"Churnalism is a form of journalism in which press releases, wire stories and other forms of pre-packaged material are used to create articles in newspapers and other news media in order to meet increasing pressures of time and cost without undertaking further research or checking." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churnalism

It must have been a quiet weekend for news, because the Telegraph is reporting this morning that Twitter "'costs British economy £1.38bn'"

The "figures" appear in a "survey" apparently conducted by Morse, an IT services consultancy who boast "proven expertise in Business Applications Services, Infrastructure Services and Technology". Amongst their expertise is Philip Wicks, who the Telegraph quote as saying that "When it comes to an office environment the use of these sites is clearly becoming a productivity black hole."

Leaving aside that it's clearly in Morse's interest to make the "findings" sound as dramatic as possible, I've got a suggestion for a quick way of gauging how accurate these kind of "surveys" are. Simply take whatever it is that's supposed to be costing the British economy eleventy billion pounds a year in lost productivity, and replace it with time-honoured office activities thusly:

"Talking about last night's Eastenders costs British economy £1.38bn'"

"Eating biscuits costs British economy £1.38bn'"

"Unjamming the photocopier costs British economy £1.38bn'"

You get the idea.