The libel aspect of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee Report

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Continuing the epic week for skepticism, libel reform and science (see previous posts), today the Culture,Media and Sport Committee published a report entitled “Press standards, privacy and libel”.  Reporting of this has mainly (but not solely) focused on the privacy and press standards parts which have several high profile facets to them, not the least the “phone-hacking” scandal from News International.

In terms of there recommendations for libel reform, coverage has been thin on the ground, so here are their salient points:

Paragraph 129 calls for investigation into into preliminary hearings on meaning (familiar to those following Simon Singh’s case) and how they could cut costs by deciding cases earlier, although with the caveat that this doesn’t always work.

We urge the Government, therefore, to look closely at this aspect[hearings on meaning] of procedure in its present review of the costs and operation of UK libel laws.

They also talk about the burden of proof and how it should lie. They basically conclude that it is more or less right for defendants to prove their allegations, but also noting that

We are concerned, however, to see cases where that burden becomes overly onerous

and that there should be an exception for big corporations as claimants, when the burden of proof should be reversed.

address the mismatch in resources between wealthy corporations and impecunious defendants … We also consider that it would be fairer to reverse the general burden of proof in such cases

The report goes on to talk about strengthening a ‘responsible journalism’ defence, where by if the story has been properly researched and in the public interest then the statements made in it are protected. It also comes up with a lot of welcome and needed thoughts on “libel tourism” and the place of libel on the internet and the much needed and relatively obvious updating of libel law that is required regarding the internet, the blogosphere and the availability of information internationally and how different jurisdictions should deal with it.

Finally, and of most weight for those campaigning for libel reform from the scientific perspective is Paragraph 142.

We look forward, clearly, to the outcome of the important Simon Singh case. Even from the limited evidence we have received, we believe that the fears of the medical and science community are well-founded, particularly in the internet age and with the growth of ‘libel tourism’. We urge the Government, therefore, to take account of these concerns in a review of the country’s libel laws, in particular the issue of fair comment in academic peer-reviewed publications.

I think that is probably the best two sentences that people campaigning for libel reform could have hoped for. Let’s hope the report’s recommendations are taken on board.

edit @ 15:12. Realised I’d blockquoted one of my own paragraphs and not a quote from the report. Now fixed.

Supporting Simon Singh

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Simon Singh making speech outside Royal Courts of Justice this morning

Last night I attended my second ever Skeptics in the Pub, this time at the Westminster branch which was entitled “Science Libel Survivors – Rally of the Skeptics”, and held the night before Simon Singh’s hearing at the Court of Appeal regarding his case with the British Chiropractic Association. (For those not familiar with Simon’s case, as Simon put it: the Jack of Kent blog is a good place to start… and end!).

As per my previous visit to a Skeptics in the Pub event, this was an entertaining, chilling and educational event and I’d recommend anyone to give it a go. I’ve heard a lot about Simon’s case thanks to the slightly geeky science, news, politics circle that I seem to move in (students), but hearing the tales of those being sued, particularly Peter Wilmshurst, really brought home to me the need for libel reform in this country. I know it is cliche, but it really is throttling the criticism of scientific ideas and their practice, which is no way to do science: a method which thrives on peer-review and having your ideas scrutinised.

Libel Reform supporters with placards outside the court

With that in mind, I decided to get up extra early this morning and trudge down to the Royal Courts of Justice to show my support for Simon Singh and libel reform in general before his hearing today. I also took the opportunity to sign the petition for libel reform, and encourage everyone to do the same, if not for Simon then the next journalist, blogger, scientist or medic who falls foul of someone with a lot more financial backing and has to retract their statement.

In terms of today, it sounds like a success from what I can see from those avidly tweeting the event with the hashtag #SinghBCA, with the judge’s posing some awkward questions for the BCA. The first news article from the hearing is at the Index on Censorship and Jack of Kent is due to blog about today’s hearing any minute, so I will leave it to those who were actually there and are of a legal persuasion to comment on what actually happened.

However, regardless of today’s hearing and the ruling further down the line, that doesn’t stop the ongoing reform campaign being massively significant, so I urge anyone that reads this to make sure they have signed up.

**UPDATE**
Jack of Kent has just completed his blog post on the day in court.

UK’s Science and Technology Committee tells us what we’ve known all along

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Today, the Science and Technology Committee released it’s Evidence Check report into homeopathy, which they’ve used to call for a withdrawal of NHS funding for homeopathy. I know this will be covered to death in the blogosphere today but I just wanted to add my two cents anyway. (Isn’t that what blogging is all about anyway?)

So the report didn’t tell us anything new, given that it concurred (unsuprisingly) with the Government and almost all the evidence that homeopathy is not efficacious. What is has done though, is propelled this in to the media. This can only be good for starting more dialogue and educating the public on exactly what homeopathy is and why it’s ridiculous. The public aren’t stupid and the concept isn’t hard to grasp, so all we have to do is get out there and tell them – and this story as a news item does exactly that, even if the coverage isn’t perfect. And this is sustained coverage – coming a few weeks after 10:23 and calling for a Government response, which will no doubt ensure further coverage. Especially as wasting public money is on everyone’s lips at the moment.

I look forward to the topic being kicked around a little more in public in the future.

Homeopathy closer to home

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In the last post, I mentioned that the evidence and perception of homeopathy is becoming a “great interest of mine”. I thought I’d better explain why, rather than just leaving it as some ambiguous waffle.

The main reason my interest has suddenly just shot up is that homeopathy has just merged two of my hobbies: grumbling about science and student politics. This has happened in the form of the Birkbeck University Homeopathic Society which formed earlier this year at Birkbeck, where I study, and has been advertised in the lifts for a while now.

Now, I’m aware that the NHS spends around £4million every year on homeopathy, and that is alarming, but somewhat abstracted from me: I wouldn’t choose to do it and by virtue of not having a job, I don’t pay taxes to help support it. However, when it starts to occur in the same building as me, associated with the name of my university and in a place where many of us are practising a real science, with the scientific method, it becomes a lot harder to swallow. Made even worse (or maybe better), by the fact that their website proclaims them to be Middlesex Uni students – so what opportunity the society creates for Birkbeck students in beyond me.

So that is the reason behind my new found interest and I’m definitely going to be doing a bit of digging and maybe even start a little campaign of my own.

For more information on homeopathy, I can’t recommend enough the 10:23 site, particularly here for a quick overview of what the fuss is.

Skeptics in the Pub – London

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Ok, so this was nearly a week ago now, but I’ve been busy!

On Monday I had the pleasure of attending my first meeting of the London branch of Skeptics in the Pub. Both me and my friend (female) were pleasantly surprised to discover that it wasn’t just a room full of boring looking middle-aged men as the name (and some of their photos…) might proclaim. Although it is mostly male.

Any how, Monday’s speaker was Martin Robbins (@mjrobbins) of The Lay Scientist. He gave a humorous (if not foul-mouthed) account of his work as press officer for the excellent 10:23 campaign (Homeopathy: There’s nothing in it). Homeopathy, its evidence and how widely understood it is are becoming great interests of mine, on the back of reading Ben Goldacre’s book: Bad Science and my previous disdain for how poorly science is generally understood by and communicated to the public.

This meeting was the opposite to all that dumbing down and proved that you can present graphs and real data to the (self-selecting) masses who might not be experts and people are receptive to that. I will certainly be attending the next one.

New Year’s Resolution

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I’ve never really done a New Year’s Resolution before, so this will be a first for me. And I think I’ve started with an easy one; my resolution is to watch more movies! It is well known that I have an awfully small amount of movie knowledge. I only know about big famous film and ones with Hugh Grant in. And even then there are some surprising gaps in my film-watching history. Particularly the so-called “classics” as I only tend to watch films at the cinema.

I’m going to  change all of this though, thanks to getting a Blu-Ray player for Christmas and I’ve just set up a LoveFilm account to help me see a few of these films. Those that I feel strongly enough about might even get a blog-review of them if they are either excellent or really atrocious. My aim therefore is to watch at least 2 films a month (my current subscription).

I just returned the first film I was sent, and it was Angels and Demons, the adaptation of the Dan Brown book by the same name, starring Tom Hanks and Ewan MacGregor. I think the movie makes the storyline more obvious than the book, but then having read it before I saw it, I guess I would think that.  Otherwise I guess it is a perfectly passable action/thriller, but not exactly ground-breaking.

Apparently my next film is another book adaptation, The Golden Compass (or Nothern Lights as it was here in the UK). This is a book series that I loved, so I hope the movie doesn’t mess it up too much! If it does, you can be certain it will elicit a response on the blog!

British Media Coverage of the Christmas Day Bomber

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I’d love to write a long critique of the media coverage of this terrorist attack on a Detroit-bound flight from Amsterdam on Christmas Day, but alas, I think it would probably take me the rest of the day and I have an essay to work on. Instead, some short thoughts will have to suffice.

Understandably, the British media are focussing on the perpetrator’s time in the UK, in London to be precise and the changes Britain is making to its airport security. What I don’t understand is the efforts of some (the Telegraph, basically) to appear to lay the blame squarely at UCL’s door.

This shown best in this Telegraph article. At the time of writing, some of the later comments have the right idea, but the article appears to suggest that UCL should monitor the activities of those that attend it. At first pass, that sort of seems reasonable, drawing parallels with a school or other welfare oriented organisation. And then you realise (or don’t in the case of the Telegraph), that isn’t the purpose of Universities. They exist to teach adults advanced concepts without the nannying or fussing of a school.

This sentiment is put perfectly by a comment by Ross Anderson on the above article:

we have neither the skills nor the management structures needed [for monitoring students]. Monitoring troublemakers is the special branch’s job (whatever it’s called this week) just as putting out fires is the fire brigade’s job.

This something I totally agree with: why isn’t more blame (or at least scrutiny) being given to both our security services and there American counterparts. I’ve travelled the US recently and they ask for a lot of data before you even get to the airport, so it does beg the question: what are they doing with that information?

Other recent Telegraph articles inciting a backlash against universities are here and here. The first one, and perhaps the most outrageous; accusing UCL of being “complicit” in the attacks is here.

Malcolm Grant, President and Provost of UCL had his say in the THE, a brilliant article which I wish more people would read.

Microsoft does something *well*

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Ok, so I bitch about stuff quite a lot on my Twitter. The other day I happened to tweet (not very elegantly) that MS Word for Mac had crashed and taken some work with it…

However, a few hours later I was then contacted via Twitter by @nadyne. She works as a User Experience Researcher for Microsoft. Now whilst it is clearly her job to collect crash reports etc, it is *somewhat* satisfying to think that people are watching your random outbursts on the web and translating them into something useful.

I do fear that I have just played into Microsoft’s current marketing though. Maybe I’ll be saying on some cheesy ad: “I’m a Mac, and Office 2010 was my idea…”. Or not.

The hype that is The X Factor and Jedward

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Now, I don’t watch The X Factor, but being on Twitter and Facebook, I’ve obviously heard about this year’s contestants. I did, however, catch this weeks results show.

Now all I’d heard of Lucie Jones was her part in the Katy Perry song at the top of the show (X factor Finalists sing Hot’n’Cold) and I don’t think she should have gone based on that – she did that song brilliantly. Equally, the twins can’t sing but are (relatively) fun to watch.

This post isn’t about that though really – it’s about the way the internet can hype these things. After the show, I changed my Facebook status to “Jedward ftw!”, to see what’d happen. Sure enough I was inundated with replies, most of them incredulous that I could think such a thing. However, over in some Facebook groups, this was occurring on a much greater and more interesting scale. Within a few hours, thousands of people had joined a group called “I hate Simon Cowell for keeping Jedward in!” It is now at over 3300 less than 24 hours later, and this is just one group. What is also surprising is the level of vitriol that Simon Cowell and John and Edward are subjected to on it.

I think this just proves the power of social media (maybe I should be a “Social Media Consultant” whatever that is…), along with the previous 2 notable social media stories: Trafigura/Carter-Ruck and Stephen Gately/Jan Moir.

What got me actually thinking about this over dinner last night was this question though:

Would The X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing be as successful without “social media” and/or Web 2.0?

There is of course data from the pre-Facebook, Twitter and MySpace age for shows like Big Brother and I’m a celebrity… so it couldn’t be that hard. Even so, pretty far away from my preferred field of structural biology. Think I’ll leave it to a social scientist somewhere…

Grease (is NOT the word)

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Grease Logo (Copyright: Ambassador Theatre Group)

Grease Logo (Copyright: Ambassador Theatre Group)

Last night I had the misfortune to go and see Grease is the word down at the Piccadilly Theatre in London’s West End. My verdict: don’t.

This was my first time seeing Grease, but like everybody I had a pretty good idea what the show entailed. I also wanted to see it as I’ve been following Grease:The School Musical which ended tonight (although I have it on PVR and haven’t seen it yet). Regardless, I was very disappointed.

Now, I’m not really a typical theatre critic, in that I come from a very “techie” background and so any sound/lighting problems will probably affect my enjoyment of the show more than others, but both the sound and lighting were truly terrible. The sound was bearable when the cast were using handheld mics, such as in “Greased Lightning” and in the finale, but otherwise it just sounded wrong (I can’t put my finger on why though).

The lighting was my biggest bug with the whole show. The standard of followspotting was just awful. I don’t care if the design calls for sharp half- and whole- body followspotting, it looks like stand-up comedy and detracts from the action. Using the followspot as the frontlight for the whole drive-in movie sequence was a bizarre choice for me, as there were plenty of other, more suitable lanterns out front and achieving a simple chase that actually looks like the actors are watching a projection is pretty standard stuff. The mirrorballs hung off the proscenium were never fully utilised and when they were used for the “prom/beauty school drop-out” sequence they were lit so poorly as to be useless. Continual blackouts also sap the show of any energy  and momentum it was building up.

Another unforgivable sequence in terms of lighting is the finale. For the biggest numbers in the show, to have a fairly static state (with just a chase on the back of the bar) is counter-productive when the cast are attempting to muster as much energy as possible (more on that later).

And then there was the set – I quite liked the cartoon/drawn paint effect that covers most of the set. In fact, I would probably say the set is the highlight of the show (or maybe the band up at the back, who are perfectly adequate for the show) Some of the neons are nice too, but it is just a pity the theme isn’t carried out further. The structure of the bleachers for instance, could be made more fun/cartoony and a few more props for “Greased Lightning” wouldn’t go a miss.

Eventually, we come around to the meat of the show for most people – the acting. Firstly, I don’t believe in the casting – the cast as a rule do not reflect the teenage nature of their fictional counterparts. More fundamental is the lack of energy the show builds up. This is meant to be one of the “happy, clappy” shows on the West End, comparable to the camp-tastic Hairspray. To draw any parallels to Hairspray is just unkind to a fabulous show. The cast struggle to drag the audience through the songs. In their defence, the script may not do them any favours, but it needs a lot more enthusiasm and bounce to be convincing.

If I were to give out stars: 2 stars would be my verdict. Better than that is my advice: Don’t bother, go and see Hairspray at the Shaftesbury Theatre instead.