, but sometimes you need to get tough (not abusive or cruel). Always nice doesn't work with an abusive personality. If you are not as aggressive as they are, what they see is a doormat and they love stamping on doormats. We are not doormats.

 

[SOC]

My suspicion, based upon the evidence I have seen and wrote about in my book "Whining Selfish Monkeys" ...

How can anyone take this man seriously? That sounds like a comedy routine.

Yeah, I know some people do, but they're hardly worth arguing with. Some people believe professional wrestling is real wrestling, too. Rational argument is not going to change that kind of mind.

 

[searcher]

One problem is Tuller's and Coyne's work wasn't in the popular press (even thought it should have been covered.) She wrote this as a blog post quickly to respond to respond to Liddle, so it wasn't researched as much as the typical article is. That said, I made clear that she had mistakes in her piece and that she shouldn't be defending a thing that Liddle said. It was clear discrimination. And it was patently unfair for her to say that ME advocates should not be vociferous-- we have a right to correct untruths and shouldn't be told to be quiet because some individuals may be aggressive or abusive.

The UK press is confusing to me as an American. I just can't imagine a columnist in a major newspaper getting away with attacking patients with a disabling illness like Liddle does.

 

[Esther12]

The UK press is confusing to me as an American. I just can't imagine a columnist in a major newspaper getting away with attacking patients with a disabling illness like Liddle does.

LOL. I think Coyne could be in the same place - 'How can this shit be tollerated?'

It's how we roll.

 

[WillowJ]

The UK press is confusing to me as an American. I just can't imagine a columnist in a major newspaper getting away with attacking patients with a disabling illness like Liddle does.

Until fairly recently, the press in the USA was liable to repeat whatever the UK press printed.

 

[harveythecat]

So, the question is: how do we get a major British newspaper to publish an article by Jonathan Edwards, rather than a comment below the line.

Because nothing much will change until we start seeing contrary opinions published by people who aren't patients but scientists/doctors. What happened with The Telegraph last week was a perfect double-hit for us: first "The Science", from the psychiatric perspective, of course. Then the contrary view. By a patient. Naturally. It all reinforces the "only ME patients think they are really ill" myth.

I wrote the second Telegraph piece and so obviously spoke with a reporter at the Telegraph quite a lot. I think it's important, if we want to understand exactly how the media works and how these terrible headlines/articles get produced, to understand it from the science reporter's point of view. They get sent a press release saying 'Oxford University study finds that graded exercise therapy and CBT ease symptoms of CFS' (or whatever the actual wording was.) The science writer, probably, has had no personal encounter with ME - why would they doubt what appears to be a landmark study, and by such a well respected institution? How could they possibly understand all the nuance behind the 'controversy'? I can see how such an appalling headline was produced - it took the reporter I was working with a long time to finally really understand the difference between GET and exercise, and 'positive thinking' and CBT - and he is someone I know personally and who is 'on my side' so to speak. And then of course, I was asking in my piece, to go several stages 'further' than that and say that the whole study was rubbish. The Telegraph's initial story was awful and irresponsible, but I can almost understand how a naive reporter could have come to such conclusions based on the press statement. The sad fact is, that we as patients can't argue with the name of Oxford University (always mentioned even though two other universities are involved.) I'm fairly sure, I couldn't have argued my case were it not for the fact that I sent quotes from a similarly venerated institution - the IOM.

 

[JayS]

Having to do journalists' jobs for them isn't new to this community, no. But they never had to care about scrutiny before & were likely rubber-stamped by SMC.

I don't want us to get ahead of ourselves; but it looks like we're in a new phase, one they never wanted to see. Now they have to be just a bit more careful. What we're doing is playing 'gotcha' because they don't realize the rules have changed, or seem like they are about to.

Still doesn't absolve them of having to do their jobs properly, just because they got away with mistreating us, consciously or not, for so long.

Thank you for engaging with the Telegraph. The comments section was an absolute cesspool. I think that will change, moving forward, too.