Radio New Zealand reports with a straight face that
An alcohol watchdog hopes a survey that shows more than one in four teens aged between 15 and 17 often drink a risky amount of alcohol serves as a sharp wake-up call.
The “watchdog” is making “a call,” tweets RNZ mis-reporter Brent Edwards irresponsibly, “to curb alcohol marketing, cost, availability.”
Irresponsible because, as one follower corrected him,
The ‘sharp wake up call’ is that alcohol consumption among youth is actually falling.
Truth being the first casualty of the way modern journalism is done.
Eric Crampton has the stats, the story and the quick summary, which is:
Whatever the survey, Alcohol Healthwatch is going to say it shows that the government needs to crack down on booze… So [in this case] Alcohol Healthwatch takes what looks to be a substantial decline in kids reporting drinking as reason for more controls on alcohol.
The taxpayer-funded “watchdog” needs a watchdog.
Maybe the “neutral” state broadcaster does too.
.
1 comment:
Puritans and wowsers. Why can't they all just fuck off and stop caring what we put in our bodies? If we do something bad BECAUSE we put something bad in our bodies, by all means, let the punishment be suitably harsh, but we all know how well prohibition works. Why must they keep trying?
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