The Fourth Estate The press is often called the fourth estate a political power different from the three branches of government executive legislative and judiciary that keeps them in check A healthy press is an ID: 161591
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Slide1
Bad JournalismSlide2
The Fourth Estate
The press is often called “the fourth estate”– a political power different from the three branches of government (executive, legislative, and judiciary) that keeps them in check. A healthy press is an
adversarial
press.Slide3
The Necessary Press
In addition, media– once newspapers, but now mostly televised news and internet news– is the principle source of information people have about world events, scientific developments, health, and politics.
Even if you get your news from friends on
facebook
– someone has to get it from the news media.Slide4
Afflicting the Comfortable
The press is supposed to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”
Unfortunately, the news can be horribly misleading, full of discredited falsehoods and propaganda. It can comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted.Slide5
Fooling michaelSlide6Slide7
cf18 comments
“…it looks like 78.1% of people in Hong Kong dislike other races… But don’t you find it more unbelievable that the next two questions say 80% people don’t mind having drunks or emotionally unstable peoples as
neighbours
Or even more crazy stuff on the next page, which say 90% people think it’s fine to have drug addicts as
neighbours
… The correct result should be: In Hong Kong 78.1% found it acceptable to have different race
neighbours
, while less than 20% found it acceptable to have drunks, emotionally unstable and drug addicts as
neighbours
.”Slide8
News organizationSlide9
Newspaper Organization
A newspaper contains:
News reports
Editorials
AdvertisementsSlide10
Reporters
Reporters generate news stories. Some of them cover “beats” (local politics, sports team, etc.) and some of them receive different assignments at different times.Slide11
Reporters
There
are
good reporters
. But there aren’t many of them.
Since the age of the internet, the numbers of reporters has not changed, but the amount they have to write has increased by three times.Slide12
Public Relations
Public relations (often just called PR) consists of all the activities that individuals, companies, and organizations take to control and influence the spread of information about them. PR activities include:
Marketing
Issuing press releases
Giving interviews
Writing/ videotaping news stories!Slide13
Churnalism
“19% of newspaper stories and 17% of broadcast stories were verifiably derived mainly or wholly from PR material, while less than half the stories we looked at appeared to be entirely independent of traceable PR.” – Lewis et. Al (on the course website)Slide14
Churnalism
47% of the British stories are from “the wire” (news services like AP), and not written by the reporters at the papers.
Many of the wire stories also have their origin in PR material.Slide15
Churnalism
Here’s a story from the Irish Independent (Ireland’s
biggest
newspaper):
Wave goodbye to global warming, GM and pesticides
Radio wave-treated water could change agriculture as we know it. Slide16Slide17
Groundbreaking Technology
“A GROUNDBREAKING new Irish technology which could be the greatest breakthrough in agriculture since the plough is set to change the face of modern farming forever.”Slide18
Magic Water!
“The technology – radio wave
energised
water – massively increases the output of vegetables and fruits by up to 30 per cent.
Not only are the plants much bigger but they are largely disease-resistant, meaning huge savings in expensive
fertilisers
and harmful pesticides.”Slide19
$$$ Vi Aqua $$$
“The compact biscuit-tin-sized technology, which is called Vi-Aqua – meaning ‘life water’ – converts 24 volts of electricity into a radio signal, which charges up the water via an antennae.”Slide20
The Stupidest Thing Ever
“Vi-Aqua makes water wetter”
– Professor Austin
Darragh
,
Limerick UniversitySlide21
Video News Release
It gets worse on television. In print media, PR companies write articles, but at least real reporters (sometimes) change them to be more honest.
On TV, PR companies film advertisements pretending to be news, and that’s all you see!Slide22
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09NTUwp1s6U
All references to Walmart in the 3
rd
person: “The world’s largest food retailer says…” “Walmart says…”
Never: “We say…” “According to us…”
All interviews with Walmart staff and promoters, no discussion of any other companies.
“Reporting from Walmart, I’m Phil Keene” – no indication he works for Walmart!Slide23
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBze5atYyCo
The government does it too!
None of the interviewees is named, their organizations aren’t mentioned.
Only one side of the law is presented, no one says anything bad.
“In Washington, I’m Karen Ryan, reporting.”Slide24
Clickbait
But not all reporting is written by companies to sell you products, or government trying to gain your support.
Some of it is simply written by reporters to sell you newspapers (or to get you to click on the story, so you get served their ads). Slide25
Aliens!
Here’s something from the Telegraph, the
third most visited newspaper site
in Britain:
Alien life found living in Earth's atmosphere, claims scientist
Aliens do exist and have been found living in the clouds above the Peak District, according to new claims by scientists. Slide26
Aliens! With a Nose and Anus!Slide27
Unsurprisingly…
The “scientific” research supporting this finding was published in
The Journal of Cosmology
.
The
JoC
is a predatory open access journal that publishes bad research in exchange for author fees. It is known for publishing fringe viewpoints and bad science.Slide28
Sensationalism from
The Guardian
“[A]n
official at the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television"
said they cut Kate
Winslet’s
nude scenes from 3D Titanic because they “feared
that viewers may reach out their hands for a touch and thus interrupt other people's
viewing.”Slide29
Nvidia Crop CircleSlide30Slide31
Sadly…
Most science journalists don’t know anything about science (they have journalism degrees), and cannot tell an odds ratio from a risk ratio or a real scientific journal from a joke.
You
are better critical thinkers than the people who write the news!Slide32
Scaremongering
Another
common tactic to get page views is called scaremongering or
fear mongering
: telling people that X is going to kill them, so watch the news to find out what X is and how to stop it. Slide33Slide34
Vaccine Scare
The
false
claim that vaccines cause autism got started in the scientific research: a fraudulent paper by a researcher who was later stripped of his ability to practice medicine.
But the news media played a large role in the scare story, and the papers that pushed the story never made an equally big deal about how they were wrong.Slide35
UK Has 20% of US population
NPR reports: “More than 1,200 people have come down with measles [in UK] so far this year [in May], following nearly
2,000
cases in 2012.”
Compare: “Each year there are about
60
cases of in the United States, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention… These new cases are caused by international travelers who bring the virus with them to the U.S.”Slide36Slide37
“Third Party Advocate”
When there’s a debate, there are two
interested
parties to the debate. In the debate over whether cigarette advertising is targeting children, there are the concerned parents who think their children are being targeted, and the cigarette companies who think their advertising is age-appropriate.Slide38
“Third Party Advocate”
A “third party advocate” is someone who is in theory uninterested. They aren’t harmed if the debate turns out one way and they aren’t harmed if it turns out another way. Their views and arguments are “objective.”
Of course, powerful interests like the tobacco lobby try to install fake “third party advocates” to promote their views.Slide39
Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm
Gladwell
is an author of four books that reached the
New York Times
bestselling books list. He has had a column at
The New Yorker
since 1996.Slide40
Malcolm Gladwell
He is also a paid advocate for Philip Morris, the world’s largest cigarette company. In his book
The Tipping Point
,
Gladwell
blamed children for getting themselves addicted to tobacco and absolved tobacco industry advertising campaigns of guilt. Slide41
Malcolm Gladwell
C
onfidential
Philip Morris documents bragged, “Marlboro’s phenomenal growth rate in the past has been attributable in large part to our high market penetration among young smokers . . . 15 to 19 years old.”Slide42
Self-Censorship
Another way reporters get the news wrong is that they don’t report it. Sometimes news angers those in authority, and journalists bow to their wishes.Slide43
Li Wangyang
In June of 2012, Li
Wangyang
was discovered hanging from his hospital room, after two decades of imprisonment for the
Tiannenmen
Square protests.Slide44
Protests
Many factors indicated that Li had been murdered. 180,000 Hong
Kongers
protested the death.Slide45
Protests
Wang
Xiangwei
,
a mainlander and a Chinese People’s Political Consultative Congress member,
is the
editor in chief of the South China Morning
Post. He reduced
reports about the
suspicious
death of
Li
Wangyang
to a short
blurb.Slide46Slide47
Protests
30 SCMP reporters signed a letter protesting the decision.
“
87% of reporters, photographers, editors, and management surveyed said that media freedoms had deteriorated in the past several
years” (
HongWrong
)Slide48
Grace Chan Censored
Won Miss Hong Kong Pageant 2013
Expressed support for Universal Suffrage.
Interview eliminated by TVB.Slide49Slide50
Government Propaganda
Surveillance states are governments like China, the US, and Britain, that spend large amounts of resources spying on their own citizens.
These states often try very hard to prosecute “whistleblowers” who “leak” information about their crimes and spying to the public.Slide51
Government Propaganda
Surprisingly, these same governments constantly leak top secret information to the press. These leaks are purposeful, and they are never investigated, and never prosecuted.Slide52
The same government that wants to put Snowden in prison
for life
because he leaked secrets has recently leaked the
secret that
“Britain
runs a secret internet-monitoring station in the Middle East to intercept and process vast quantities of emails, telephone calls and web traffic on behalf of Western intelligence agencies
.”Slide53
Government Propaganda
Why? They wanted to prove that Snowden leaked info that helped the terrorists. So they leaked info that helped the terrorists and claimed Snowden did it.
Did the reporters at the Independent reveal this? No. Because they are on the government’s side.Slide54
Government Propaganda
Governments leak information all the time “confidentially” so they can start rumors, or accuse enemies without having to stand by their assertions. And journalists publish these anonymous rumors and accusations with
no evidence or investigation that they’re true
.Slide55
Paid Protesters
http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1051556/group-marches-against-falun-gong-national-daySlide56
Paid Protesters
Pro-Falun Gong march on National Day
Anti-Falun Gong protest
People in the protest bussed from China, have no idea what protest is about.
Organized by Hong Kong Youth Care Association, a front for the Communist Party.Slide57Slide58
“Act Now!”
A trip for seafood
in Lei Yue
Mun
that costs only
HKD 30. The
reason
it is so
cheap is that participants have
to join the
assembly,
“Supporting 2010 Hong
Kong electoral reform.”
The reform is proposed by ex-chief executive Donald
Tsang under the slogan,
“Act Now
!”Slide59
Student Testimonial
“I joined the similar trip at that time. I was invited by my friend whose father is the top manager of a bank. She invited me and my friends to join a trip serving seafood in Lau
Fau
Shan. She said it is totally free and we need to go to a place when we finished our lunch. When we finished our lunch and went on the bus, we are given a polo shirt printed “Supporting Act Now!”. We finally found that we become paid protesters at that time.”Slide60
Checking the factsSlide61
Editorials
In addition to news reporting, newspapers also run editorials (television has the same thing, where “talking heads” come on TV and spout their views).
Editorials don’t need to be by experts (neither does reporting), don’t need to have any facts or evidence, and are often nothing but lies and propaganda.Slide62
Fact Checking
Substantive, objective statements of fact are (ideally) fact-checked. This means that if a reporter writes a factual statement, someone else at the paper makes sure it’s true. (For example, if it’s a quote, they call the person quoted.)
Subjective statements like “Harry Potter books are boring” don’t need fact checking.Slide63
George Will
“
According to the University of Illinois’ Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979
.”
In
The Washington Post
, one of America’s most important newspapers, in 2009.Slide64Slide65
Scientists Respond
“We
do not know where George Will is getting his information, but our data shows that on February 15, 1979, global sea ice area was 16.79 million sq. km and on February 15, 2009, global sea ice area was 15.45 million sq. km. Therefore, global sea ice levels are 1.34 million sq. km less in February 2009 than in February 1979. This decrease in sea ice area is roughly equal to the area of Texas, California, and Oklahoma combined
.” – Illinois
c
limate scientists.Slide66
Fact Checking
“the
Post
has a multi-layer editing process and checks facts to the fullest extent possible. In this instance, George Will’s column was checked by people he personally employs, as well as two editors at the
Washington Post
Writers Group, which syndicates Will; our op-ed page editor; and two copy editors
.” – Ombudsman for the
Washington PostSlide67
Infotainment
Some news outlets have gotten so tired of responding to claims that they present false things as true, that they’ve declared their “news” is really “infotainment” – entertainment centered around the news, not necessarily meant to portray facts.Slide68
They Still Call It News
From billoreilly.com:
“Now
in its tenth year on the air,
‘The
O'Reilly
Factor’
on the Fox News Channel remains the
dominant number one
news
program in
the USA
.”
From
FOXNews.com:
“In
2000, The Factor...passed Larry King Live to become the number one cable
news
program in the United States
.”Slide69
“Advertorials”Slide70
Advertorials
An “advertorial” is an advertisement that pretends to be an editorial. These are somewhat common, but easy to spot.Slide71
Native Advertising
The new version of advertorials – often on social media websites like
facebook
and
digg
– is called “native advertising.” It’s advertising designed to look like content that appears naturally (“natively”) on these social websites.Slide72