Most journalism in the U.S. today is “yellow journalism” that focuses on scandal, celebrity, “crisis”, the oppressed and fear and the prophets of doom – via scary headlines, and sample bias to cover stories that fit the yellow journalism narratives. Today, the most over used word in media is “crisis” – as you’ll see in this post, today, everything is a “crisis”.
More “Science and Health” reporters with no training in either science or health. One positions herself as an “AI expert”.
Hilariously stupid headline says earth to face SCARY TERROR on March 21st. Well, I’ve updated this on March 26th and we’ve survived!
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.
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.
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.
Does it make sense for most reporters to report on technical subjects about which they have no specific training?
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.
“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?
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…