While researching overuse of the “crisis” label (literally everything is now a crisis), I ran across a Google News linked web site whose own description largely labels itself as a propaganda mill. Yet this is what passes for “news”?
Journalism today: “If you want your story to be well placed and if you want to be professionally rewarded, you have to generate page views — you have to incite social media. The way to do that is to reinforce the prejudices of your readers.”
435 Congressional Representatives were elected last November. How many can you name? Probably not many. But you can probably name Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez due to the media’s odd fixation on her with non-stop saturation coverage. Why has the media singled out one Representative for saturation coverage – and largely ignores the other 434 Representatives?
A “star” reporter and editor at Der Spiegel has admitted to fabricating his stories over a period of many years. He was the four time winner of Germany’s “Reporter of the Year” award and a two time winner of CNN’s Journalist of the Year. Yet the journalists who selected the winner never saw problems. Think of the role that such fake news plays in shaping public opinion, and its sharing on social media as part of propaganda campaigns.
Software that pretends to be as intelligent as humans (or as unintelligent as humans) some times make funny errors…
Facebook restricts certain conduct on its platform. However, journalists and academics are seeking to receive special privileges to do things that are prohibited for others. Journalists and academics, for example, would be permitted to set up fake accounts with fake or curated content, for the purpose of studying users. Individuals, however, would be banned from conducting the same research and thus, would be prohibited from verifying or evaluating the work of journalists and academics. Basically, the proposal is to have…
Berry’s apology came after his earlier controversial tweet, in which he posted an image of the president’s “Make America Great Again” hat and implied that Jarrod Ramos dropped one on The Capital Gazette’s newsroom floor before gunning down five people Thursday. The tweet has been removed. … Berry lamented that his tweet “feeds the warped minds of people who think we wake up every day and try to push an agenda.” Source: Springfield Republican reporter resigns after tweet about Maryland…
This is a frequent error in news reports: In 2015, Frappuccinos were 14 percent of Starbucks revenue: Year-to-date, however, the drink’s sales are down 3 percent — and now account for only 11 percent of the company’s revenue. Source: Starbucks has a ‘void in innovation’ and healthy beverages won’t turn the tide 3 percent of 14 percent is 0.4 percent, not 3 percent. What should have been written is “sales are down 3 percentile points“. As dictionary.com says Never leave…
Clarke, club president of CARE, said his interest is transmitting using LP or “low power” apparatus. John Laybourne, vice president of the Rogue Valley Amateur Radio Club, used a high-power 10,000 watt setup needing a gas-powered generator for the off-the-grid event. Source: In era of Wi-Fi and LTE, ham radio enthusiasts don’t mind a challenge | The Columbian Depending on license class, band and geographic location, the limits are 5 watts, 50 watts, 200 watts or 1,500 watts peak-envelope-power, not…
Reporters and statistics rarely work well together: In 2018, the average premium on the exchange was $5,798.83 and for 2019, companies are proposing to sell products with an average premium of $6,274.08. Source: 2019 insurance on the Obamacare exchange in Ohio will increase | cleveland.comAn average provides useful information about a random distribution – ACA premiums are not a random distribution. ACA premiums are a non-linear distribution. When prices are across a non-linear curve, the average tells us little about…