Daily Mirror article

Ian_Gere said:
BTW Longshot, what makes your reply comment above tosh is taking only part of what I said and arguing against it as if my point was indeed the narrow view which you apparently believe is merely repetition, since you have pretty much restated your previous objections to previously made points. I am not going to re-catalogue the factual inaccuracies I have already drawn attention to, but instead draw your attention to the italic "all" which followed shortly after the section of my sentence you chose to quote.

My point is that, if the wench in question had made one inaccurate statement, it could simply be sloppy work. If her inaccuracies averaged out so that some made the story seem more worrying and some less, it would be simply even sloppier. But that is not the case. In fact her trivial seeming 'mistakes', which you have correctly inferred as such, all serve to make the article more worrying. The effect of this consistent 'exaggeration' then, in the minds of uninformed readers, is the same as a single well stated argument drawing upon indisputable facts.

The truth however is that she is a professional writer. Her copy is proof read before publication. The whole process is overseen by editors and lawyers who fully know the difference between accidental vagueness which can be allowed to stand because it doesn't affect the tone of the piece in any relevant manner and a series of small lies, each of which is couched in terms vague enough to be deniable and each of which can be dismissed as too trivial to matter, but which nevertheless create the desired tone for the article. Basically she is either a lying bitch or an incompetent bitch overseen by liars.
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So to summarise, you declare that "there are several factual inaccuracies" in the piece, I challenge you to show what they are, you can't, and then you decide that my somehow dropping the word 'all' in relation to the apparent cumulative effect of all the inaccuracies that you can't actually point out means that all thsee inaccuracies exist again. But they don't, even if you choose not "re-catalogue" them (where did you 'catalogue' them the first place?).

You might well accuse me of repetition, but that's because my point has been the same from the off: this columnist has a point that is a concern in relation to air weapons, and airsofters moaning about this because they feel threatened by the problem are simply choosing to ignore that problem (she's not even talking about airsoft anyway!). Nobody, including you, has actually addressed this issue yet (which is why I'm repeating it). I'd rather be repetitive and actually have a consistent approach than to change my 'point' every post which is what you have done; here's a list: 1, The problem is "the number of armed police... and the willingness of Chief Constables to allow their deployment," 2, Talking about air weapons is redundant, since whilst they can get kids killed "so can cocaine," 3, "These facts are not news" (glad to see you're agreeing they're now 'facts' at this point) 4, "She doesn't know the difference between concrete and plaster" 5, ... Actually I'm bored of listing now, but you get the idea.

You keep changing your mind about what the 'problem' is with her article (is it her fault, the editor's fault, the lawyers' fault, etc.) and pointing out that there are other dangers to kids out there (which if course there are) without ever actually addressing the problem that she is raising (albeit in a poorly written way) about the dangers posed to kids by the availability of air weapons. If your only issue was: 'this article is tosh because she has a poor writing style and she could have completed and presented more research into the topic' I'd happily agree with you (although I still don't see how, even if she listed every related law in the land, this would change her point that kids can get these weapons and they can get them hurt or killed). However, you (along with most other people who are moaning about the article) are so hung up on 'defending airsoft' (again, despite the fact that she doesn't mention airsoft and isn't actually talking about airsoft weapons from what I can gather) that you're willing to overlook the real issue that she is trying to raise in her limited commentary column space.

 
Right. I've had a re-think; that last post was far too rambling and harsh (not like me, I know - though the fact that my little boy now gets me out of bed at 5 because his body clock thinks it's 6 has made me extra grouchy!).

Ian (and others) I think the reason we're in disagreement is because we're talking about two different things. You're concerned about the potential overreaction that people have when they read about her saying 'BB guns are easy to get and can hurt kids' and the impact this could potentially have on airsoft. I agree with you on that. It probably was irresponsible on her part to write about an issue without being clear about the terminology she was using (though I still don't think she is, or sees herself as, a 'proper journalist' - I'm not sure anyone at The Mirror is actually...). So I agree with you, she's a crap journalist and her article is potentially misleading to the general public. If her editor or legal team cared they should have called her on this.

The problem that I have is that in getting so hung up on the issue of bad journalistic presentation everyone seems happy to ignore the fact that behind her 'journalist' persona she is also a parent who is concerned about the easy availability of toy guns that can hurt kids or get them killed. I'm concerned about this too, which is why it's annoying me that nobody is addressing this issue. Arguably if she (or someone else) had written a better piece on it we may have taken the point more seriously (though I have a feeling most of us would still shout: "Airsoft defenders to the rescue!" and lay blindly into it no matter what was said), and so Fiona Phillips is to blame for the fact that nobody who knows what they are talking about will take her seriously.

As a result I'm going to leave this thread so it can be the 'Fiona Phillips is a crap journalist' thread and I'm going to start another thread looking at the issue behind all this: are RIFs too easy for kids to obtain?

 
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