Because The Newspapers Are So Diligent, And Bloggers Aren't, Yeah?

Today, I was reminded of this recent quote from Mr E.

Whatever all those [national newspaper] correspondents do all day, it clearly doesn't involve basic factchecking.

For those who are unaware, the austere and diligent (pfft) British press tend to throw the odd tantrum against bloggers, usually levelling the accusation that we engage keyboard before tidying up niceties like ... err ... facts.

Conversely, the MSM are supposedly pristine in their adherence to publishing accuracy.

But then, when one reads quite astounding bollocks like this from the Daily Mail, such haughty posturing collapses like a weighty, inebriated tart in her new pair of six inch heels.

Bans on smoking in restaurants and bars reduces the risk of heart attacks among non smokers, according to hard hitting report. The research, by the U.S. Institute of Medicine reviewed 11 key studies of smoking bans in Scotland, Italy, the U.S and Canada.

Yawn.

So, considering that the largest study ever conducted worldwide on the matter, covering 217,023 heart attack admissions and 2 million heart attack deaths in 468 counties in all 50 states of the USA over an eight-year period (which the Mail notably failed to report back in April), concluded that there was no effect at all on heart attack submissions following smoking bans, I was mightily intrigued at such revelatory NEW research.

In Helena, Montana, for example, they recorded 16 per cent fewer heart attack hospitalisations in the six months after its ban went into effect. Nearby areas that had no smoking ban saw heart attacks rise over the same period.

Eh? Would this be the 'Helena Miracle' which has been hugely derided since it poked its laughable head out six long years ago? The study which is so readily ridiculed that even anti-smoking advocates are ashamed of it?

More dramatically, heart attack hospitalisations dropped 41 per cent in the three years after Pueblo, Colorado, banned workplace smoking.

Good grief. The Mail aren't reporting on a new study at all, merely a list of the most farcical nonsense ever foisted on the public by obsessive anti-tobacco zombies.

Pueblo is also a steaming pile of horse shit, is also years old, and is also now comprehensively considered as fantasy.

Hmmm. Just my opinion and all that, but I'd say someone at the Mail is being a rather lazy fucker if they can't work out that this 'new' research is egregious cherry-picked data from some of the worst 'science' ever conducted ... on anything.

But then, they have recent form.

Last month, some dozy Mail bint came out with this.

According to some experts, third-hand smoke, as it is known, is as dangerous to health as the fumes billowing directly from a pipe or cigarette, particularly for babies and children.

A recent report in America has warned that even if you don't smoke in front of your family, you might be putting them at risk of cancer or delaying the development of their brain, thanks to polluting their environment with a lingering chemical cloud.

Err .. did she say 'recent'? As in a four year old report which was relayed by other lazy journalists nine months previously? And did she say 'research'? As in telephone poll?

The research behind this story did not actually assess the dangers of “third-hand” smoke, but instead surveyed people’s beliefs about these dangers, and whether this was related to the likelihood of banning smoking in their own homes.

All one can accurately assess from these jaw-droppingly naïve articles is that the only prerequisites required to be a Daily Mail health reporter are the ability to point a finger at a keyboard, and the possession of an unenquiring mind.

Little wonder, then, that an entire film can be made about how very crap the newspapers are at reporting truthful news.

From 'flamey' Amy Winehouse to Russell Brand the banker, documentary team's fake celebrity stories fooled editors

In short, newspapers, and even the BBC, will fall for any old shit.

Yet it's only bloggers, apparently, who don't check their facts?

Get the fuck outta here.

UPDATE: Chris Snowdon weighs in with categorical proof that not only is today's Daily Mail article utter tosh, the conclusions of the new study they report are also physically and scientifically impossible.