Embarassing to be a cyclist

In article ,
hippy wrote:

He didn't refuse; he wasn't asked for a sample.

Not according to cyclingnews:

"French refused to provide a DNA sample to the inquiry, although all
other cyclists named by French did provide samples."
- http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?...l04/jul29news4

Which sort of proves my point about the problem of reporting this all
accurately. From point 91 of Anderson's report:

"I am not required by the Terms of Reference to enquire into Mr French's
conduct and I do not do so. It is for that reason that I did not request
Mr French to supply a DNA sample."

You can download the PDF and read it yourself.

--
Shane Stanley

In article ,
Richard Sherratt wrote:

It's not easy, but real journalists can do it.

No, good journalists can do it. But not all journalists are good
journalists.

Most of the inaccurate news reporting is just plain incompetence
and sloppiness.

Right -- as opposed to conspiracy. That was my point.

As for (most of) the so-called current affairs
programs, what they do isn't journalism.

Yep. And yet people insist on watching them.

Now imagine they just ignored it in the first place. Would the AOC have
bothered with the inquiries, or the expense of all those DNA tests?

It would have happened eventually.

I'm not so sure. But now we're both speculating.

--
Shane Stanley

In article ,
hippy wrote:


Shane Stanley
Richard Sherratt wrote:
It's easy enough to get it right, too.

And yet a good percentage of the posts on the topic here, by people
who
follow the sport, have contained errors.

Including yours it seems..[/color]

Quite possibly, although not in the case you're thinking of.

All the "journalists" have to do is ask questions and check the
answers.
If only it were that easy...

Better than simply assuming guilt and mocking up "shooting gallery"
scenes to hype it all up.

Yes, but you're simplifying. You can ask the questions, but what if the
answers don't agree? And how do you check them? Good journalism isn't
easy.

I'm not for one minute defending most of the crap that's been fed up,
just pointing out that even those who have tried to avoid that have made
mistakes because it _is_ a complicated story.

Sort of like your speculation on how the media works, you mean?
The explanation is probably a bit simpler, if duller.

Is this _assumption_ based on knowledge or speculation?

If you're asking if I have worked in the media, then the answer is yes.

Now imagine they just ignored it in the first place. Would the AOC
have
bothered with the inquiries, or the expense of all those DNA tests?

Do you think the enquiry was simply started to placate the media and
public? Find a guilty party, absolve the others and then move along..?
Do we have things like ASDA for nothing?

Look at when the incident happened, and how slowly things moved. French
was found guilty, and that was meant to be the end of it. Then look at
how swiftly things happened after it was made public via the leak to a
politician and its reporting in parliament. New inquiries, DNA tests,
the works.

None of us were in the room. We all have to rely on second-hand
information about this issue. You are assuming the news services you
use have correctly reported "the facts" and not speculated.

You're right, but some of the primary sources, like Anderson's report,
are also available. I place more weight on what they say.

--
Shane Stanley