Watch out Gilligan’s about!

Over at the Psychologist today web-site I came across an alarming post. Dr Satoshi Kanazawa an evolutionary psychologist, who is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Psychology at University College London and Birbeck, suggests that most if not all newspapers in Britain make up news stories as they go along irrespective of their authenticity. He cites findings of the Reporters Sans Frontieres’s annual index of press freedom, the United Kingdom currently ranks 24th in the world in terms of press freedom, with the 2007 index of 8.25. In comparison, the United States ranks 48th in the world, with the 2007 index of 14.50. (The smaller the index, the freer the press.)

It is true, he says, ”as the RSF indices suggest, that the British press are much freer and operate under fewer constraints than the American press. Unfortunately, however, one of the constraints that the British press are free of is the truth.’’ Contrary to the attitude of the journalists in America where they all rush to the scene of the incident to be the first to report, he says, newspapers (reporters) ”in the U.K make things up and hope that enough readers will believe them and they eventually become true in their minds. In other words, the British press are so free and unconstrained that they are largely unaccountable for whether what they report is true.”

He gives an example of a certain newspaper doing just that. He writes,

‘’Last week, the Sunday Times published an article with the headline “Blonde women born to be warrior princesses.”  The article reported that “Researchers claim that blondes are more likely to display a “warlike” streak because they attract more attention than other women and are used to getting their own way – the so-called “princess effect.””  The Times article quotes the evolutionary psychologist at the University of California – Santa Barbara, Aaron Sell, and his findings are purportedly published in his article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, written with the two Deans of Modern Evolutionary Psychology, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby. As it turns out, however, none of this is true, as Sell explains in his angry letter to the Times.  He and his co-authors do not mention blondes at all in their paper and they don’t even have hair colour in their data.  The supplementary analyses that Sell performed after the publication of the paper, as a personal favour to the Times reporter, show the exact opposite of what the Times article claims.  After he presumably listened to Sell explain all of this on the phone, the Times reporter nonetheless made up the whole thing, and attributed it to Sell.’’

It seems, according Dr Satoshi Kanazawa, this is the official position of our government. He cites the Home Office’s booklet for preparing immigrants to become citizens of Britain. In a section regarding the media it says,

‘The UK has a free press, meaning that what is written in newspapers is free from government control. Newspaper owners and editors hold strong political opinions and run campaigns to try and influence government policy and public opinion. As a result it is sometimes difficult to distinguish fact from opinion in newspaper coverage (p. 49).’

It’s really surprising that a professor at a respectful institution can imply that all British news papers, because of the freedom they posses, will make up things. As he admits, the story above was not by the Times, it was, in fact, published by the Sunday Times which is a completely different newspaper. I’m sure, if you search for it, you will find certain American newspapers doing the same things he is accusing British newspapers of doing. It would be interesting to actually find out the psychological reasons for his bias.

It is ironic of Dr Kanazawa to imply that all British newspapers would make up things without substantiating or verifying the information with facts when he himself is doing  just that. Let me direct the readers to an article in which he writes ‘’half of Muslims worldwide are terrorists or active supporters of terrorism, who would encourage their sons, brothers, and nephews to blow themselves up in an airplane or in a crowded market.’’

How on earth he came to this conclusion is beyond me.  As Prof. Robert Wintemute pointed out, abandoning the presumption of innocence and substituting a presumption of disloyalty, based on racial, national or ethnic origin, led to the imprisonment of US citizens of Japanese ancestry in World War II. Does he consider this example of extreme “racial profiling” justifiable? Would he like to be subjected to similar treatment, because of his ethnicity or religion, to help “defeat terror”?

Although I would agree that there may be some journalists trying to make a name for themselves and who may sometimes play gymnastics with words to enthuse the readers, I respectfully refuse to believe that all of our newspapers are inclined towards bending the truth. I am actually a reader of the guardian but I am confident that the telegraph and its many reporters are not like Mr Gilligan – who seems to have a personal vendetta against the IFE and its members and is willing to spice up his reporting in order to divert the attention of the British public from the good work the IFE and its affiliates are carrying out on the ground. I do not think the good British public are listening to you Andrew, and by reading some of the comments on your articles and blogs, you will notice the sort of people  you’re attracting – islamophobic hooligans who are bent on deporting all Muslims. Nick Griffin would be proud!