Baldness calculator promises to predict men's hair loss!

[Boondock]

Maybe a few of the Telegraph journalists are balding and they've been reading this forum???

I think male journalists would be interested in such stories, and they would make sure it gets published. I don't find it surprising at all.

:shakehead:

It IS surprising because The Telegraph appear to have bought into the story completely. What happens in many of these cases is that the paper receives a call from a company, sometimes posing as a neutral third party, and they are given something newsworthy which they can decide to turn into an article (or not, as the case may be).

What should happen is that the journalists go fact-checking to see if there's any truth in the story or if it's bunk. In this case, they didn't do that. They call the calculator 'pioneering' and talk about how useful it is to balding people. With two minutes checking, we've discovered that it's actually complete flange-follop.

So the paper has in effect given this company free advertising. In fact, it's BETTER than free advertising, because a lot of people won't realize it's an advert.

You'd expect this from a tabloid, but the Telegraph is part of the UK's 'quality' press.

 

[Petchsky]

You'd expect this from a tabloid, but the Telegraph is part of the UK's 'quality' press.

I understand what you're saying, but in my eyes all corporate owned newspapers are full of sensationalism, dross, and skewed perspectives and now they are all in terminal decline as the 18 - 24 age group don't buy newspapers and use the internet to get their 'news'.

 

[Boondock]

I understand what you're saying, but in my eyes all corporate owned newspapers are full of sensationalism, dross, and skewed perspectives and now they are all in terminal decline as the 18 - 24 age group don't buy newspapers and use the internet to get their 'news'.

Granted, but it's still a fundamental principle of newspapers - for economic and not 'quality' reasons - to forbid any advertisments masquerading as articles. It's effectively free advertising, which really irritates the businesses who are paying money to advertise in your publication, and, hence, causes you a bit of bother.

 

[ali777]

I understand what you're saying, but in my eyes all corporate owned newspapers are full of sensationalism, dross, and skewed perspectives and now they are all in terminal decline as the 18 - 24 age group don't buy newspapers and use the internet to get their 'news'.

Granted, but it's still a fundamental principle of newspapers - for economic and not 'quality' reasons - to forbid any advertisments masquerading as articles. It's effectively free advertising, which really irritates the businesses who are paying money to advertise in your publication, and, hence, causes you a bit of bother.

I went to Boots today and I bought the product. Did I buy into the story? The short answer is no, but I have read about the benefits of caffeine in the past and this article was just a trigger for me to go and buy it. If Boots didn't have it, I wouldn't order it online.

On the subject of newspapers. I think you have very high expectations, and rightly so. If we can't believe the "serious newspapers", who are we going to believe? I think at the end of the day, most news are in effect hidden ads. Imagine reading about a celebrity, isn't that an ad for him/her? It's the same with the politicians, the longer the stay in the public eye, the better their chances in the next elections.

 

[Boondock]

I went to Boots today and I bought the product. Did I buy into the story? The short answer is no, but I have read about the benefits of caffeine in the past and this article was just a trigger for me to go and buy it. If Boots didn't have it, I wouldn't order it online.

On the subject of newspapers. I think you have very high expectations, and rightly so. If we can't believe the "serious newspapers", who are we going to believe? I think at the end of the day, most news are in effect hidden ads. Imagine reading about a celebrity, isn't that an ad for him/her? It's the same with the politicians, the longer the stay in the public eye, the better their chances in the next elections.

Don't get me wrong, I have very, very low expectations for newspapers. The one area where I expect them to keep a tight ship, however, is with their finances. Papers need all the advertising they can get, and giving pseudo-advertisments is not something they'd like to be doing from a financial standpoint.

I think it's a bit wishy-washy to say "everything's an ad". Supporting a politician or a celebrity is different; they're not a business that would regularly place ads like a hair product company is (although of course supporting a politician saves them the cost of putting political adverts on tv etc, so things get a bit more complex there).

Good stuff on buying the product, though. You shouldn't buy stuff off the back of an ad, but you shouldn't NOT buy it because you feel manipulated by ads either. If you've come to your own conclusion that it's worth a punt, then it's worth going for, so good luck with it. And remember to take pictures!

 

[ali777]

I think it's a bit wishy-washy to say "everything's an ad". Supporting a politician or a celebrity is different; they're not a business that would regularly place ads like a hair product company is (although of course supporting a politician saves them the cost of putting political adverts on tv etc, so things get a bit more complex there).

Being a celebrity is a business!!!! The more they appear in the news, the higher their fees are. For example, any news article on Beckham would also affect Adidas, Pepsi, Gillete, etc. From a business point of view, newspapers should not publish any gossip about Beckham because they might expect to get ads from Nike, Coke, Wilkinson's Sword, etc.