Advertising, scepticism and zombies

Tuesday 8 September 2009

Middle England's fear whipped up, in numbers

Dr Ben Goldacre has made a lot of noise about the Daily Mail’s propensity for over-reporting cancer’s causes and cures. Is he picking on this great British institution unfairly?
Here’s a simple chart based on a very quick search using Dow Jones Factiva. The number of articles where the headline contains “cancer”, including truncations, from the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday published in the last 12 months: 207. The same search applied to all 18 UK national newspapers (including the Sunday editions and the Mail): 2,148, which averages out at 119.

“Cancer” headlines in the Daily Mail vs average national paper, 12 months (source: Factiva)

And it was a relatively simple thing to apply the same scrutiny at another butt of TV comics: the Daily Express and its concern with the waves of immigrants to Britain’s holy shores.
The number of articles where the headline contains “immigrant”, including variations and truncations (e.g. migration), from the Daily Express and the Express on Sunday published in the last 12 months: 236. The same search applied to all 18 UK national newspapers (including the Sunday editions and the Express): 1,289, which averages out at 72.

“Immigration” headlines in the Daily Express vs average national paper, 12 months (source: Factiva)

I’m still waiting for the killer headline in the grey-top tabloids: Immigrants spread cancer. That’ll be a laugh.

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