Arm, I haven't read his article and had not heard of him before. Please could you post a link to his article.
Sorry FGD, I tried but it's a pay-to-view thing. As a guide, though, it was a bit like as if I'd tried to cobble up a story on any specialised field from Wikipedia entries ... I could probably do something that looked OK to the casual observer, but it wouldn't stand up to scrutiny by those in the know.
I understand these guys are just doing a job, but I agree with the sentiments of previous posters who are saying it's not an excuse that you have to get attention-grabbing copy out for your expectant masters - I want my journos to put at least a reasonably rigorous effort into fact-checking.
Silly, I know, in this day and age of the sound bite, but it annoys me when something put up in a medium purporting to be an authoritative source, i.e. a major national newspaper, reads as shabbily as this particular article did.
If the whip-cracking editors just wanted something on the page that looked vaguely right from a distance, well, that's what they got in this case.