Bad Journalism
The Fourth Estate
The press is often called “the fourth estate”– a
political power different from the three
branches of government (executive, legislative,
and judiciary) that keeps them in check. A
healthy press is an adversarial press.
The Necessary Press
In addition, media– once newspapers, but now
mostly televised news and internet news– is the
principle source of information people have
about world events, scientific developments,
health, and politics.
Even if you get your news from friends on
facebook– someone has to get it from the news
media.
Afflicting the Comfortable
The press is supposed to “comfort the afflicted
and afflict the comfortable.”
Unfortunately, the news can be horribly
misleading, full of discredited falsehoods and
propaganda. It can comfort the comfortable and
afflict the afflicted.
FOOLING MICHAEL
cf18 comments
“…it looks like 78.1% of people in Hong Kong dislike
other races… But don’t you find it more
unbelievable that the next two questions say 80%
people don’t mind having drunks or emotionally
unstable peoples as neighbours Or even more crazy
stuff on the next page, which say 90% people think
it’s fine to have drug addicts as neighbours … The
correct result should be: In Hong Kong 78.1% found
it acceptable to have different race neighbours,
while less than 20% found it acceptable to have
drunks, emotionally unstable and drug addicts as
neighbours.”
NEWS ORGANIZATION
Newspaper Organization
A newspaper contains:
• News reports
• Editorials
• Advertisements
Reporters
Reporters generate news stories. Some of them
cover “beats” (local politics, sports team, etc.)
and some of them receive different assignments
at different times.
Reporters
There are good reporters. But there aren’t many
of them.
Since the age of the internet, the numbers of
reporters has not changed, but the amount they
have to write has increased by three times.
Public Relations
Public relations (often just called PR) consists of
all the activities that individuals, companies, and
organizations take to control and influence the
spread of information about them. PR activities
include:
• Marketing
• Issuing press releases
• Giving interviews
• Writing/ videotaping news stories!
Churnalism
“19% of newspaper stories and 17% of
broadcast stories were verifiably derived mainly
or wholly from PR material, while less than half
the stories we looked at appeared to be entirely
independent of traceable PR.” – Lewis et. Al (on
the course website)
Churnalism
47% of the British stories are from “the wire”
(news services like AP), and not written by the
reporters at the papers.
Many of the wire stories also have their origin in
PR material.
Churnalism
Here’s a story from the Irish Independent
(Ireland’s biggest newspaper):
Wave goodbye to global warming, GM and
pesticides
Radio wave-treated water could change agriculture as
we know it.
Groundbreaking Technology
“A GROUNDBREAKING new Irish technology
which could be the greatest breakthrough in
agriculture since the plough is set to change the
face of modern farming forever.”
Magic Water!
“The technology – radio wave energised water –
massively increases the output of vegetables
and fruits by up to 30 per cent.
Not only are the plants much bigger but they are
largely disease-resistant, meaning huge savings
in expensive fertilisers and harmful pesticides.”
$$$ Vi Aqua $$$
“The compact biscuit-tinsized technology, which is
called Vi-Aqua – meaning
‘life water’ – converts 24
volts of electricity into a
radio signal, which
charges up the water via
an antennae.”
The Stupidest Thing Ever
“Vi-Aqua makes water
wetter”
– Professor Austin
Darragh,
Limerick University
Video News Release
It gets worse on television. In print media, PR
companies write articles, but at least real
reporters (sometimes) change them to be more
honest.
On TV, PR companies film advertisements
pretending to be news, and that’s all you see!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09
NTUwp1s6U
• All references to Walmart in the 3rd person:
“The world’s largest food retailer says…”
“Walmart says…”
• Never: “We say…” “According to us…”
• All interviews with Walmart staff and
promoters, no discussion of any other
companies.
• “Reporting from Walmart, I’m Phil Keene” –
no indication he works for Walmart!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB
ze5atYyCo
• The government does it too!
• None of the interviewees is named, their
organizations aren’t mentioned.
• Only one side of the law is presented, no one
says anything bad.
• “In Washington, I’m Karen Ryan, reporting.”
Clickbait
But not all reporting is written by companies to
sell you products, or government trying to gain
your support.
Some of it is simply written by reporters to sell
you newspapers (or to get you to click on the
story, so you get served their ads).
Aliens!
Here’s something from the Telegraph, the third
most visited newspaper site in Britain:
Alien life found living in Earth's
atmosphere, claims scientist
Aliens do exist and have been found living in the clouds
above the Peak District, according to new claims by
scientists.
Aliens! With a Nose and Anus!
Unsurprisingly…
The “scientific” research supporting this finding
was published in The Journal of Cosmology.
The JoC is a predatory open access journal that
publishes bad research in exchange for author
fees. It is known for publishing fringe viewpoints
and bad science.
Sadly…
Most science journalists don’t know anything
about science (they have journalism degrees),
and cannot tell an odds ratio from a risk ratio or
a real scientific journal from a joke.
You are better critical thinkers than the people
who write the news!
Scaremongering
Another common tactic to
get page views is called
scaremongering or fear
mongering: telling people
that X is going to kill them,
so watch the news to find
out what X is and how to
stop it.
Vaccine Scare
The false claim that vaccines cause autism got
started in the scientific research: a fraudulent
paper by a researcher who was later stripped of
his ability to practice medicine.
But the news media played a large role in the
scare story, and the papers that pushed the
story never made an equally big deal about how
they were wrong.
UK Has 20% of US population
NPR reports: “More than 1,200 people have
come down with measles [in UK] so far this year
[in May], following nearly 2,000 cases in 2012.”
Compare: “Each year there are about 60 cases of
in the United States, according to the Center for
Disease Control and Prevention… These new
cases are caused by international travelers who
bring the virus with them to the U.S.”
“Third Party Advocate”
When there’s a debate, there are two interested
parties to the debate. In the debate over
whether cigarette advertising is targeting
children, there are the concerned parents who
think their children are being targeted, and the
cigarette companies who think their advertising
is age-appropriate.
“Third Party Advocate”
A “third party advocate” is someone who is in
theory uninterested. They aren’t harmed if the
debate turns out one way and they aren’t
harmed if it turns out another way. Their views
and arguments are “objective.”
Of course, powerful interests like the tobacco
lobby try to install fake “third party advocates”
to promote their views.
Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell is an
author of four books that
reached the New York
Times bestselling books
list. He has had a column
at The New Yorker since
1996.
Malcolm Gladwell
He is also a paid advocate
for Philip Morris, the
world’s largest cigarette
company. In his book The
Tipping Point, Gladwell
blamed children for
getting themselves
addicted to tobacco and
absolved tobacco industry
advertising campaigns of
guilt.
Malcolm Gladwell
Confidential Philip Morris
documents bragged,
“Marlboro’s phenomenal
growth rate in the past
has been attributable in
large part to our high
market penetration
among young smokers . . .
15 to 19 years old.”
Self-Censorship
Another way reporters get the news wrong is
that they don’t report it. Sometimes news
angers those in authority, and journalists bow to
their wishes.
Li Wangyang
In June of 2012, Li Wangyang was discovered
hanging from his hospital room, after two
decades of imprisonment for the Tiannenmen
Square protests.
Protests
Many factors indicated
that Li had been
murdered. 180,000 Hong
Kongers protested the
death.
Protests
Wang Xiangwei, a
mainlander and a Chinese
People’s Political
Consultative Congress
member, is the editor in
chief of the South China
Morning Post. He reduced
reports about the
suspicious death of Li
Wangyang to a short
blurb.
Protests
30 SCMP reporters signed a
letter protesting the
decision.
“87% of reporters,
photographers, editors, and
management surveyed said
that media freedoms had
deteriorated in the past
several years” (HongWrong)
Government Propaganda
Surveillance states are governments like China,
the US, and Britain, that spend large amounts of
resources spying on their own citizens.
These states often try very hard to prosecute
“whistleblowers” who “leak” information about
their crimes and spying to the public.
Government Propaganda
Surprisingly, these same
governments constantly
leak top secret
information to the press.
These leaks are
purposeful, and they are
never investigated, and
never prosecuted.
The same government
that wants to put
Snowden in prison for life
because he leaked secrets
has recently leaked the
secret that “Britain runs a
secret internet-monitoring
station in the Middle East
to intercept and process
vast quantities of emails,
telephone calls and web
traffic on behalf of
Western intelligence
agencies.”
Government Propaganda
Why? They wanted to prove that Snowden
leaked info that helped the terrorists. So they
leaked info that helped the terrorists and
claimed Snowden did it.
Did the reporters at the Independent reveal
this? No. Because they are on the government’s
side.
Government Propaganda
Governments leak information all the time
“confidentially” so they can start rumors, or
accuse enemies without having to stand by their
assertions. And journalists publish these
anonymous rumors and accusations with no
evidence or investigation that they’re true.
Editorials
In addition to news reporting, newspapers also
run editorials (television has the same thing,
where “talking heads” come on TV and spout
their views).
Editorials don’t need to be by experts (neither
does reporting), don’t need to have any facts or
evidence, and are often nothing but lies and
propaganda.
Fact Checking
Substantive, objective statements of fact are
(ideally) fact-checked. This means that if a
reporter writes a factual statement, someone
else at the paper makes sure it’s true. (For
example, if it’s a quote, they call the person
quoted.)
Subjective statements like “Harry Potter books
are boring” don’t need fact checking.
George Will
“According to the
University of Illinois’ Arctic
Climate Research Center,
global sea ice levels now
equal those of 1979.”
In The Washington Post,
one of America’s most
important newspapers, in
2009.
Scientists Respond
“We do not know where George Will is getting
his information, but our data shows that on
February 15, 1979, global sea ice area was 16.79
million sq. km and on February 15, 2009, global
sea ice area was 15.45 million sq. km. Therefore,
global sea ice levels are 1.34 million sq. km less
in February 2009 than in February 1979. This
decrease in sea ice area is roughly equal to the
area of Texas, California, and Oklahoma
combined.” – Illinois climate scientists.
Fact Checking
“the Post has a multi-layer editing process and
checks facts to the fullest extent possible. In this
instance, George Will’s column was checked by
people he personally employs, as well as two
editors at the Washington Post Writers Group,
which syndicates Will; our op-ed page editor;
and two copy editors.” – Ombudsman for the
Washington Post
Infotainment
Some news outlets have gotten so tired of
responding to claims that they present false
things as true, that they’ve declared their
“news” is really “infotainment” – entertainment
centered around the news, not necessarily
meant to portray facts.
They Still Call It News
From billoreilly.com:
“Now in its tenth year on the air, ‘The O'Reilly
Factor’ on the Fox News Channel remains the
dominant number one news program in the
USA.”
From FOXNews.com:
“In 2000, The Factor...passed Larry King Live to
become the number one cable news program in
the United States.”
“Advertorials”
Advertorials
An “advertorial” is an advertisement that
pretends to be an editorial. These are somewhat
common, but easy to spot.
Native Advertising
The new version of advertorials – often on social
media websites like facebook and digg – is called
“native advertising.” It’s advertising designed to
look like content that appears naturally
(“natively”) on these social websites.