Tag: BBC

BBC Christens New NBA Team

In a recent post I aired my disappointment about a BBC story that demonstrated irresponsible reporting about the value of achieving 10000 steps in a day. And my disappointment continued in the news outlet today, February 28, with another less serious gaffe about American sports.

In a story about the Florida shootings, the piece mentioned that the National Basketball Association Miami Heat player, Dwayne Wade was moved by the fact that one of the victims was buried wearing a shirt with Wade’s name on the back. The story goes…

“The day before the Miami Heat player was to play against the Philadelphia 69ers, Wade decided to dedicate the rest of his season to that student, Joaquin Oliver.”

The piece continues to mention the fact that Wade and his teammates “went on to beat the 69ers on Tuesday evening..”

(That was in the piece still available online at the time of my writing this: 8:30am ET on 2/28/2018)

I did check and to the best of my knowledge Philadelphia’s NBA team is still called the 76ers, after a certain important date in American history.

Perhaps the writer got confused between the NFL’s San Francisco  49ers and the Philadelphia 76ers but if so perhaps he or she should have split the difference and called them the ‘62 and a half ers.’ Or alternatively, they were confusing the important dates in American history and thought the city of Brotherly Love and home of the Liberty Bell were named after the critical events of 1769 when John Harris of Boston, Mass, built the first spinet piano.

Doesn’t anyone edit these pieces? It may not be quite the status of fake news but it doesn’t inspire confidence. Come on BBC!

Meanwhile, I still follow the BBC and their sports coverage. I’m looking forward to the weekend when my team, Tottenham United, play the Huddersfield Rangers.

BBC 10,000 Steps Headline Is Misleading, Disappointing and Potentially Dangerous

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In a January 31st BBC health story, Dr. Mark Mosley wrote, “Forget about 10,000 steps.” It’s unclear who actually said that. Was it Professor Rob Copeland from Sheffield Hallam University whom Mosley visited while Copeland conducted a “study” on four people? In any event, the gist of the story was that doing more vigorous activity for 10 minutes, three times a day was a better way to improve fitness than doing 10000 steps.

Culture and society are sinking into a binary brain morass. Everywhere you look, there is a dangerous and idiotic trend of seeing everything as an either/or proposition even where common sense let alone logic dictates otherwise. This is especially true of the media, who need to sensationalize everything to attract more eyeballs, and more sales. It’s one of the reasons I typically turn to the BBC for my news. As one who grew up in England I might be biased, but I am usually more trusting of the BBC than any other news source.

This story is a microcosm of the downgrading of critical thinking and serious analysis that is crippling society. Someone suggests, that doing more vigorous activity is better for your health. Duh! That’s a real surprise. It might have an advantage over 10000 steps for developing cardiovascular fitness BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN THAT TRYING TO ACHIEVE 10000 STEPS IN A DAY SHOULD BE SCRAPPED. There are still advantages to reaching that level of activity, especially as so many people lead very sedentary lifestyles. However, here we have a headline that tells people to “forget” about doing a healthy activity, which surely has no ill-effects. Now, there will be many who will see this story, or even just the headline, and believe that the 10000 steps idea has been discredited and is no longer a useful goal. I mean who has got time for some critical thinking? And the advice came from…well, it’s unclear but Dr. Mosely seemed to support the idea.

Perhaps the defense to this is something like, “I couldn’t get that complexity into a few hundred words.” I say it’s better to try than give some misleading and potentially dangerous advice. As a writer, I could easily see how you could construct a more helpful and TRUTHFUL story. The headline could read, “How Helpful is the 10000 Steps Goal?” Such a story would allow some discussion of the value of including more vigorous activity in the 10000 steps, and the advantages and limitations of the advice.

For me, wisdom is about escaping the restrictions of binary brain thinking and recognizing the full context as well as acknowledging what you don’t know. For example, how many people, like me, consciously or otherwise, use their 10000 step goal to actually get some vigorous activity into their day? Even if 3  ten minute bursts of vigorous activity are better than 10000 steps a day for building cardiovascular fitness it doesn’t mean that 10000 steps should be “forgotten.”

As you can tell, I was disappointed by the headline and the story. Does BBC now stand for Binary Brain Cognition?