When consumer choice claims are really something else -- false balance.

False balance leads to confusion

Well, let’s move on. Another complaint to the ACMA came to our attention last week. A month ago, WIN TV in Wollongong aired a news story about a measles outbreak in South-West Sydney. It started off well enough:


Michaela Gray: 40 cases in two and a half months, the Macarthur region is facing an outbreak of measles of worrying proportions. ...

Dr Cathryn Archinal: as doctors we recommend that everyone is immunised.

— WIN News Illawarra, 16th August, 2012

But the doctor’s advice was then contradicted by this...


Michaela Gray: There remains heated discussion about possible links between the jab and the development of autism.

Meryl Dorey: All vaccinations in the medical literature have been linked with the possibility of causing autism, not just the measles/mumps/rubella vaccine.

Michaela Gray: Choice groups are calling for greater research into the measles vaccine

— WIN News Illawarra, 16th August, 2012

‘Choice groups’. They actually only quoted one group, which claims that it’s in favour of the public having a choice. But Meryl Dorey’s deceptively -named Australian Vaccination Network is in fact an obsessively anti-vaccination pressure group that’s immunised itself against the effect of scientific evidence....


Media Watch: False balance leads to confusion (01/10/2012): ABC TV Australia