Clever PR

Nick Davies — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:42:37 +0000

People still often make the mistake of thinking that PR consists of obvious tactics - press conferences, photo opportunities, press releases - but the reality is often a lot more subtle. Here's an example, of a Belgian company which sells home tuition services for school children, who managed to manipulate some coverage with a clever PR ruse:

http://www.connexionfrance.com/hoax-school-absence-note-website-fools-fr...

Is it possible that this Ryanair story is pure PR bullshit?

Nick Davies — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 20:29:55 +0000

From the website of RTE, Irish broadcaster, http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0227/ryanair.html

Impatient passenger eats €10k scratchcard
Saturday, 27 February 2010 15:20

A Ryanair passenger ate his €10,000 winning scratch card after he was
told he could not claim the money immediately, it emerged today.

The unnamed man was flying with Ryanair from Krakow in Poland to East
Midlands Airport in England when he won €10,000 with the scratch card.

Crew on board the flight confirmed he had won the prize but told the

Burying the facts in Haiti

Nick Davies — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 10:55:14 +0000

Update on the posting below: better translation from the Dutch is available at

http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/haiti-quake-death-toll-well-under-1000... (Thanks to Michiel for this)

Data rape drugs

sartoresartus — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 17:27:04 +0000

Auntie, you know: solid, impartial, if anything a bit dusty. Yet here she is screaming at the top of her lungs, 'Date-rape drugs are on the rise, UN warns.' 'So-called date-rape drugs are on the rise, according to the United Nations drug control agency's annual report.' http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8533736.stm Under the peculiar sub-head 'sexually abusing', auntie adds 'In the UK, ketamine, an anaesthetic, has been a class-C drug since January 2006, while the solvent GBL, or gamma-butyrolactone, was one of a number of "legal highs" that became class-C drugs last year.

Fleet Street recycles more bogus stories about climate change

Nick Davies — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 08:37:33 +0000

http://climatesafety.org/swallowing-lies-how-the-denial-lobby-feeds-the-...

Journalism for sale at the Telegraph

Nick Davies — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 17:56:54 +0000

How could the chairman of the British Airports Authority possibly manage to get a national newspaper to provide him with a platform to promote the deeply self-serving idea that building a third runway at Heathrow Airport is a move which will assist the fight against global warming? A keen-eyed reader points out that the offending interview, which appeared in the Daily Telegraph, was 'sponsored' by the Carbon Trust, whose slogan is to help business profit from carbon reduction.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/business/workingforchange/5699051/Time-to-clear-the-airways.html

Sex, lies and voice recorders

Kimota — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 03:09:52 +0000

Australia's News Ltd newsrooms continue to excel themselves with shonky journalism of the most deceptive kind. This last weekend, the NT News posted a story that was then circulated on the websites of The Australian and News.com.au that reveals the lengths they will go to to have a sexy image on the home page. I deconstructed the storry here. http://www.atomiksoapbox.com/2010/01/how-journalism-works-sex-lies-and-v...

The Sunday Times, giving us all a bad name

Nick Davies — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:21:33 +0000

Here's a furious (and over the top) attack on all British journalists. Maybe its real significance is that the reputation of all journalists suffers from the stupid behaviour of a few:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201001/british-newspapers-make-things

This is the story he is complaining about:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/genetics/article6990988.ec...

Standard excuse for a story

Nick Davies — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 21:16:24 +0000

Did anyone else see this totally bogus and fatuous story? Reportedly a two
year old who had 'set up his own blog' on cooking.. er? Sorry? Utterly
spurious. The real story was his dad, whose business had failed, trying to
get some publicity for his new venture. An utter sham. Two pages wasted on
this piece - shocking...

From the Evening Standard:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/lifestyle/article-23797782-is-baby-archie-...

BBC3 and sex trafficking

Nick Davies — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 08:49:29 +0000

Some interesting info from the Czech Republic in relation to an excitable BBC3 documentary which claimed that Brits who go to Prague for stag nights are becoming involved with women who have been trafficked into the sex industry.

http://www.czechfocus.cz/2010/1/11/art50861.html

As background, see the evidence of mighty falsehood and distortion in the reporting of sex trafficking in the UK at:

Misrepresentation of facts

jambroughton — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 18:27:18 +0000

Risk of dying from heart disease 'rises every hour you watch TV' Every hour spent watching TV each day increases the risk of dying from heart disease by almost a fifth, say scientists. ...................................................... Article in the daily mail today. I am not a mathematician but I can easily understand the nonsense of this article. If every hour increases the risk of heart disease by a fifth imagine what 100 hours or even 1000 hours could do. My concern is that many people who read this become very worried unnecessarily.

Football Manager in Sex Trafficking Shock

sartoresartus — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 08:50:13 +0000

Here, under the pretence of attacking British privacy laws and defending free speech, is the Daily Mail fulminating that some football manager who went to some massage parlour can't legally be identified. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1238017/Premier-League-manager-c...

$2.5 Trillion Fraud - unreported

Skunnered1 — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 17:01:47 +0000

Without even having to search the following is an article from Alexanders Oil & Gas's e-news which needs to be highlighted along with a quote from Zawya Weekly (a weekly middle east e-newsletter " What goes around, comes around‘ As always in the final editing of the content of the Update, there are a few issues that catch the attention more than others, and sometimes these issues are right-out shocking. One major issue can be found with the article: ‘The global oil scam: 50 times bigger than Madoff‘, which describes the going on of the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE).

Hoaxing the news in Australia

Nick Davies — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 20:25:23 +0000

Try this as a classic example of the power of PR in the world of Flat Earth News:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMQCcOSfaYw

CT scans and Fleet Street scams

Nick Davies — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:33:08 +0000

The Independent and other British titles made much of US research into the possible impact on cancer rates of the use of CT scans. The link is not nearly as clear as the news stories made out. In particular, the UK use of CT scans is siginficantly different to the US use.

How the police get to write their own news stories

Nick Davies — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 06:51:32 +0000