Most of us are by now aware that many of the stories from so-called ‘major news outlets’ are nothing more than beat-ups.
Tabloid media has for many years sought the least discriminating readers by tailoring itself to the sensational. But since the advent of search engines, everything’s gone nuts, and even the most respected news organisations are under pressure to conform to the demands of SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
Simply put, if you tailor a headline to a phrase that will make people click on the story, then that story will have a better chance of landing on page one of Google’s search links. This, quite understandably, has become all-important, as nobody bothers to read page two. And it’s ruining journalism.
‘Vegans and vegetarians may have higher stroke risk’, ran a recent headline on the normally reputable BBC website. Written by its health editor, Caroline Parkinson, and duly reported locally in New Zealand on sites like Newshub and Stuff – where the headline had become the unequivocal ‘Vegans, vegetarians higher risk of stroke’ and ‘Study finds a plant-based diet is linked to a higher risk of stroke’ – the piece was based on research published in the British Medical Journal.
Except the story simply got it wrong and, it seems, intentionally so. For starters, the research was undertaken on both vegans and vegetarians, which completely invalidates the vegan/plant-eating angle as the latter group generally eats dairy and egg products.
The scurrilous intentions of the story become obvious when you look at the first sentence of the original BBC piece: “People who eat vegan and vegetarian diets have a lower risk of heart disease and a higher risk of stroke, a major study suggests.”
It turns out that for every 1000 people in the research, there were 10 fewer cases of heart disease amongst vegetarians, and three more strokes. That’s right: the rather compelling evidence of fewer people with heart disease was completely ignored.
In fact, the whole story is riddled with inconsistencies and insane assumptions, and the ‘Chinese whisper’ effect of other news organisations mutating the story to their own ends distorts the facts even more, losing all meaning in the process.
It’s worth pointing out that this study was carried out on a range of people for 18 years, and the BBC story even bothers to point out that the diets of vegetarians and vegans have evolved a lot over that time, but that information, imparted by Dr Frankie Phillips of the British Dietetic Association, was well down towards the end of the story.
In short, there is no statistical veracity about this observational research.
Claire Insley of the Vegan Society Aotearoa NZ, says that the story is a nonsense. “The BMJ report actually said that plant-based eating was very much healthier than eating meat and dairy. This part simply was not reported by the BBC and it seems like no other media bothered to do their homework on it.
“Also not quoted was Dr Malcolm Finlay, who pointed out how flawed this study was, particularly in terms of the analysis done to come up with such findings. In the end, this report was unable to draw any meaningful conclusions.”
She also points out that the study was conducted by its participants’ own observations, so there was no control group and therefore the study holds little weight in research terms.
“The inconvenient truth is that a plant-based diet is good for your body, good for the planet and all its precious resources,” says Insley.
“And of course, it’s better for the animals. It’s high time the media stopped attacking vegans and started telling the truth about what animal agriculture is doing to our health and our planet. We simply cannot continue the same production methods if we want a planet to live on in the times to come. Stop eating your children’s future!”
And so say all of us! (GARY STEEL)
Gary Steel is an Auckland-based journalist who runs online vegetarian resource www.doctorfeelgood.co.nz
He can be contacted via beautmusic@gmail.com
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