Monday, February 23, 2015

Media Watch-Dunning Kruger in action

The Australian report on Media Watch Ineptitude. A case study of Dunning Kruger effect...

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias wherein unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability to be much higher than is accurate. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their ineptitude. Conversely, highly skilled individuals tend to underestimate their relative competence, erroneously assuming that tasks which are easy for them are also easy for others.

Legal move threatened over Media Watch report ACOUSTIC expert Steven Cooper is considering launching legal action against the ABC’s Media Watch program for its portrayal of him and his research on the effect of the Pacific Hydro wind turbines on local residents.
On the February 16 edition of Media Watch host Paul Barry dished out a stinging criticism of Mr Cooper’s seven-month study conducted at Cape Bridgewater in southwest Victoria — and the ­reporting of it by The Australian’s environment editor Graham Lloyd and Network Seven’s Today Tonight.
However, in damning the report, the Media Watch team hand- picked a group of pro-turbine ­“experts” — with no real expertise in the field — ignored submissions from genuine acoustic experts, misrepresented Mr Cooper, ­selectively and incorrectly quoted the National Health and Medical Research Council, ignored balancing quotes in the newspaper ­reports and made a number of factual mistakes.
Following his utter disbelief at Media Watch’s misrepresentation, as well as pending legal action, Mr Cooper has also sent a letter to the ABC demanding a retraction.

And

In response to the Media Watch report about The Australian’s coverage of wind farms
THE Media Watch report of February 16 (“Turbine torture: do wind farms make you sick?”) is littered with mistakes, omissions and misrepresentations from the opening scenes.
The program represents blatant advocacy for commercial interests over the widespread concerns of a genuine minority group who deserve thorough investigation of their complaints.
The Australian provided balanced, factual reporting of a national issue of public interest where Media Watch indulged in what amounts to little more than ad hominem, ideological propaganda.
The Media Watch program misrepresented the National Health and Medical Research Council position that the quality of existing research into the possible health impacts of wind turbines is poor and that it will fund more high quality research.






1 comment:

  1. http://www.thesydneyinstitute.com.au/media-watch-dog/ says...

    Tim

    I am not surprised by your response. ABC types rarely admit errors.

    These are the facts:

    On Monday, Paul Barry declared that Simon Chapman was an “expert” on the health effects of wind farms. This statement was not correct – since Professor Chapman has no qualifications in medicine, science or engineering.

    Today, you wrote to me that Simon Chapman has a post-graduate qualification in “medicine”. This is not correct – since Dr Chapman’s PhD is in sociology. Dr Chapman has no qualifications in medicine.

    Yet Media Watch will not correct Paul Barry’s error of last Monday – while the Media Watch team constantly calls for full transparency.

    How about a bit of transparency concerning Simon Chapman’s undergraduate and post-graduate qualifications?

    Best wishes

    Gerard Henderson

    ReplyDelete

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