Brussel Sprouts writes:

The National Platform is a highly reputable lobby group which campaigns
against a Federal superstate and highlights the very serious
shortcomings in the Irish Referendum Campaign. The secretary of the
group is Dr Anthony Coughlan, a former Senior Lecturer Emeritus in Social Policy at Trinity College, Dublin. The group has challenged the Oireachtas
(Irish Parliament) on the failure of the Irish Referendum Commission to
inform the Irish people about the Lisbon treaty despite receiving
millions to do so. Their explanation about the commissioners that you
dismiss as “rehashed unproven speculative analysis” was a clear
statement of fact made in answer to false claims made to the Irish
people. The National Platform website is not a blog but contains
detailed and careful analysis on the subject of the EU. Dr Coughlan has
written extensively on the effects of the EU Constitution.”

I remain unconvinced that the National Platform has enough people to be considered a “group”, or that it exists as anything other than a WordPress-powered website run out of Coughlan’s front room (the address given on the site is for a house in a residential Dublin street, after all).

I know this will sound petty and pedantic, but in the context of the article the fact that Coughlan himself has impressive academic credentials is neither here nor there – the impressive-sounding name of his organisation is assumed to be enough to lend his opinions (and they ARE just opinions, no matter what Brussels Sprouts may assert) credence. One man’s view, after all, is less credible than the views of many – hence, I suspect, the grandiose title he’s given to the organisation which appears to have no members other than him.

Anyway, I’m impressed that I got a reply, even if I remain unimpressed with the article.

I’m wholly aware that enormous amounts of disastrous badness goes on in all these regions (many of which I’d love to pass onto PE but for risk of being sacked).

However, nearly everything that appears in PE in these areas that I actually know about, which is quite a bit, is embarrassing nonsense (Dr B Ching on the rail front, most obviously, reproduces crap Evening Standard lies about almost everything).

While I still read PE because they’re the only people who bother covering libel-heavy parts of the journosphere, the fact that whenever they cover anything I know about it’s nonsense doesn’t fill me with confidence.

Your fine is another nail…

It also pushed the MMR/autism scare until the weight of evidence demolishing the link got too embarrassing for it to carry on.

To state that Prof Coughlan is nothing more than a common blogger – like you or I is rather doing him a diservice. The National Platform which he runs has been around for years and years. He is a well respected commentator and campaigner on European issues and other issues for many years.
http://www.global-vision.net/fellows.asp
Should give you an idea of his credentials.

That being said I did think that the Brussels Sprouts was a tad overhashed and recycled myself.

To act as if this chap is from a proper organisation when he’s just a blogger like you or I is misleading, and his analysis – at least that quoted by Private Eye – is full of misunderstandings and inaccuracies.

To wit – and to stress, looking solely at Coughlan’s claims in the Private Eye article itself – to blame the Lisbon Treaty for the reduction of the number of commissioners is pure semantics; his point about the current situation remaining in force if Lisbon isn’t passed is a one that was made by pro-EU blogger Jon Worth (among others) several months ago (and is entirely speculative, as to keep the current situation after the end of this year would technically be to breach the terms of the Treaty of Nice); and his rhetorical question about “the point” of national commissioners conveniently ignores the fact that all EU commissioners have to take an oath to act independently and not as the tool of their member states’ own governments while in office.

The real point is the complete ignorance of journalists regarding new technology which enables them to get suckered in.

However, having had my own run in with an article in the Sun based around my what my PhD was on (I know the topic), there is also the possibility that journalists are actually using the ignorance of their readers regarding new technology, which could easily prove their story to be wrong, to push very biased and blatantly wrong stories.

The number of times I have had discussion about people regarding inaccuracies regarding the EU, in which their full back position is that it was in the Sun/Daily Mail/Express. Papers NEVER lie do they? That would be illegal right?

I also wrote an e-mail to said journalists, asking if journalists where internet illiterate and correcting all her inaccuracies. It was done light heartily but she took ‘offence’….having read her previous work she comes across as a bit of a cow….I guess all that cocaine up the nose down in the London media bubble really messes with your brain! The worse part was the way the story was reported she clearly knew enough of the reality of the situation to be able to produce such a pack of lies..it mad about as much sense as waxing an owl!

Its important to catch the journalists when they misbehave but it makes you think that there needs to be something stronger than the PPC and its voluntary codes. Information is power and it can easily be abused…didnt Mussolini start of as a journalist?