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Paul Bigland

Category Archives: Crap journalism

An example of how local media (& the anti Hs2 mob) will fall for anything…

06 Thursday Aug 2015

Posted by Paul Bigland in Crap journalism, Hs2, Richard Wellings, Rugby Observer

≈ 4 Comments

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crap journalism, Hs2, Richard Wellings, Rugby Observer

Yesterday’s Rugby Observer carried a piece written by Lawrence Baker, proclaiming “HS2 opponents call for reopening of Rugby’s Great Central Railway“. The origins of the story came from a ‘press release’ that was alleged to come from the English Regional Transport Association. Their press release bears no address, no website details, no charity or other registration number – just a couple of telephone numbers and a picture of their ‘spokesman’ – a chap called Richard Pill.

This is what the ERTA had to say…

erta

The ERTA has decided? Wow! So who is this august body that their deliberations should carry any weight & make it into print?

They don’t exist.

Lawrence Baker has made the fundamental mistake of not bothering to do the slightest bit of fact checking. No alarm bells rang when all the ‘news release’ carried was a couple of phone numbers & no address. He didn’t even bother running Richard Pill’s name through Google. If he had done, he’d have saved himself & his paper a lot of embarrassment.

Why?

Here’s Richard Pill’s LinkedIn page;

Pill

And here’s the picture of Pill from the ‘press release’

pill 2

The Rugby Observer have been conned by a part time gardener.

Mind you, it’s not just the Rugby Observer who are so easily fooled by anti Hs2 rubbish. When he’s not making his own rubbish up, Richard Wellings from the IEA falls for stuff hook, line and sinker too!

wellings again

That said, Wellings is well known for falling for anything. He’s recently been caught out retweeting a load of cobblers from an anonymous anti Hs2 blogger who calls himself ‘Beleben’. This individual claimed half the WCML freight paths go unused. When presented with the real time data that proved otherwise Wellings ducked the issue & still does to this day!

What this says about the anti Hs2 camps intellectual & critical prowess is up to the readers to decide.

More crap reporting, this time from the Independent

27 Monday Jul 2015

Posted by Paul Bigland in Crap journalism, Hs2, The Independent

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crap journalism, Hs2, The Independent

Is it any wonder the world of journalism is held in such low esteem nowadays? Take this example from today’s Independent.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/church-to-oppose-hs2-rail-link–because-it-would-desecrate-graveyards-9468659.html

The Church of England is to oppose Hs2? Really?

No, of course not -as the C of E made clear to the Indy – who ignored them & fabricated a headline anyway in order to cobble together up some cheap knocking copy.

Here’s what the C of E really said.

Indy

Is that so difficult to understand by the Indy’s wordsmiths that they manage to translate it into the exact opposite? No, of course not. It simply shows the declining standards of that newspaper & why hardly anyone outside the M25 reads it nowadays. The story isn’t even new but presumably the Indy wanted to jump on the bandwagon the Express started with their non-story about Brunel being dug up to make way for Hs2

I don’t know why the Indy doesn’t bother to change the colour of its masthead to red & join the other downmarket rags it obviously aspires to be nowadays.

Classic media hysteria & Stop Hs2 deceit from the Sunday Express.

26 Sunday Jul 2015

Posted by Paul Bigland in Crap journalism, Hs2, Joe Rukin, StopHs2, The Daily Express

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crap journalism, Hs2, Joe Rukin, StopHs2, The Daily Express

The Sunday Express, a newspaper well known for hysteria & inaccuracy has published this piece on Hs2.

“Isambard Kingdom Brunel may be the father of British railways but it might not save his grave from being dug up to make way for HS2″

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/593825/HS2-given-permission-exhume-the-dead-build-new-train-line

And the evidence for this is?

There’s none, it’s complete bullshit, as anyone who actually bothers to read the article & use their brain will realise – which probably rules out a goodly percentage of Express readers.

Hs2 spokeswoman Katherine Button explained the truth: “We have made one precautionary application as we are doing some ground investigation in Kensal Green Cemetery in London. The cemetery manager does not believe the site we have chosen contains burials but we have agreed a specific careful excavation process to prevent the unexpected disturbance of human remains.”

So, not only is Brunel not in danger of being being dug up, no-one else is either.

Tucked away in the article is this rather salient fact. ‘The tunnel under Kensal Green Cemetery is expected to be between 80ft and 115ft down’ All Hs2 Ltd are doing is drilling a test bore to assess the ground they’ll be tunneling through, nothing more.

Not that you’d get StopHs2s resident ranter Joe Rukin to admit the truth. Given the opportunity to comment he comes out with his usual deceitful rubbish, claiming that;

““It is not a great surprise they haven’t told anyone about this. The whole project has been a catalogue of mistakes.

“You don’t make an application like that if you don’t need to do it. It is clear they have strong suspicions that they will need to exhume bodies.”

Not told anyone? Hs2 Ltd have gone through a formal application process & got all the relevant permissions from the authorities concerned, they’re not exactly turning up in the dead of night like some modern Burke & Hare! There’s also the small matter that all this has come to light beforehand precisely because of that formal process. Needless to say, in a further effort to scaremonger, Rukin also completely ignores the fact that if you’re tunnelling 80ft underground, there’s no need to dig anyone up.

Clearly, Rukin & the Express are well suited. Both love scaremongering & have a cavalier attitude to facts. Perhaps Rukin can get a job with the Express when Joe Elliott finally sees sense & pulls the plug on funding Stophs2.

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