The Daily Doomer: “Existential threats are getting worse: nuclear war, AI fears, climate change”
We are all going to die, Really Soon Now. Your dose of The Daily Doomer.
Climate communications: When air temperatures are normal, report “land surface temperature” – much scarier!
When the air temperature is hot, but not unusually hot, switch to reporting on the summertime ground surface temperature (80C/180F) – it’s a bigger and scarier number than the air temperature so go for it! But it, alas, it is actually a normal summertime land surface temperature and has been for years and years. But the Doomers at parody news site The Guardian know that their readers don’t know that.
Rent: Every year the media falls for this
Every year, an activist/lobbying group issues a report saying people earning minimum wage cannot afford to rent an apartment anywhere in the country. They play a sleight-of-hand trick by obfuscating (and not revealing) that they are saying such individuals cannot rent an apartment priced at the 40th percentile. Stated another way, this report finds – every year – that people earning minimum wage can not rent apartments priced in the top 60 percent of the market – yet obviously, lower earners likely rent at the bottom of the market, not the top. Every year, the media morons run the same story, never understanding what this report says.
Media and vague language: What is a “gas guzzler?”
“Gas guzzler” is emotive wording, intended and used to elicit a response from the reader. It is not neutral language – it is propaganda messaging. There is, surprisingly, no official definition of what “gas guzzler” even means.
Media: The manufacturing of news
For every reporter, there are 6.2 “public affairs”/public relations staff working behind the scenes to manufacture the news reports to fit their desires.
Media: Modern intellectualism?
American suburban life seems to regress to a mean of segregation. A 2011 analysis using Census Bureau data found that a “typical white” American lives in a neighborhood that’s 75 percent white. Source: A Tale Of Two Suburbs | FiveThirtyEight A real shocker – the “typical white American lives in a neighborhood that’s 75 percent white”. This is then interpreted by writer Clare Malone to mean that most white Americans live in segregated neighborhoods – in a country that is…
Fake News?: “Florida hit by empty shelves in protests at DeSantis crackdown”
Numerous media reports, all sourced to social media posts, say Florida has food shortages due to Gov. Desantis’ policies. But they are showing photos and videos of empty store shelves that occurred in the past after hurricanes, or one video showed empty refrigerated goods section at Walmart. That actually happened – but it was due to a malfunctioning refrigeration system so food was temporarily removed while the unit was undergoing repairs. “Professional” media sourcing to anonymous items on social media tends to end badly.
Media: The use of weasel words to scare you
From Wikipedia: “A weasel word, or anonymous authority, is an informal term for words and phrases aimed at creating an impression that something specific and meaningful has been said, when in fact only a vague or ambiguous claim has been communicated.” Media commonly uses weasel words in headlines to create scary scenarios out of relatively low confidence predictions.
Yellow Journalism in the United States
Most journalism in the U.S. today is “yellow journalism” that focuses on scandal, celebrity, “crisis”, the oppressed and fear and the prophets of doom – via scary headlines, and sample bias to cover stories that fit the yellow journalism narratives. Today, the most over used word in media is “crisis” – as you’ll see in this post, today, everything is a “crisis”.
It’s back: The annual bogus “happiest countries in the world list” 2023!
It’s time again for the annual “World’s Happiest Country” bull shit survey results. Using a survey that doesn’t measure happiness, the survey proclaims – every year – the same Nordic countries as the world’s happiest. That’s because the metrics they use define happiness as living in a Nordic country! But again, don’t measure anyone’s happiness. And every year, the media twits fall for this survey.