Since
its founding nearly 13 years ago, The Huffington Post has relied
heavily on unpaid contributors, whose ranks included aspiring writers,
citizen journalists and celebrities from the Rolodex of the site’s
co-founder Arianna Huffington.
...On Thursday, it said it was immediately dissolving its
self-publishing contributors platform — which has mushroomed to include
100,000 writers — in what is perhaps the most significant break from the
past under its editor in chief, Lydia Polgreen...
(Recently) a contributor with the byline Waqas KH published an article about Felix Sater, an associate of President Trump, that he had been paid to post. The site has since deleted the article.
Click the link about Sater and you'll learn it credits my Belfast buddy Dean Sterling Jones whose whizbang reporting appears to have contributed to the HuffPost's decision to axe unpaid contributors, some of whom include some of the world's most famous celebrity doctors as well as some less well-known physicians.
Yesterday I Google-searched MD and HuffingtonPost.com and turned up a baker's dozen of physician columnists.
I can confirm that all blogs on the HuffPost contributors platform have been shut down, as of yesterday (1/18).
In alphabetical order, below are the thirteen names I sent her. Click the images to go to their HuffPost page listing their published articles.
If there are other HuffPost physician columnists I missed, feel free to e-mail me the details. I'll verify the information with Ms. O'Neill and append to this item.
Finally, I've got a follow up inquiry in to Ms. O'Neill asking if Dean Ornish MD (see below) is still the publication's medical editor.
John Reynolds at the UK Press Gazette -- which, according to its website, "has been reporting on British journalism without fear or favour since 1965" -- picked up the story and credited me. The article includes this new reporting:
Owen Conlon, assistant news editor of
the Irish Sun, said on Twitter: “While both papers should have checked with Byrne, this was a deliberate attempt to get false information in. Irish Sun spoke to same woman. When told Byrne denied it, she replied:
‘He’s probably being modest.'”
iMediaEthics has contacted both the Standard and Mail to ask how they learned about the story, how they attempted to fact check and if they are or have published corrections.
As It Happens, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's radio news magazine, saw Sydney's story and aired an interview I did with co-host Carol Off. Click here for the audio and the transcript which includes:
Ed Byrne is a well-known Irish comedian. And He's pretty funny. In fact,
he’s so funny you could die laughing, unless he saves you. And if
you’re a reader of the London Evening Standard and the Daily Mail,
you could almost believe Mr. Byrne had done just that, by saving an
audience member from choking at one of his shows. But when one
investigative blogger heard the choking story, something about it stuck
in his craw. So he decided to get to the bottom of it.
...PETER: (Ed Byrne) and I have exchanged a couple of tweets. Earlier today, I tweeted
that I was confident that he should be able to get five minutes of
stand-up out of this.
(Peter) Heimlich complained to IPSO over the (bogus) article, noting it was a fake story and calling out the Mail
for failing to fact check or publishing a correction. Heimlich told
iMediaEthics he complained to IPSO since he never received any response
to his emails to editors and staffers at the Mail Online. “Little did I
realize that what should have been a simple fix turned into a
seven-month bureaucratic runaround with IPSO making me jump through
endless hoops in literally dozens of back and forth e-mails. And after
all that, IPSO gave the MailOnline a pass, even though the paper tried
to deceive readers by sending the story down the memory hole. It made me
wonder if IPSO chose to put the interests of a member publication over
journalism ethics.”
########################
Screenshot from London Evening Standard story by Martin Coulter
Two leading UK newspapers have disappeared a bogus story without informing readers that their reporters got hosed by a source.
Via Google News, here are screen shots of articles by reporters Alexander Matthews of the Mail Online* and Martin Coulter of the London Evening Standard:
Last night I tweeted this inquiry to Mr. Matthews and to Mr. Byrne:
According to a press release they issued about a year ago, the Cincinnati-area American Heritage Girls is the "premier national character development organization for young women that embraces Christian values...Currently, American Heritage Girls has over 43,000 Members [sic] located in every state..."
According to a 2014 press release, the American Heritage Girls formed a "National Cooperative Venture" with Heimlich Heroes, a "Deaconess Associations, Inc. and Heimlich Institute initiative that teaches kids as young as seven how to become a hero by learning to perform the Heimlich Maneuver correctly in order to save a life. Both organizations are based in Cincinnati."
In honor of Heimlich Heroes week American Heritage Girls corporate office trained their staff using our Teen and Adult program!
Kristi Tatro, National Director of Girl Impact, spearheaded the training to set an example for their members and community.
AHG staff members went through the Heimlich Heroes Teen and Adult training using our new training video...
Tatro said, “AHG highly endorses and encourages this program. It’s easy and fun to learn!”
Via this clip from the Heimlich Heroes "new training video," here's the problem:
I'm unaware of any medical organization or medical expert that recommends performing "the Heimlich" (abdominal thrusts) on choking infants.
Why not?
According to recent e-mails I received from executives at the American Heart Association and American Red Cross, doing so "may cause injuries."
Further, I'm unaware of any published research on the subject.
In other words, the American Heritage Girls "highly endorses and encourages" teaching the public to perform an unapproved, potentially harmful medical procedure on babies.
I'm e-mailing this item to Ms. Tatro with an invitation to respond.
