This whole WiFi scare thing has really got going again since the panorama programme last night. Good to see the blogosphere so quick to expose poor journalism and for it find its way into the mainstream. I didn't watch the programme myself so I'll avoid commenting on it, but if you did see it and feel the need to complain you can do it here.

I fear there may be some people out there who are reading these articles and dismissing them, thinking it's a bunch of techy people defending their beloved wifi networks. I'd like to point out that the subject of this debate is not about whether WiFi networks are safe or not, but what evidence the media have presented and how. Although all sensible experts agree that based on current knowledge it is extremely unlikely that wifi will cause any problems, I'm sure those same experts will agree its not impossible that there is some unknown factor, it's happened before. I for one am pretty happy with the risk, just as I am when I step outside braving the very real (yet slim) chance that I may be struck down by lighting on a clear sunny day.

Labels: media, panorama, wifi

It should be an offence! If only print media adopted some of the standards of institutions like Wikipedia. TV and newspapers with massive readership/viewership regulary abuse that position of power to commercial or political ends. Now of course these are generaly commercial organisations, and perhaps I'm being naive in thinking people want their newspapers to tell them the news, the sales figures of The Sun show that. And I've often heard that newspapers is the one industry regulary run at a loss because owning a paper gives you so much political power (I really need to find a citation for that!)

I'm a regular reader of BBC news and often click into the Technology section. They seem to be constantly writing about computer security threats, and they rarely seem to be in proportion. As for the beebs motivation, money and politics really shouldn't come into it, I suspect it's more likely that on a slow tech news day they turn to recent security releases and alerts that steadily stream out of organisations like Symantec, Microsoft and others.

A recent example of this is the covereage over the last couple of days of the supposed harmful effects of wi-fi networks. I saw something about this on newsnight lastnight but the article that's really wound people up is from the Independent. Ian Betteridge has written a great come back.

This leads me onto my next idea. In this age of blogging and wikis, the new user generated mass media, we should be able to combat the misinformation coming out of these media giants. How about a website dedicated to either debunking, or perhaps in some cases supporting issues that are currently in the media, using citations to real research. Perhaps it would be a simple wiki, with a digg type interface to bring currently relevant articles to the front page. People could visit it to verify whatever they've just been reading in their newspapers, or at least hear another side to it.

Labels: media, panorama, wifi