Dumbest Journalist Award 2024 Goes to Tracy

 Tracy is a Liz Truss lookalike and fancies herself as a journalist. So she wrote this: "How detectorists thrashed archaeologists at their own game" (Telegraph 16.03.2024)*. Dumb reporters in the UK are now unable to distinguish between archaeology and metal detecting. They seem to consider both are about finding things, not understanding things. So she talked to two tekkies, Julian and Sophie, did not bother with the archaeologists and wrote... a load of crap.  Of course she starts off with the fictional "Detectorists" series...

On a wider cultural level, TV shows such as BBC’s Detectorists; the Michaela Strachan-fronted Digging for Treasure and new Channel 5 drama Finders Keepers (starring Neil Morrissey, James Buckley and Fay Ripley), are driving the trend.

So it is not about greed at all, its "British kulcha" you see. But once she gets away from "wots on the telly", she flounders:

So popular has public metal-detecting become that every year 96 per cent of all metallic archaeological objects are found by a detectorist compared to 2 per cent from archaeological digs.

Tell that to any collections manager in a county museum. Where did she get that idea from, well, the metal detectrists of course. Innit, Trace? Then its the bit about how much money you too could make if youget a detector and "have-a-go". Cue: so-called Crosby Garrett helmet, Staffordshire Hoard ... but then a novelty, fake-find-Jonesy, the site-seeding tekkie from Wales who "just wanted to grab some glory and tried to pull some mild perception” (sic).

 
Then the de rigeur "it's better for mental health than walking the countrydide with: your wife/kids/ Suzie from the off-licence/ her sister/ birdwatching binoculars/ or dog" which is what they all say now... totally omitting the fact that digging holes into the archaeoogical record and pocketing bits of it, reported or not, is NOT good for the health of the archaeological record or cultural landscape. And THIS is what PAS should be telling them and every journalist in hearing distance.

Another tripup:

Last year, a law change meant that seeking lucrative bragging rights to a find (one coin or artefact) or a hoard (multiple finds in one concentrated area) is becoming more difficult for rogue detectorists. Previously, the UK definition of Treasure under the 1996 Treasure Act was any metallic object with at least 10% of its weight being gold or silver, that is at least 300 years old when found. In 2023, the definition was updated and now any object found after July 30 2023 that doesn’t meet that criteria but is made at least partially of metal, is at least 200 years old and provides insight into an aspect of national or regional history, archaeology or culture by its rarity, the location in which it was found or its connection with a particular person or event.

Where is the end of that sentence? And what does it have to do with "lucrative bragging rights"? And it just gets worse:

"Etiquette dictates that public detectorists should always seek the landowners’ permission before setting off [...]

That brings us to PC Plod's "nighthawking down". Duh. It's the law, Tracy, the law. 

anything found of possible historical or regional interest should be reported immediately to your local council’s Find Liaison Officer for verification and cataloguing. Depending on rarity and condition, most finds [...] will be passed on to museums.

Ummm- NO.

In my view, this is the DAMAGE the activity of PAS and the head-in-the-sand lethargic inactivity of other British archaeological bodeies are doing. A lot of people have got it into their heads that archaelogy is just about digging up old stuff, its nothing verey difficult, anyone can do it, there is no secret to doing it, just having a nack, archaeology is not really a discipline that you need to actually study to get to grips with. That's why you get some blonde "brand consultant/ event and content producer" who imagies she can just dash off an ill-researched text full of basic gaffes and it'll be just what the Torygraph and the Great British Public need. What was she thinking?

Read it here.

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