The Live Music Forum

Hamish Birchall Bulletin

Thursday 3rd December 2009 - 'Don't strike up the band'

'Visit a pub and there's every chance you'll hear background Muzak, or high-volume Sky Sports coverage of Premiership football. But what are the chances of hearing live music?' asks Nigel Hawkes, director of the prestigious campaign group Straight Statistics.

Hawkes considers the validity of DCMS claims about live music based on their licensing statistics:
http://www.straightstatistics.org/article/dont-strike-band

Straight Statistics is, in its own words, '... a campaign established by journalists and statisticians to improve the understanding and use of statistics by government, politicians, companies, advertisers and the mass media. By exposing bad practice and rewarding good, we aim to restore public confidence in statistics.'
http://www.straightstatistics.org/home

Nigel Hawkes is a former Health Editor of The Times, and has written for The Independent and other broadsheets. Straight Statistics has a board of directors, including among them Dr Ben Goldacre, Guardian columnist and author of Bad Science, and Professor David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk, University of Cambridge:
http://www.straightstatistics.org/directors-and-council

ENDS

Hamish Birchall

 

 

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