Trial By Error: And Another Prebuttal…

Indeed
Many seem to operate under the axiom its only harassment if the bullies are claiming persecution. If its victims then its not noteworthy.

 

Which paper is going to run the story?

I hope it’s not the usual one sided affair. It would be refreshing to have a realistic account.

 

The rules of one organisation say "As ……… journalists we never identify with any side in an issue, a conflict or a dispute. Our text and visual stories need to reflect all sides, not just one".

Sounds as though that must be a different organisation.

 

Yes, well that wouldn't be the Guardian then, would it?

 

Gaslighting. They are human so while their mission is likely to search for the truth they are being manipulated by those who have power and influence. And they fear retribution so they try to saddle both sides.
Some are better at resisting alternative facts and bullying then others but few are completely logical and immune to propaganda or popular narratives or statistical or scientific manipulation.
If only we could get the Vulcans from Star Trek to open a news agency...

 

To state the obvious, 'feeling harassed' is not the same as 'being harassed'.

Let's hope this journalist realises this before publishing, otherwise she/he may find her/himself becoming guilty of 'harassing' others in the cause of those merely 'feeling harassed' because they are unable to deal with legitimate criticism.

Are there any other fields of medicine where a small group of scientists committed to a particular ideology have so regularly used claims of harrasment in response to FOI requests and to deflect from detailed analysis of their work?

 

I was wondering whether the timing had anything to do with Sharpe's fishing exercise towards the end of June 2018 after the Westminster Hall debate...?

 

Unless someone is going seriously all out on this, this article strongly suggests this is a US newspaper. Seems doubtful anyone from the UK would send people to NY and SF. Either possibility is interesting, though.

Despite the tone, any serious journalists would have taken the psychosocial ideologues claims seriously and would have asked such questions and investigated them with an open mind to either possibility. The claims have been kept alive for years and come from influential people. They would have asked other questions as well but anyway we can speculate all we want, let's wait and see.

 

I think several of the UK national papers have offices/staff in the US. Also they would be able to use an agency photographer based locally.

 

Interesting that photography and meeting with DT etc took place in the US. That would rule out basically all small uk news organisations at least.

 

What strikes one about most reports by so called science correspondents is how little interested they seem to be in the scientific issues rather than the gossip surrounding scientific subjects, for which no scientific qualifications might be necessary. Any other specialty would do equally well for that- perhaps modern languages, for example.

 

I do wonder if the purpose is not so much the article itself, as the hassle being given in the process. Is this the BPS brigade's twisted way of levelling harassment at David? If such an article does in fact come out, then it will show in bright lights what crappy science David stands against. No interest in discussions of the science, but only in defaming those who seek to do so. They will show all those MPs the complete truth of what David has been saying. Cannot help wondering if those behind the scenes know what an own goal that would be, but just want to maintain the aggro anyway.

 

I'm not sure there's is even any evidence of that. Any so called evidence is highly likely to be correlation between a condition that is self resolving anyway but doing some hocus pocus on the subject anyway.

Kind of like doing reiki on someone on the 6th day of a bout of the flu and watching them recover on the the day and claiming it was the reiki that cured them.

There is also the issue of CBT being designed to change how someone responds in answer to a question rather than showing any objective change.

 

Accusing someone repeatedly of "harassment" (or libel or whatever) in public can be harassment as defined by law. For this, it is not necessarily needed to be truth or lie (i.e. even if the accusation were true), it's enough that it's done to harm the accused.
(That's in Germany from criminal law.)

 

Oh, it's possible. It would just be excessive and bizarre, reeking of political pressure.

 

True. Although I was proclaiming the possibility based on popular belief. It's also not as clear as has been reported that exercise helps for depression either. But it's a panacea that is inevitably believed just on the face of it. I don't think that the belief will fall into disrepute any time soon. And all of this is just anecdote. My point of journalists believing one while discounting the other still stands IMO.

 

I've had emails basically telling me not to write about certain things, or telling me I had made errors but then not explaining what those errors were.

I know another journalist who got a patronising talking-down-to in person after publishing an article on ME that a certain person didn't like.

If anything, they're the ones with an organised campaign to scare people off.

 

well, I have just had a talk with the video folks at the news organization, and was told that publication was not imminent but likely to be a bit in the future. So there's more waiting.

 

I wondered that and whether it will ever materialise. Maybe some people think you can just out-blather those who disagree and get them to go quiet, especially if you hassle them.

I am tempted to think that as usual there are different people with different agendas involved and what may appear may be a train crash arising from nobody quite thinking of the consequences of what is being engineered.