Quality journalism and rain pain
Nov. 13th, 2011 11:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stephbgA while ago I saw an @abcnews request for information tweet for a story about how people use pain to detect rain, something along the lines of "@doctorx wants to hear from people who feel pain before rain," so I responded to @doctorx in 140 characters as one must: "I have very accurate magic rain-detecting body parts. Some old injuries, some fibromyalgia." I remember thinking at the time that the author of the report/story would get in touch with me if they were interested, but I heard no more and forgot all about it. Until I saw this:
Australians to suffer summer of rain pain
ABC News Online asked people on Twitter what they thought.
"I have fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis and I can say without doubt that rain does affect my pain," Wendy Fisher from Perth said.
"I have had chronic neck pain for six years. Yes, weather affects pain levels," Barry Steele from Sydney said.
"If it's been dry for a while I can feel big rain coming a week before the rain starts," Matthew Ross from the New South Wales central cost said.
"I have very accurate magic rain-detecting body parts. Some old injuries, some fibromyalgia," said Steph Bateman-Graham from Perth.
I would have read it anyway, considering my triple interests in rain, pain, and pain-detecting rain, but I was more than a little surprised to find that I'd been quoted, named, and located in the published article *blink*. I'm not about to make a civil-libertarian-type uproar about the violation of my privacy or whatever, given that it was a public tweet, but I'm more concerned about the veracity of reporting in general. I could have made stuff up; I was certainly more than a little casual about the initial (and only as it turns out) contact. Everyone else who was quoted could have made stuff up. I know people have been making stuff up to reporters' faces since the beginning of time, but no attempt was made to check this out. It was quoted not wildly-out-of-context, but not as intimately as I'd have preferred.
And having made a habit of always referring to the Magc Rain-Detecting Bodyparts(tm) as trademarked, the ONE TIME they get quoted in the press the TM wasn't there. Bloody typical.
And pain isn't all there is to the rain detection process. It's part itch, part excitement, part tingle, part here-be-dragons, but mostly trouble I could do without.
Australians to suffer summer of rain pain
ABC News Online asked people on Twitter what they thought.
"I have fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis and I can say without doubt that rain does affect my pain," Wendy Fisher from Perth said.
"I have had chronic neck pain for six years. Yes, weather affects pain levels," Barry Steele from Sydney said.
"If it's been dry for a while I can feel big rain coming a week before the rain starts," Matthew Ross from the New South Wales central cost said.
"I have very accurate magic rain-detecting body parts. Some old injuries, some fibromyalgia," said Steph Bateman-Graham from Perth.
I would have read it anyway, considering my triple interests in rain, pain, and pain-detecting rain, but I was more than a little surprised to find that I'd been quoted, named, and located in the published article *blink*. I'm not about to make a civil-libertarian-type uproar about the violation of my privacy or whatever, given that it was a public tweet, but I'm more concerned about the veracity of reporting in general. I could have made stuff up; I was certainly more than a little casual about the initial (and only as it turns out) contact. Everyone else who was quoted could have made stuff up. I know people have been making stuff up to reporters' faces since the beginning of time, but no attempt was made to check this out. It was quoted not wildly-out-of-context, but not as intimately as I'd have preferred.
And having made a habit of always referring to the Magc Rain-Detecting Bodyparts(tm) as trademarked, the ONE TIME they get quoted in the press the TM wasn't there. Bloody typical.
And pain isn't all there is to the rain detection process. It's part itch, part excitement, part tingle, part here-be-dragons, but mostly trouble I could do without.
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Date: 2011-11-14 10:12 am (UTC)