Social media brings out the idiocy in people
Did you know the 7.0 magnitude quake in Alaska today was caused by climate change? Me neither, but according to a journalist, it was! Human induced plate tectonic drifting.
The headline: “Over half of Americans delay or don’t get health care because they can’t afford it”
The survey appears to have found that over half of Americans postpone preventative checkups when they are not experiencing any health problems which is different than avoiding seeking care for an active health care problem.
The distinction is that in many health care visits, a patient is experiencing something wrong and visits a provider to hopefully find a solution.
In a preventative check up, a patient goes to a provider and asks the provider to find something wrong with them.
Washington State University Marching Band won the Internet, sorry about the media coverage
We do not understand why the media is so careless with facts that are easily verifiable. Keep this in mind when you read any news report – chances are, much of it is not correct.
Fake headline: “Someone just made a floating hovercraft Delorean”
Here’s the fake headline: Someone just made a floating hovercraft Delorean – Esquire Middle East.
Matt built his Delorean look-alike hovercraft between 2010 and 2012 which is hardly “just made”. He has, however, put it up for sale. We both have hovercraft and we both flew them at solar eclipse viewing events in Oregon in 2017.
#Facebook’s head of PR propaganda has quit #Fakebook
Facebook’s head of PR admits to developing a program to slime others with negative propaganda messaging. He had already submitted his resignation.
“Lazy thinking” at root of accepting and sharing fake news on social media
People who tend towards analytical thinking styles are better at spotting fictional news than others.
(Pun intended) Genuine fake news continues to spread on social media
Oxford research teams says “junk news” continues to profligate on social media, worse even than in 2016.
“The job of reporters in 2017” is to publish fake news, says news editor
‘“Publishing this dossier reflects how we see the job of reporters in 2017,” Smith writes. This is an amazing thing to say, because if you think it through, it means publishing open libels and slanders is the job of reporters in 2017. “Fake news will become more sophisticated, and fake, ambiguous, and spun-up stories will spread widely,” warned an important American editor at the end of December 2016. His name: Ben Smith. His publication: BuzzFeed.’ Source: Buzzfeed’s Trump report takes…
NBC acknowledges news story headline was fiction
NBC makes a major error in reporting on a Trump speech and then retracts its claim, on Twitter – but leaves the original incorrect headline and incorrect video online. NBC News had the story completely wrong.
Staged photos used to illustrate a “news” story
The way to respond to accusations of fictional news reporting is to double down on accuracy, objectivity and remaining calm. Unfortunately, the news industry continues to harm itself through self destructive behavior typical of middle school drama. Here, an online magazine staged their photos to accompany an interview, down to providing the clothing worn by the subject being interviewed.
Journalism is dead, Part 2
Weather Channel actor Mike Siedel, who plays the role of a journalist and meteorologist, is shown faking a live TV shot. Former NBC News actress Michelle Kosinski, who played the role of a journalist on NBC News is caught canoeing in a flooded street – having just inches of water. Journalism is dead due to death by self inflicted wounds. Sadly, there is no way for a news consumer to know if their news source is reliable or trustworthy as all major news outlets have been caught making significant errors.
Creative news writing – “First solo flight” claim is false
Numerous “news” outlets botch a new story saying a 17-year student pilot made a successful emergency landing on her “first solo flight”. In reality, her first solo flight was a year ago. However, this erroneous report was repeated by numerous news stories, nation wide. When they cannot get even the simplest of facts correct, should we trust anything in the news?
How Google’s Artificial Stupidity manipulates image search results in to propaganda messaging
The news media uses a photo to illustrate an article, but selects a photo having nothing to do with the subject. The photo is from a festival at a horse race in Great Britain on “dress up” day.
Google Image search was used to research the photo. However, Google misinterprets the photo and falsely adds “richest 1 percent of Americans”. That happened because this photo has been used, repeatedly, by U.S. media outlets to illustrate “wealth” and “richest 1%”. Google’s search algorithms then incorrectly associate “richest 1%” with this photo; Google then reinforces that incorrect conclusion by automatically adding “richest 1 percent of americans” to a search for this photo.
We learn from this that reporters and editors routinely use fake photos to illustrate “news” reports in what appears to be intentional propaganda messaging. Then we learn how Google’s artificial stupidity algorithms incorporate fake photos and textual analysis in to computational propaganda messaging.
Does the BBC understand economics? Apparently not!
BBC – multiple errors in a single sentence: “One of the drivers for extreme inflation is soaring demand – in Venezuela there are far more people trying to buy goods from shops than there are goods out on the shelves.”