Bad Journalism

MIDTERM EXAM

Question from Last Year’s Final

In 1995, the terrorist group Aum Shinrikyo released deadly sarin nerve-gas in the subways of Tokyo. 13 people died, 50 were injured, and thousands of others suffered health problems.

Question from Last Year’s Final

While many people suffered real symptoms caused by sarin, hospitals were flooded with patients suffering from the highly publicized potential symptoms, like nausea and dizziness, who had not, it turned out, been exposed to the sarin.

Question from Last Year’s Final

Based on the information that we learned in class, what is the most likely explanation of why people who had not been exposed to the deadly nerve gas still felt the symptoms of it?

Possible Answer

People’s beliefs affect how they feel. Even if you have not been exposed to nerve gas, if you believe you have been exposed, then you are more likely to feel negative symptoms.

Optional Things to Say

• • • This is like the example of MSG that we talked about in class. People experience negative symptoms when they believe they are allergic to MSG, even though MSG is harmless.

This is called the “nocebo effect.” This is similar to the placebo effect, where people experience positive effects after being given inactive treatments they believe will make them better.

Midterm Exam

• • • • 10 questions total 10 marks each Closed note exam No electronic devices allowed

HW2

Stress and Headaches

“In the study, researchers followed more than 5,000 participants in Germany for two years and found that the greater the stress in a person's life, the more intense and frequent their headaches were.”

Stress and Headaches

“Participants were contacted four times yearly and were asked how many headaches they'd had in the previous three months. They also rated their stress level on a scale of zero to 100, following a well established protocol for stress measurement.”

Cohort Studies

A causes B?

The researchers’ explanation was: “The study results imply that, while headache medicine can help mitigate the pain, reducing stress can prevent headaches from even happening, the researchers said.” This is only true if stress causes headaches.

B causes A?

It’s possible that headaches cause stress, and that that is the source of the correlation between stress and headaches.

For example, headaches distract you, and make it difficult to concentrate and work. Falling behind in your work can make you stressed out, and worried about your job.

Notice the Difference!

If headaches cause stress, the lowering your stress level will not solve your headache problem. Then this would be BAD advice:

BAD Advice

“Chronic headache sufferers might consider reaching for the yoga mat before they go for the aspirin. The variety of stress-relieving activities likely outnumbers the types of painkillers on the pharmacy shelves.”

GOOD Advice

If headaches cause stress, then taking pain medication might be a good way to make your stress go away!

Common Cause Explanation

There are also possible common cause explanations: for example: difficult jobs.

Headaches ↑ Difficult job with long hours ↓ Stress

Common Cause

The brain uses more energy than any other human organ: 20% of our total calories burned are burned by the brain!

Common Cause

If we use our brain too much, for example, if we have difficult jobs with long hours, the extra effort might cause our heads to hurt.

Common Cause

Additionally, a difficult job with long hours may have emotional effects: it may cause us to be stressed out.

Notice the Difference!

If difficult jobs with long hours are responsible for both stress and headaches, then none of the previous advice will be any good: Reducing stress will not reduce headaches and reducing headaches will not reduce stress.

BAD Advice

GOOD Advice

Of course, if we can’t quit our jobs, we might have to treat the symptoms and not the causes!



GOOD Advice



Bad Journalism

Newspapers love news stories that blame new technology. Old people love newspapers, but they hate new things they don’t understand.

https://xkcd.com/1227/

Problem #2

“Students who spend a lot of time on Facebook are more likely to develop an eating disorder, new research has revealed.”

Problem #2

“Female students who spend a lot of time on the social networking site tend to be more body conscious and to suffer from more anxiety.”

Problem #2

“They also tend to give greater significance to the number of comments and ‘likes’ on their pictures and status updates.

They are more likely to ‘untag’ themselves in pictures.”

Study Design

“A study published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders saw researchers study 960 female college students. These women were evaluated on the time they spent on Facebook, how important they considered ‘likes’ to be and whether or not they ‘untagged’ photos of themselves.”

Case Control Study

A causes B?

‘In examining the immediate consequences of Facebook use, we found that 20 minutes of Facebook use contributed to maintenance of higher weight and shape concerns and anxiety compared to a control internet condition. This causal link is important because anxiety and body image concerns both increase risk for developing eating disorders,’ Dr Keel stated.

Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter Facebook | DailyMail on

B causes A?

How about a different possibility.

Imagine you don’t like how you look. What could that cause you to do? Untag yourself in pictures and get upset if no one likes your posts.

Common Cause

• • • Age? Wealth? Intelligence? There are lots of common cause possibilities here.

Young people more self-conscious and internet savvy.

Poor people care more about money than looks and can’t afford the internet as much.

Smart people care about politics more than looks and read books instead of reading fb.

Problem #3

‘The survey polled around 10,000 respondents, and found that around 90 percent of them were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their sex lives.’

Problem #3

‘But here’s where the data gets interesting. The study also examined sexual satisfaction against financial status. Across the board, people who had more money, reported more sexual satisfaction.’

A causes B?

‘Ruiz linked the lack of sexual satisfaction to increased incidences of sexual abuse. “It’s particularly women of a lower socioeconomic status who suffer more experiences of sexual abuse. It’s important to bear in mind that these women also might have more problems when it comes to contacting the various organizations that can provide help for them,” she said.’

A causes B?

The theory outlined in the article is probably true. Poor women are more likely to be sexually abused, and to be forced to stay in bad relationships for financial reasons.

Poverty  Abuse  Bad sex life

Many Causes of Correlations

• • • • But it is also possible that there are other causal factors that increase the correlation in addition to the true ones identified in the article. ALL of these can be true: A causes B B causes A A common cause causes both A and B A and B are sometimes accidentally correlated

A causes B and B causes A

A causes B and B causes A

A causes B and B causes A

A causes B and B causes A

Additional Common Cause

Wealth  Less Abuse  More sex satisfaction Health

BAD JOURNALISM

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.

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.

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.

NEWS ORGANIZATION

Newspaper Organization

A newspaper contains: • • • News reports Editorials Advertisements

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.

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.

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!

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)

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.

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.

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.”

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.”

$$$ Vi Aqua $$$

“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.”

The Stupidest Thing Ever

“Vi-Aqua makes water wetter” – Professor Austin Darragh, Limerick University

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!

• • • •

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09 NTUwp1s6U

All references to Walmart in the 3 “The world’s largest food retailer says…” “Walmart says…” rd person: 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!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB ze5atYyCo

• • • • 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.”

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).

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.

Aliens! With a Nose and Anus!

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.

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.”

Nvidia Crop Circle

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!

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.

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.

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.”

“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.

“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.

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.

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.

Malcolm Gladwell

Confidential 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.”

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.

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.

Protests

Many factors indicated that Li had been murdered. 180,000 Hong Kongers protested the death.

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.

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)

Grace Chan Censored

• • • Won Miss Hong Kong Pageant 2013 Expressed support for Universal Suffrage.

Interview eliminated by TVB.

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.

Paid Protesters

http://www.scmp.com/news/hong kong/article/1051556/group-marches-against falun-gong-national-day

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.

“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!”

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.”

CHECKING THE FACTS

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.

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.

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.

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 climate scientists.

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 Post

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.

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.”

“Advertorials”

Advertorials

An “advertorial” is an advertisement that pretends to be an editorial. These are somewhat common, but easy to spot.

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.