More Shilling From The Media
As regular readers will be aware, I have been critical about how some of the press are covering hypnotherapy stories. My main grip has been that celebrity name dropping has been used as news, and that I still have significant concerns about the confidentiality implications of celebrities being used this way. That is even with their consent, as it is not possible to retrospectively take these articles down if the celebrity changes his or her mind.
This most recent “news article” was about a “Celebrity Hypnotherapist” now launching an app. The article did the usual celebrity name dropping which I find so repellent, but in a new wrinkle, the article seems only to be about the launching of a commercial product.
Since when is this news? Yes, I know you will say, but isn’t the news about the latest iPhone is headline news the same thing? I would say in principle yes, but the iPhone has millions of users which I suppose makes their launches more news worthy than an app that will be used by significantly less people than that. Additionally, is it right to have the media treat this like news, if a person wants to promote his or her hypnosis services, take out an ad in other words pay for it, don’t try to pass it off as headline news.
