Rio de Janeiro appoints first female police chief

Guardian report here.

A hard job - not least the gender stereotypes - which she embraces: "I will be a severe mother. I will punish when necessary and distribute hugs when they are deserved," Very Gene Hunt! But we are reassured, 'Rocha told the newspaper, which described her as a fan of Issey Miyake perfume, high heels and cooking.'

Guessing from this quote most of her officers are men, 'In an interview with O Globo she said she wanted her officers to be "polite, clean-shaven, good-humoured and kind".'

Perp Walk Staged

There are diplomatic and legal issues surrounding the case of Florence Cassez. My concern here is with the suggestion that her arrest was staged for the cameras a day after her arrest.

See this report from Time mag.

UK cyber crime costs £27bn a year - government report

So says BBC report here.
But not only is this figure often self -reported (so some under-reporting as report acknowledges) but also self-evaluating. So we discover late in the piece that the headline figure is made up thuswise.

'Intellectual property theft cost £9.2bn, industrial espionage £7.6bn, this was followed by extortion, which cost £2.2bn, and direct online theft, which cost business £1.3bn. Some £1bn was lost through theft of customer data.'

They mention old-fashioned bank robbery but in those you knew exactly how much you had lost - or said you did.

So the lowest figures likely to be more accurate with the higher figures plucked from the counter-factual air.

Hollyoaks rape trial to use viewers' 'jury'

Outcome of Channel 4 soap's ongoing storyline to be decided off-screen by members of the public

see Guardian article here

Alcohol and Media

"In reality, we see a fairly deep-rooted decline in alcohol consumption which dates back to 2004. That's not something you see acknowledged in the media."

"With newspapers, the headline is always the same: 'Shock rise in binge drinking'. But you look at the figures, and you see alcohol sales are declining.

This BBC report contrasts falling alcohol sales with continued shock reporting rightly seeing it as part of an anti-Labour (their then Licensing Bill) bias in some papers, particularly Daily Mail