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Month: July 2019

Why is this national news?

Why is this national news?

A minor school yard tussle, not even worthy of a local news story becomes a national news report. This is not a national news story. This is “pseudo news” reporting that wastes our time with click-bait emotional content.

And for what its worth, its identical to something that happened to me at age 11. Then I was recovering from a skull fracture when a boy threw a football that hit me in the head, right along the fracture line. This was not local news. This was not national news. In fact, it wasn’t even news with in my school. But today, we’d be on cable news 24 x 7 …

When the media spins a story to tell the author’s narrative, rather than reality

When the media spins a story to tell the author’s narrative, rather than reality

An incredibly lengthy news article spins a story that a top athlete and scholar’s death, due to suicide, is likely due to the increasing pressure on young women to accomplish great things. 10 pages into this 14 page, single spaced news article, does the author mention she had suffered a brain injury just prior to her suicide, and even that mention goes into less detail than contemporary news reports shortly after her death. (I have had multiple and serious TBI’s myself, which is why I found the reporting on this terribly sad story to be a rambling odyssey that seemingly wanted to avoid reality.)

Youtube as a platform for propaganda

Youtube as a platform for propaganda

Researchers looked at Youtube videos about climate change and found that a very large proportion are basically conspiracy theory videos (example – claiming jets are spewing “chem trails” to modify the climate and control the population). The researchers, in turn, advocate use of Youtube for “science communication” efforts, apparently unaware that another study found most science communications is now tied to political motives – in other words, propaganda messaging.

Bottom line is that Youtube is no different than Facebook and Twitter in that all are frictionless platforms for propaganda dissemination.