New bf study - power of MN to make a fuss ...

op, I've pm'd you, I've got a vested interest in what you think of the media coverage of this story and I'd be really interested in hearing from you.

thing is, who is it campaigning against? the media. and whose co-operation does a campaign require? sooooooo.

So is this a case of if enough MN say Aye, then MN Towers will consider it as a campaign? If so, we're not doing too well. But you only need to look at the threads to see people's feelings on the subject.

Bless you networkguy assuming that BBC researches their stories thoroughly. I'm from outside the UK and the quality of the UK news channel compared to others including during the recent flooding in many countries was just terrible. This iron in breastmilk issue was just another example of not looking at all research and not getting a balanced view. They are supposed to by law but they so often brush this off by saying they tried to contact the other parties, or only quoting part of the press releases sent to them.

this is a brilliant response to the paper itself. seems that their interpretation of the research is distinctly iffy.

take up this cause

Unicef response here

I can't link to the original article as I don't have BMJ access, but here is the abstract.

The BBC is also still featuring, in the main feature about this "opinion", an email from somebody who should know better claiming that breastmilk contains no iron. Two days later the email is still featured with no correction forthcoming. I cannot be the only person who has contacted the BBC about this. This is not among user comments, this is featured as part of the article. Very very bad.

Have people seen this petition about press and media coverage of breastfeeding in general? I think it would be an excellent thing for Mumsnet to take up this course against the whole British media, not just the BBC.

Newspaper headlines like "Breast isn't best" and "Mother's milk may do more harm than good" are totally indefensible. They can only get away with them because there is no massive breastmilk manufacturer to sue them. Now if all the individual breastmilk manufacturers got together with Mumsnet behind them...

I'm sure some links to the study and a concise summary would help galvanize staff at MNHQ.

I heard the story (on BBC radio) and one assumes they have put forward a researched news item, after checking facts and getting views from both sides of a story. Seems not to be the case from your comments, cleanairplease.

hear hear. the media coverage of this story has been atrocious