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Catalyst supposed to be provocative, says ABC Director of TV.

"It was inherently controversial and was always going to be, and the team knew that," Richard Finlayson says of Catalyst.

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2013-11-19_2251Catalyst is supposed to be a provocative science show and to uncover the truth, according to ABC Director of Television Richard Finlayson.

The recently-installed ABC exec told TV Tonight that the “Heart of the Matter” episodes, which claimed people were wasting their time taking cholesterol-reducing drugs, had attracted a polarity of views.

 

“The Catalyst team have done a brilliant job this year and really connected with viewers. The progamme has really been invigorated in the last 12 months or so,” he said.

“They took on, in that spirit, an issue that has been around in the medical community for a long time. It’s not a new debate. It was simply surfaced into the public arena by Maryanne (Demasi, pictured) , who took on the story. She chose to focus on that aspect of the story, this contrary view to the prevailing wisdom of the medical establishment.

“It was inherently controversial and was always going to be, and the team knew that. I think it’s wonderful, and hopefully reassuring to people in some way, to see the polarity of views across the ABC.

“There was Dr. Norman Swan coming out with his views, Media Watch having a view on the programme and it’s balance…”

But the show which was criticised by the Australian Medical Association president and he Australian Advisory Committee on the Safety of Medicines .

Finlayson says it is now under internal ABC investigation.

“We’ve referred the programme to the Audience and Consumer Affairs Unit, internally, to have a look at it and we’ll get something back on that reasonably soon,” Finlayson said.

“But their job is to be provocative at times and to seek to uncover the truth. So in doing that job we support them and we’ll see what comes out of the internal analysis.”

Last week Media Watch branded the show  “sensationalist and grossly unbalanced,” but Finlayson wouldn’t be drawn on editorial balance.

“I think there are differing views on what ‘balance’ means. Do you measure balance in a story like that on the amount of time that was given to each party? There’s a whole range of editorial policies that come into play there, and as I said I think it’s best left for our Audience and Consumer Affairs Unit.”

7 Responses

  1. Catalyst wasn’t a sensational science show.
    They have deliberately taken that approach this year to boost its profile. First with some popularist entertainment specials, then with some tabloid investigation specials.

    The main difference between medical experts and Compass was just the amount of overprescription of statins and the heath effects of lots of saturated fat vs lots of Omega 6 fats.

    They booth agree low risk people shouldn’t be on Statins and monosaturated olive oil appears to be a healthier fat for cooking.

    And the drug industry is hardly shy about pushing its agenda in the media. They have just released new medical guidelines in the US for statin prescription — and the New York Time has already exposed the fact that the industry website for the guide lines has exaggerated the need for statins.

  3. What Media Watch got right was that the “experts” used in the program to tell us why cholesterol is not linked to heart disease all have conflict of interest and very dubious medical backgrounds. One of the “experts” only has a degree from an online natural medicine school shut down after it was revealed to be a scam. Another of the “experts” believes the only effective medical treatment is “grounding” which is standing with your bare feet on the ground and believes this can fix a wide array of medial problems. And all three of them are involved with the same book on the subject and sell “heart pills” online that compete with statins. I have no problem with Catalyst trying to explore an alternative viewpoint but they didn’t use anyone that could be considered a medical expert to do so and didn’t divulge that all three were connected to each other or sell pills with no…

  4. I saw this episode and had no problem with the controversial views expressed. I found the topic very interesting and challenging, which is the point of science really. I don’t think it’s fair to criticize the program for not being balanced as it was simply trying to put across a different point of view to that of the current main stream. As it pointed out, many contemporary medical so called truths are actually based on science from decades ago and really should be re-visited, which is what the program was endevouring to do in my mind.

    Well done Catalyst, it was a great program and I would love to see more programs in the future that challenge contemporary thinking like this one.

  5. Good comeback Catalyst. I enjoyed this story. Lets not forget the other side of the story has been told many many times over the last 30 odd years. Where was the balance then Media Watch.

  6. Whenever somebody does anything or says anything of is trying to discribe anything that goes against the “norm” than people are likely to go heeve and other are likely to say ” i knew it”. I thought the Catalyst story on this topic was great had no problem against it. Although i partly have that view because i am mainly against taking drugs. I take natural vitamins and yes the dosage was formulated in a lab the ingrediants are natural, other drugs which are purely made with synthetic ingrediants i am not a fan off. Not to mention that the drug industry invents certain ilensses to sell more drugs. There is a good Boston Legal episode on it when Denny Crane almost does from a overdose. The “credited” Associations are drinking the same coolade the drug companies are supplying.

  7. There’s a world of difference between ‘balance’ and ‘accuracy’; in fact they’re two totally different things.

    One of the major problems with the media is that they pay lip service to (in the case of the commercials) or have been captured as slaves to (in the case of the ABC) balance, while accuracy has fallen by the wayside and been run over and left to die like an unlucky possum…

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