Michael, your intelligent friend with too much faith in the media – get him a copy of the book Bad Science by Ben Goldacre. Read it yourself before passing it on to him – it’s hugely entertaining.
People think of it as a book about alternative medicine, but really it’s about the complete idiocy of supposedly factual media. The chapters’ subjects range across the education authorities, the cosmetics industry, homeopathy, the “war on drugs”, the pharmaceutical companies, the superbug and MMR scares, but every chapter keeps coming back to the way the ‘news’ media cover these issues.