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.
Media focuses on scary rises in Covid cases but ignores declines
Covid-19 cases have fallen dramatically in several states. The media, which gleefully reported the rising case counts, doing its best to create fear and hysteria, vanishes when cases start dropping. They move on to the next state to having rising case numbers. A consequence is readers only see constant bad, scary news – and never see the good news. This causes everyone to live in a constant state of anxiety.
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: How the media turns everything into a negative news story
The news media manages to twist every positive news story into a negative news story – there is no point to this behavior but they do it all the time: “Pfizer vaccine results leave questions about safety, longevity”
BGR is a fake news site? “Stock up on these 5 things while you can – experts say more grocery hoarding is coming – BGR”
BGR cites an old news story from mid July, about grocery item shortages in June and July (now being overcome), and throws in a made up assertion that “experts say” a huge second wave of Covid-19 is coming and you should stock up on essential items. This report uses FEAR to get you to take action, and click on their links to buy stuff – for which BGR appears to receive an affiliate marketing payment.
Is using out of date data “fake news?
Today is August 17, 2020. Why is CNBC using a chart whose data ends at July 21st – especially since data up through yesterday is readily available?
I attended a Covid-19 party and you won’t believe what happened next
Stories about people attending Covid parties and then getting sick are poorly sourced and in general, probably never happened.
“Doomscrolling Is Slowly Eroding Your Mental Health”
In the midst of an ineptly managed pandemic and ineptly managed civil unrest and economic fiasco people try to make sense of it by reading everything they can. Scrolling through post and news story after news story is called “doomscrolling” and it destroys your mental health. Sadly, much of the bull shit is not from random social media posts but from actual experts who spew nonsense.
BS alert: “‘Ring of fire’ eclipse could be sign of apocalypse”
No, the world is not going to end. This a bad headline designed to strike fear in the reader. It’s based on conspiracy theories and people seeking to find arbitrary patterns in randomness. But – time for some media scary headlines!
Climate communications: Reporting focused on fear and hysteria, rather than solutions, leads to anxiety attacks, medicating young people
The media’s focus on scary, fear-based propaganda messaging – and avoidance of discussing workable solutions that are already underway – leads to intense negativity and anxiety. The result has been a majority of young people believing humanity may be extinct in ten years, even though there is zero evidence to support such nonsense. We are literally scaring people to death via false and inappropriate propaganda messaging. Some journalists are looking to “solutions journalism” moving away from the whining negativity of current news reports that focus on problems and seldom examine workable solutions,. This new approach offers hope and a positive way forward.