It was quite amusing listening to Leveson coverage on Monday, when Paul Dacre was appearing. Robert Jay QC raised the question of the amount of stories about cancer that the
Mail prints – 'this gives you cancer', 'that gives you cancer' etc. Dacre claimed it was a tad misleading to suggest they printed lots of such stories, but even a quick search at the paper's own online site produced at least 10 pages of results for cancer stories.
And the way they're reported is such as to make what might be scientifically interesting/worthy research into something sensationalist and out of its wider context: so for instance, the 'working at night will give you cancer'. I was writing a piece on Breast Cancer Awareness at the time, and talking to charities involved for that. Such reporting they consider to be utterly irresponsible and counterproductive: they often see a downturn in enquiries after such stories appear because an approach apparently based on 'life can give you cancer' simply makes people feel fatalistic and less inclined to think about any sensible avoidance matters or even contact relevant organisations.
And of course, there was the very recent 'switching the light on for even seconds at night when you go to the toilet can give you cancer' tale, which Jay specifically raised in his examination.
That produced a response from Dacre, reading from prepared documents – in this case, what he claimed to be the original press release. Unfortunately, that claim was trashed online shortly after, by people linking to what was described as the proper press release.
I was going to say: 'you couldn't make it up', but in the case of the
Mail,on science/medical stories (as on so many other things), they frequently do.
