Category: news
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Manufacturing Consent With Fallacies
Scientific American’s Getting Duped: How the Media Messes With Your Mind educates us on two important fallacies used to undermine arguments. Statements made in the media can surreptitiously plant distortions in the minds of millions. Learning to recognize two commonly used fallacies can help you separate fact from fiction. […] One common method of spinning…
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Working With Children – Fear & False Accusations
This news report comes as no surprise. While in the past, adults would have helped children in distress or rebuked those misbehaving, there was now “a feeling that it is best not to become involved”, it said. Report author Prof Frank Furedi, of Kent University, said: “From Girl Guiders to football coaches, from Christmas-time Santas…
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Prediction Markets and The Wisdom of Crowds
FT Predict is more than just a game. Predictive markets collect the wisdom of the crowd in a single dynamic price unit that can be far more sensitive to changes in the market than standard survey-based research. And a growing number of today’s leading companies embrace predictive market models in order to harness the wisdom…
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NI Health Chief: Homosexuality is a Mental Illness
Homosexuality is a mental illness, according to the head of Northern Ireland’s health committee, Iris Robinson MP. Can we say ‘forced resignation’? After apparently branding homosexuality as “disgusting, loathsome, nauseating, wicked and vile” she went on to recommend […] “a very lovely psychiatrist who works with me in my offices and his Christian background is…
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The Big Picture – Again!
Boston.com’s The Big Picture (“News Stories in Photographs”) must be the most linked-to current affairs/photography ‘blog’ in the past week. There’s a reason for this – it’s amazing.
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Screenwipe with Bill O’Reilly and Adam Curtis
I’ve just finished watching S4E3 of Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe with its hilarious commentary on modern news reporting… I didn’t realise how completely insane Bill O’Reilly is! Part two of the episode also shows a short film created by the exceptional Adam Curtis – creator of such incredible documentaries as The Century of the Self and…
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The Worrying State of ‘World’ News
Alisa Miller of Public Radio International is speaking at TED 2008 – for her talk she posted a background video depicting the shocking state of U.S. cable and network news organisations’ reportage. “The US accounted for 79% of the total news coverage” on American news outlets dedicated to international news stories in 2006! I’d love…