Partial and misrepresenting

Mike Bennett’s assessment of the VisitScotland report on wind farms and tourism as meaningless in a Shetland context is spot on. (Turbine poll meaningless, SN 25 April 2012, and Turbines don’t put off tourists, SN 25 April 2012)

However, the report might still be useful as a school teaching aid (for media studies?) in the abuse of statistics, partial (as opposed to impartial) reporting of a supposedly independent poll, and its misrepresentation by a blustering politician.

Fergus Ewing claimed “the vast majority of visitors to Scotland do not see wind farms as a problem”, and “four in five visitors say their decision to come to Scotland would not be affected by wind farms”. No such question about coming to Scotland, far less Shetland, was actually asked in the poll.

This document and the political spin put on it would have been torn to shreds had it been presented at any Local Public Inquiry into Viking Energy. I suspect many other studies would have suffered a similar fate, but I guess we’ve been denied that opportunity.

Martin Heubeck
Dunrossness

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