Esther12
Senior Member
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I really feel ill at ease with the way Coyne is handling the whole thing...
Far too agressive, often towards the wrong persons.
I agree.
I doubt that Whipple is likely to be upset by Coyne and I think Coyne is entitled to be up front. As far as I can see Whipple has quoted some abusive remarks from Coyne without checking with Coyne about the context. That seems to mean that Coyne did not leak the remarks. Whipple says Davey Smith did not leak the remarks. So who did? Whipple seems to be making this exactly cloak and dagger. And what does he mean by just a routine article and nothing cloak and dagger. Is quoting abusive remarks just a routine article? Isn't the source of the remarks going to be uppermost in readers' minds?
It seems to me that the two of them are just baiting each other because they both enjoy it. And it is good publicity. Moreover, I suspect that it will make onlookers associate the ME debate with serious academic disagreement rather than whinging patients. Whipple is not going to be put off. I don't think other journalists who are genuinely interested in the underlying debate are likely to be put off. The touchy feely brigade are not any help anyway. The ones who want to dig deeper are I think getting intrigued.
It's pretty routine for journalists to not identify their sources - I don't think that is Whipple making things cloak and dagger.
I don't think Whipple does enjoy this sort of thing. To me, it seems that he's a fairly gentle your lad, who is likely to see this sort of thing as 'abusive' (or on the edge of it).
Also, if Coyne was claiming GDS leaked those e-mails without having any evidence that this was the case, that's a bad thing. Making false claims like this is hardly going to encourage a journalist to trust you in the future.
edit: not directly replying to JE from here -
It looks like Whipple's tweets indicate that he wanted t cover the JHP special issue anyway (although it may not have got in the paper), but that the Coyne e-mails meant he felt that he could not present the JHP as an honest broker in this debate. While I think that the idea of an 'honest broker' is a bit misguided, I also think that tactically it could have been wise for the JHP to publish more weak pro-PACE pieces alongside the critical ones. The arguments are so on the anti-PACE side that the more we have them aired the better imo.
The trouble is that PACE is so rubbish, that 'honest brokers' rapidly become anti-PACE fanatics! Also, I think that there is a danger that because some of the problems with PACE and so clear and serious, this can lead to people assuming all criticism is valid, when there are also some weak and unfair criticisms made of PACE. When the Establishment is so clearly against us we need to try to stay as careful and rigorous as possible.