Media Watch, WIN News, the Australian Vaccination Network, Baloney, Bulldust, and False Balance

Five days ago I wrote a post about WIN News and the difficult position in which they have found themselves: ABC News teaches WIN News a lesson in responsible public health broadcasting. This is due to WIN’s unfortunate reliance on anti-vaccination activist Meryl Dorey, from the anti-vaccine organisation the Australian Vaccination Network, in their coverage of a Measles outbreak.

Tonight, ABC’s Media Watch program addressed the same issue, stating [my bold]:

‘Choice groups’. They actually only quoted one group, which claims that it’s in favour of the public having a choice. But Meryl Dorey’s deceptively named Australian Vaccination Network is in fact an obsessively anti-vaccination pressure group that’s immunised itself against the effect of scientific evidence.

Dorey’s claim about the medical literature linking vaccination and autism is pure, unadulterated baloney.

and

To put it bluntly, there’s evidence, and there’s bulldust. It’s a journalist’s job to distinguish between them, not to sit on the fence and bleat ‘balance’. Especially when people’s health is at risk.

Enjoy. I know I did. For public health!

___________________________