Inaccuracy in reporting astronomy and science Options

[As old as Voyage...]

I have just watched the BBC's report on the newly created 3D map of dark matter using Hubble data; and it made my heart sink.

I applaud the BBC for giving airtime to such discoveries, but for such a respected organisation their research was awful.

It's no wonder the vast majority of people are either bewildered or disinterested the the universe as a whole when the facts they are given are completely wrong.

It's a shame that tonight 60 million or so people in the UK and many other people around the world were told Hubble shone a beam of light out into the depths of the universe and studied how it was bent by the gravity of dark matter billions of light years away!

And this was a report from the BBCs science correspondant!

I remain downhearted that perhaps the most important story of the week was reported in such a shoddy manner.

Does anyone else feel space is being let down by TV coverage?

[ollopa]

They've pulled it.

However............

............to enjoy this gem again, simply paste the following into your browser and it should open in Windows Media Player. Quick - while stocks last!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/avdb/news/vide...046_16x9_nb.asx



(Poor Andy Coates - NOT his fault, of course!)

[AndyG]

Thanks, Ollopa, for posting the link.

I didn't see it live, and was trying to put off watching it until I'd summed up the courage: but now I see that it's one of those things - like moments in Fawlty Towers - which are just so embarassingly awful that I cringed while seeing it. Toe-curling, "please make it stop" comedy.

I rather hope there's been a dreadful misinterpretation of a more technical press release: perhaps with a title something like "Hubble shines light on the Universe's dark matter".

But flip. That's awful.

E- ...And I'm being generous.

Andy

[Stu]

I rather hope there's been a dreadful misinterpretation of a more technical press release: perhaps with a title something like "Hubble shines light on the Universe's dark matter".

No, that's not going to wash. The guy was a "science correspondent", he gets paid for reporting science news stories. The story didn't break at five to 6, it was all over the net 24hrs earlier, so all he had to do was go online and read the info while having a cup of coffee. During the afternoon I put together a 30 slide Powerpoint presentation on the item for my astro society meeting that night, with consideably less resources than the BBC has.

Hubble has been up there since (gulp!) 1991, and there can't be many people who don't know that it takes pretty pictures, so is a CAMERA, and cameras COLLECT light, they don't shoot it out of their lenses.

This was lazy, poor and frankly stupid reporting, and it shouldn't be just dismissed as silly. The BBC is publicly funded over here through the licence fee, we have no choice - unless we want to sample prison food - but to pay the annual fee, even if we don't particularly want to watch so-called celebrities poncing around ballroom floors in acres of swishing taffeta, or standing beside has-been singers murdering our favourite songs, or sit through humour-free episodes of "My Family" or other shows. Every year the Beeb takes over £100 from me, and although I can't say it's not worth it - I get to listen to 5 Live while I sit here writing, and get to see The Sky At Dawn, and Spooks - it's episodes like this that make me genuinely angry.

I'm giving a talk to a Women's Institute meeting tonight in a tiny village hall in the wilds of Cumbria. There'll be maybe 10 people there, plus as many bourbons as I can eat and as much tea as I can drink. It's people like that who rely on the BBC and other broadcasters to inform them accurately. They were told that a telescope shot a beam of light out to the edge of the universe. Some will have believed it, because, well, come on, it was on the BBC News... I'll have to set them straight tonight, when they ask about it, as they surely will. I don't mind, but I shouldn't have to set them straight because it's not my job to, it's the science correspondent's job.

God help us when we finally find life on Mars, or receive a SETI signal.

[karolp]

Hello everyone,

I must admit that I stopped wathching ANY tv about 5 years ago. But a year ago I was still downloading the Polish headline news off the internet as an *.asf file. And in January '06 they told the 40 M people here in their prime time edition that the Stardust spacecraft sampled the comet by firing a probe towards it. And the name of the probe was... Deep Impact. How about that?

And similarly to the BBC, the ONLINE reports issued the same day were well researched and NOT inaccurate. I guess the "internet" people tend to have a better background in sci tech than the "screen" people they employ.

And by the way, to cheer up a bit - presenting sci tech on tv also has some positive aspects to it. I noticed that Polish TV resumed airing reruns of a 1980s French-made science cartoon series. I was wondering whether our members from France could recognise it by the appearance of the depicted character:

Louis Antoine de Bougainville

There was also another series about biology and about space science (the latter featured a flying character named Ordie or something close to that).

Best regards from Poland,

Karol P.