Cranky at Crikey

I like Crikey. As a journalist, it's hard not to. I've used Crikey commentators on various shows I've presented - they've been great talkers with something to say. Crikey at its best is irreverent, cheeky and sometimes fearless. It doesn't mind sticking it to those in power.

And sometimes it gets it completely wrong.

Yesterday in its Tips and Rumours section, Crikey ran this:

On October 23, 2006, the ABC's Life Matters program devoted itself to a warm analysis of The Dore Program which was offering help to parents with children suffering attention deficit syndrome ... at a price! It featured a lengthy interview with the program's founder, owner and chief evangelist, Wynford Dore. The Life Matters website still carries this gushing blurb:
The Dore Program offers drug-free treatment for a range of learning problems. It's based around exercises that stimulate the cerebellum - the part of the brain that controls eye-coordination, inner ear balance and motor skills.
The therapy is named after it's (sic) backer and founder Wynford Dore, who struggled for many years to help his daughter cope with severe dyslexia.
He's now calling for change in the way we manage and treat learning difficulties, such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
The program was presented by Richard Aedy, the producer was Amanda Armstrong and the story researcher and producer was Jackie May. Last year the ABC's Four Corners took a more sceptical view of The Dore Program and last night The 7.30 Report comprehensively buried it with the news that the business is now in receivership leaving debts of more than $13 million. Parents have been left high and dry, some owing money while others are in debt. We eagerly await Life Matters follow-up story as well as its apology. Or doesn't it matter?

The short answer is it matters a great deal. The longer version is that Life Matters did follow up stories. Two of them. If the anonymous Crikey writer had followed a few journalism basics, like making a phone call or spending 10 seconds using Google, he or she would have discovered that this was completely wrong.

Yes, I spoke to Wynford Dore - though the interview was anything but gush. In March last year, when his organisation put forward its lead researcher, David Reynolds, I interviewed him too. By then it was very clear that the science was disputed and controversial. The interview was rigorous, detailed and robust. By some distance it was the toughest interview Dr Reynolds had in Australia. I'm proud of it.

When Four Corners reporter Matthew Carney was doing his own story on Dore, he requested that interview. He told me recently it was a key piece of research for his film.

Last month, when the Dore organisation collapsed, Life Matters was one of the first to report the story. I spoke to a long-time critic of Dore, Max Coltheart, who's at Macquarie University. I also interviewed Michael Greenwood from Parkes Shire Council. Parkes had really embraced the Dore concept, it had a Dore centre and established a trust to pay for kids who it was thought would benefit to attend. When I did that interview, Parkes was still wondering where its $15,000 was.

I'm not perfect, far from it, and Life Matters isn't perfect either. But we really have tried to cover this story at key stages and from different angles. A few seconds with a search engine would have established this.

I'm sorry to go on - I'm about to stop. Life Matters executive producer Amanda Armstrong says it all far better, and much more concisely, in the response Crikey published today.

There still hasn't been an apology though!