Instant experts

Chris Cook, reading

I've been watching Chris Cook's Newsnight updates on the cladding/insulation issues arising from the Glenfell Tower fire and, from time to time, wondering whether to trust them or not. 

During his update on last night's edition I thought, "How can he be so sure?" and "What makes him such an expert all of a sudden?" 

Of course, he sounded confident and convincing and, like nearly everyone watching, I'm certainly no expert on such things myself so I decided I'd have to take his journalistic findings on trust. 

By coincidence, however, I come upon a blogpost by Dr Richard North this morning which comments at length on Chris Cook's reporting, saying that "BBC Newsnight has got the wrong end of the stick (as it so often does)". 

He makes a confident and convincing case that Chris "misinterpreted" one of the tests and wrongly implied that "desktop studies" are an easy option, and generally engaged in under-informed speculation. And the BBC man missed out the EU regulation angle too. 

His criticisms are far too detailed to summarise here, but you can read it for yourselves and compare it with Chris Cook's BBC website write-up too. 

Dr North comments, "If nothing else, this is an example of what you can end up with when you are the BBC and can get away with low-grade research".

Now, I've no idea if Richard North is correct or if Chris Cook is correct. (Is Dr North any more of a cladding/insulation expect than the BBC's Mr Cook?) But, nonetheless, it's a useful reminder never to take a Newsnight report on trust - especially if the reporter appears to be 'an instant expert' on the subject at hand.


Update: I've been reliably informed that Richard North is a former local authority environmental health inspector and, as such, will have had direct responsibility for the safety of buildings and, thus, will know his way round regulation issues. That suggests that he's considerably more knowledgeable about this than Chris Cook.