Media: Rely on Appeal to Authority to vet information
In the same week, probably half a dozen allegedly independent media outlets all run stories saying “trust the experts, do not think for yourself”. Wild.
Betteridge’s Law: Amid a new COVID-19 surge, should we all be wearing masks again? Experts weigh in
Nope. This uses the technique of asking a rhetorical question, whose answer is No, to make an implication.
Media: “Negativity drives online news consumption – PubMed (nih.gov)”
“Negative words in news headlines increased consumption rates (and positive words decreased consumption rates).
Content mills: News you cannot trust
An easy way to spot content mill garbage – the stories have no author! Of course, some AI sites have created fake author bios with AI generated head shots.
The use of card stacking as a propaganda technique
Card stacking is a technique of showing mostly benefits while hiding harms and other problems.
Media: Communities face “News Deserts”
Communities face “news deserts” as journalism shuts down (except not really). Implies we need to have government funded journalism (really?)
Media: AP implies The Aral Sea dried up due to climate change
The AP stretches quite a bit to imply the shrinking of the shallow Aral Sea was due to climate change. Soviet-era irrigation projects diverted the incoming rivers to agriculture and the Sea immediately began shrinking.
Media myth: The “world’s happiest country” myth is now the basis for follow on stories
The “world’s happiest country” myth lives on year after year after year. Finland now pretends it knows why it was identified as “the world’s happiest country”. In fact, the metrics used to determine “happiest” have nothing to do with happiest. The “happiest” title was promoted as sounding better than a metric that measured “well-being” based on things having nothing to do with happiness!
Media Public Health: “White Lung Syndrome”
Media caught making up new scary disease “White lung syndrome” to describe well known “walking pneumonia”.
Media: Genius level journalism here – if you live a long ways from a trauma center, then you live a long ways from a trauma center
Wow. If you live a really long ways from a trauma center then you live a really long ways away from a trauma center. Apparently, little populated areas should have the same hospitals as bigger cities.