news media

Public trust in science is a fickle creature. Surveys show a clear majority of Americans believe science has positively impacted society, and they’re more likely to trust scientists on issues like climate change and vaccines. On the other hand, surveys also find that factors like politics, religion, age and race can greatly impact the degree of that trust. It presents a delicate challenge for agencies that depend on trust in science to do their jobs. “Trust in science is high, but it’s not unanimous and it’s not completely unquestioned — and nor necessarily should it be,” Joseph Hilgard, an…

Analyzing online searches and social media activity has often been suggested as a way to track and maybe even predict the spread of diseases. And it’s a great idea — if it’s done right, it could offer public health workers real-time surveillance and a jumpstart at containing dangerous outbreaks. But there’s a hitch. How can we attempt to decipher between online activity triggered by the possibility of actual disease symptoms and online activity triggered by simple curiosity? That was the question Sherry Towers and her colleagues set out to answer. At the very least, they wanted to gain some…

This post might have to get filed under "careful what you wish for", but Martin Robbins' latest column about the cozy relationship between science journalists and the scientists they cover seems to have struck a nerve, if The Twitter is any indication. Here's a good snippet: Churnalism is a real problem in science reporting, to the extent that it feels a bit boring to keep going on about it, but the wider issue is this lack of actual, well, journalism. As I said in that piece; if journalists aren't contributing original reporting, or providing context, or challenging statements made by…

Hopefully, I'll suffer the same lack of consequences. Regarding Planned Parenthood, Republican Senator John Kyl recently uttered this factually disabled statement: ...Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) defended Republicans' willingness to shut down the government over funding for Planned Parenthood by falsely claiming that abortion is "well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does." In reality, just three percent of its work is related to abortion. This afternoon, CNN brought on Planned Parenthood's Judy Tabar to discuss his comment. During the interview, CNN anchor TJ Holmes relayed a statement…

If you haven't heard, rightwing slime mongerer James O'Keefe struck again and managed to give National Public Radio (NPR) a black eye, although to a considerable extent, this was a self-inflicted wound. Over at Whiskey Fire, Thers makes a very astute observation (italics mine): The most bizarre aspect of this wingnut "sting" is its intended "gotcha." What the wingnuts thought they would be able to "prove" is that NPR is a biased socialist left-wing organization that would be thrilled to spread Islamist propaganda for a hefty paycheck. What got the NPR executives fired was their alleged…

By way of Observational Epidemiology, we find an interesting NY Times article by Michael Winerip describing a seventh grade teacher's experience with value added testing in New York City. I'll get to value added testing in a bit, but the story also highlights why we need more reporters who have backgrounds in math and science. Winerip: On the surface the report seems straightforward. Ms. Isaacson's students had a prior proficiency score of 3.57. Her students were predicted to get a 3.69 -- based on the scores of comparable students around the city. Her students actually scored 3.63. So Ms.…

That's really the only way to think of it. Fox 'News' Bill O'Reilly's show has an average viewership age of 71, which isn't 'middle-aged', but elderly. Anyway, one of the propaganda pieces Fox has been catapaulting is the false notion that the Wisconsin protests are out-of-control or violent (police have described the crowd as 'civil'). So this video from O'Reilly's show shouldn't be surprising: What is surprising is what you see at the 0:16 mark. Go back, look at it again. That's right: Palm trees. In Wisconsin. In February. They're not even trying anymore. Seriously, how is this any…

Recently, I argued that the widespread ignorance of the most basic elements of U.S. politics should be viewed as an educational failure--an adult educational failure--committed by the political press corps. Basically, the political news media, with some exceptions, are either failing to provide relevant information or actively promoting 'misinformation' (also known as propaganda). To give you a visual image of what I mean, I created a word cloud of the transcripts of the February 20th editions of ABC's This Week, NBC's Meet the Press, and CBS's Face the Nation. The size of the word…

I want to follow up on something from a post about the educational failure committed by our political press corps (italics original; boldface added): That so many people lack even a basic understanding of how government works and what it does--even among likely voters (keep in mind that your average Tea Buggerer spends a lot of time gathering 'information' and is a likely voter)--is a catastrophic failure of our news media. The more I roll that around in my head, the more terrified I get. For those not familiar with wonky political terms, a low information content voter is a euphemism for…

Below is an urgent call for support regarding an important issue for Canadians interested in a responsible Canadian media environment. The arrival of "Fox News North" comes with proposed rule changes that severely weaken public protections against false news. Please see below the appeal from Avaaz.org and the accompanying information and if you are persuaded, sign the petition. Sources: CRTC plan to lift ban on false news prompts political investigation: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/crtc-plan-to-lift-ban-on-false-news-prompts-political-investigation/article1898147/ CRTC…

A study showing that many people who receive assistance from government programs don't believe they have done so has been making the rounds once again (you heard it here first! Months ago!). My favorite idiocy is how 43% of Pell Grant recipients--federal aid for college--don't realize it's a government program (one does wonder how that 43% successfully graduated from grade school). I argued that this delusion was willful: This seems a case of willful ignorance by definition. Government aid is for lazy slackers, for 'welfare queens', and, in some people's minds, for those people. Decent,…

Not so much. Because, according to a letter signed by over 400 hundred U.S. rabbis, Fox seems to have a Glenn Beck problem: We are rabbis of diverse political views. As part of our work, we are devoted to preserving the memory of the Shoah, and to passing its lessons on to our future generations and to all humankind. All of us have vigorously defended the Holocaust's legacy. We have worked to encourage the responsible invocation of its symbols as a powerful lesson for the future. We were therefore deeply offended by Roger Ailes' recent statement attributing the outrage over Glenn Beck's use…

But not for the reason you're probably thinking. Loughner's ideas are a ludicrous hodge-podge of conspiracy theory, libertarianism, and anti-government sentiment, but what's striking about them is how incoherent they are. This incoherency isn't limited to Loughner either: ...the strange thing is that so much of this furious opposition to activist government appears to be make-believe. The American Enterprise Institute did a poll of self-identified conservatives and found that "only 3 percent of respondents favored reforming Social Security and Medicare." The 2010 elections put a lot of new…

I would ask if movement conservatives have any decency or shame, but that has an obvious question. By way of Jamison Foer, we find that Erick Erickson, CNN contributor and rightwing conservative, has definitely discovered what ails this nation: Through it all though, well meaning people on both sides of the ideological and partisan divide are not talking about the one thing that should be talked about -- a saving faith in Jesus Christ.... The topic of faith in Christ makes people cringe. But whether you believe it or not, here is the reality: beyond us is a world we cannot see with our eyes…

There are two sides to every story (at least), but often one of those sides is flat out stupid, if not immoral. Yet journalistic convention, in part, helps contribute to the tide of eliminationist rhetoric. That's a point I touched on yesterday, but RMuse fleshes it out much more: ...the main stream media is silent in reporting the connection between the shooter and comments' suggesting violence is an acceptable means of facilitating change in government. What the media is reporting are the offensive responses from Republican legislators that both sides need to dial back the violent…

We're now seeing all of the civility trolls coming out of the woodwork. If by civility, one means "not engaging in violent eliminationist rhetoric", well, then I'm all for it. But what I'm concerned about is that honest criticism will be silenced. While I'm not as sanguine about political rhetoric as, let's say, Jack Shafer, the fact is a lot of people in political life are habitually...counterfactual. That is, they're liars. Others are ideologically blinkered, while yet others, sadly, are either just kinda dim or else stone-cold ignorant. We do ourselves a disservice when we treat these…

There's a very interesting interview with William Greider about Social Security (no, really, it is worth reading). But I think part of the interview highlights why blogs and other non-traditional media forms have such power (italics mine): TL: How does this play out in day-to-day reporting? WG: My sense from the way stories are written is that unless you have the "facts" of pseudo-scientific evidence, editors don't want reporters making any observations on what they learned as reporters. This supposedly makes them more "objective," but it does the opposite. They become more one-sided in…

Driftglass makes an excellent observation: What happened this week was that the GOP finally dropped its last fig-leaf and with it, any pretense of a conscience. In 2004, the Cheney Administration offered the imbeciles, cowards and bigots who despised this country enough to re-elect the worst president in American history an ample supply of flags and bibles and "Boot in their ass"-themed country music behind which they could hide when called upon to justify their truly spectacular desecration of every American value they purported to admire. Granted the rationalizations that the Party of…

Well, technically speaking, it's Fox News, but, really, what's the difference? Fox News has a website, Fox News Latino, that ran with this headline: Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem Are Having an Anchor Baby. It's like a nervous tic or something. They just can't help themselves. And remember, as driftglass likes to say, no nation can endure, permanently half Fox News and half free.

For anyone trying to make a living at blogging, including our Seed Media Overlords, one of the major hurdles is the poor pay of internet advertising compared to magazine and newspaper advertising. This is an accurate assessment of the problem (italics mine): I think the evidence for this dynamic is weaker than a lot of people suspect. As far as I can tell, it's all based on Google. GOOG showed up and provided contextualized ads to consumers and a model that allowed advertisers to only pay for purchases that were "working". This is pretty much the only way they make money, and they make a lot…