The role of media in establishing public consensus
Link to an essay on the role that “technical authority”, media propaganda, and how “consensus of experts” are used to influence the public and to exert control over us. This essay is an eye opener.
When is something a “Crisis”?
When is something a “crisis” and when is it not? “Crisis” is an intentional word used to evoke emotions – or to call for action. One can choose to use the word “crisis” to suggest something awful (even if not really) or can deliberately choose not to use the world “crisis” to minimize the optics of the situation.
It’s back: The bogus World Happiness Report annual announcement
The bogus World Happiness Report is back. The news media loves to run stories about this annual nonsense report that defines happiness as living in a Scandinavian country. I analyzed and demolished this report back in 2016.
How lazy reporting can influence your thinking
Laziness leads to Reuters showing a thumbnail graphic that is badly out of date, and which may mislead readers into thinking the Covid situation is much worse than it is now. This is not nefarious or intentional propaganda – it is most likely just laziness.
NY Times is concerned about “unfettered conversations” taking place online
According to the NY Times “Unfettered conversations” are taking place on a new cloud-based app. Is the NY Times suggesting all conversations should be monitored by the secret police or their proxies, the tech companies? This seems bizarre.
Newsweek becomes Newspeak, edits past stories to conform to today
Newsweek and the Washington Post have both done stealth edits to long ago articles and did so for political reasons. Trust journalism? Why?
Begging the Question Fallacy: “This is not who we are” … again and again and again …
When an organization suffers an embarrassing fiasco of their own making, they often respond with the silly “This is not who we are” claim, just after they’ve demonstrated that this is indeed who they are. This is known as the “Begging the question fallacy”.
Today, a PBS legal counsel was caught advocating for fire bombing the White House and sending children of Trump supporters to re-education camps. PBS has apparently fired the counsel, and made the usual “This is not who we are”, just after their own counsel demonstrated that this might be who they are… begging the question once again.
“Deplatforming” Parler
The controversy over hostile social media content advocating violence, hate, and lies on social media – and the deplatforming of individuals and entire services (e.g. Parler).
Was Parler deplatformed for “conservative” ideas or for users advocating violence?
Methods of subtle media propaganda
Every time someone not following the face mask meme contracts Covid-19, the media makes the lack of face masks the story. Yet when a large group of health care workers, with 100% face mask compliance is diagnosed with Covid-19, mention of face masks vanishes. According to the CDC, 90% of those diagnosed with Covid-19 were face mask wearers – suggesting the media’s focus on face masks or lack of one as the cause of contracting Covid-19 is propaganda messaging.
Journalism: This really happened “Boeing 777 will struggle to maintain altitude once the fuel tanks are empty”
“Boeing 777 will struggle to maintain altitude once the fuel tanks are empty” – appears to have come from a convoluted interpretation of how the auto pilot works – but comes across as idiotic. This occurred in March of 2014.