SIRC Media Watch Archive
Comment and Opinion – September 2000
Daily Mail bitten. It is rare for British newspapers to engage in dog-eat-dog criticism of each other, except when competing for lurid sensationalism or disingenuous attempts to occupy the moral high ground. It is refreshing, therefore, to read Fordyce Maxwell's critique in the Scotsman of the Daily Mail's distorted coverage of GM issues. The Mail's latest onslaught against science and reason comes in their coverage of the debate within the government's Agricultural and Environment Biotechnology Commission (AEBC). This advisory body was set up last year with a balanced composition of experts on ethics, environmentalists and gene scientists. Its Chair, Professor Malcolm Grant, is known to take a sceptical position in the GM debate. Full story.
