Another one: Why do science and health reporters lack backgrounds in their subject?
More “Science and Health” reporters with no training in either science or health. One positions herself as an “AI expert”.
Hah hah: “Solar storm TERROR looms for Earth as equinox approaches; Know why the date is SCARY”
Hilariously stupid headline says earth to face SCARY TERROR on March 21st. Well, I’ve updated this on March 26th and we’ve survived!
No they are not: Are newspapers as relevant as they think they are?
Newspapers view themselves as heroes holding government accountable and being the voice of the unseen victims of the world. Except, in reality, they are missing most of the stories – including big ones like the SVB bank collapse which was hiding in plain sight.
Rule by technocratic experts
The inventors of “public relations” (the name given to the field after “propaganda” grew out of favor) argued for rule by technocratic elite, thinking that important decisions should be left to “experts” and not democracies.
Why do science and health reporters lack background in their subject?
Bloomberg, and many media outlets, use unqualified or questionably qualified “reporters” to cover complex topics in science and engineering. Such reporters learned what they know from media and interviewing others, who talk to the press as part of their own evangelism. This is not how the media should be doing reporting.
Why do science and health reporters lack any background in the subject?
Does it make sense for most reporters to report on technical subjects about which they have no specific training?
Media: Where did “Bomb Cyclone” come from?
The media loves the term “bomb cyclone”, a technical term from meteorology that sounds super scary. Most of the public has no idea what it means, and even with the official definition, it still is mostly meaningless to the public. But it sounds scary. And that’s the main point.
The media continues to hype a fear monger whose 50 year old predictions have been wrong about everything
“60 Minutes” brings back Paul Ehrlich to make more scary fear-based predictions of the future. He’s been wrong about everything for more than 50 years – so why does the media do this nonsense?
Media myth busted: Suicides do not increase at holidays
Half of recent news reports about holiday suicides spread disinformation that suicides go up over the holidays: Summary: Despite media claims that suicide rates increase dramatically over the holiday period, researchers report the average daily suicide rate during the holidays remain among the lowest rate of any period of the year. Source: University of Pennsylvania The holiday-suicide myth, the false claim that the suicide rate rises during the year-end holiday season, persisted in some news coverage through the 2021-22 holidays, according to…
The asymmetry of “Freedom of speech”
Academics have long maintained they have a “freedom of speech” to pursue whatever they want to pursue in terms of research; this freedom extends to political opinions. In my state, all public sector workers have protection on their off-the-job speech. Private sector workers have no such protections and may be fired or receive negative performance reviews for their off-work speech. Which means when it comes to speech, some have more freedom than others, and that means, for example, that viewpoints of academics and public sector workers could be more influential because others may not be able to counter their comments.