News release
15 Month 2010 - NR 08/10
‘Elf and safety’ stories should carry a warning - IOSH Chief
Executive tells national press
Writing in a national newspaper today, IOSH Chief Executive Rob
Strange OBE has questioned the way the media portrays health and
safety.
In a personal opinion article published in
today’s media section of the Independent, Rob claims how a
media formula of “exaggeration, half-truth, generalisation and
myth-making has created a great British joke, the one about ‘elf n
safety gone mad.”
Citing media coverage, particularly in the Daily Mail, and David
Cameron’s speech, last December, in which he announced his party’s
review of health and safety, Rob says:
“But lately, things have taken a more
worrying turn. If health and safety professionals had got used to
the joshing, heavier blows are now starting to rain in. As we
approach an election, we’ve started to see health and safety become
a political punch bag, left to swing with repeated right hooks from
predictably aggressive elements of the media.”
Rob talks about the Sunday Telegraph’s mis-reporting of the
IOSH position on gritting snow and ice in public areas in
January, and warns of the danger of trivialising health and
safety. He says:
“The cumulative danger is that the public
will turn its back on health and safety, encouraged to see it as
more an irritation than a necessity to protect life and limb; it
becomes something “done to” them, rather than owned by them,
requiring their input and responsibility to make it work.”
- Ends -
Notes for editors:
IOSH is the Chartered body for health and safety professionals.
With more than 37,000 members in 85 countries, we’re the world’s
biggest professional health and safety organisation.
We set standards, and support, develop and connect our members
with resources, guidance, events and training. We’re the voice of
the profession, and campaign on issues that affect millions of
working people.
IOSH was founded in 1945 and is a registered charity with
international NGO status.
Media enquiries
For more information please contact:
- Shaun Gibbons on
+44 (0)116 257 3254 or +44 (0)7791 519907
- Jasmeen Daji, IOSH
Publishing and media assistant, on +44 (0)116 257 3258.