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Category archives for Media
Springtime for Sarah
Posted by PZ Myers on July 19, 2011 There’s a Sarah Palin “documentary” out, called The Undefeated, and it’s a weird example of conservatives trying to create a new alternative reality again. First, she was defeated: notice that it isn’t Vice President Palin. Second, the professional reviewers are all panning the movie — it’s a hagiographic mess. But the crazies on the right…
New strategy: if we sow enough confusion about what knowledge is, we can win!
Posted by PZ Myers on July 12, 2011 I’ve never heard of Alex Beam before, which is a good thing — he seems to be some kind of journalist at the Boston Globe, and that’s about all I know about him, other than that he seems to be an oblivious idiot. He has a column up in which he rages about the phrase…
In case you’ve been trying to sort out what’s going on in UK media this week…
Posted by PZ Myers on July 7, 2011 Here’s an extraordinarily clear short summary of Rupert Murdoch’s misery, the commendable efforts of the Guardian to report on the sleaze, and the likely fate of the principals — written with oblivious Americans in mind. By the way, one of Murdoch’s cheese factories, News of the World, has gone down in flames, like a great…
Stop Rupert Murdoch now
Posted by PZ Myers on July 5, 2011 We already know how unethical and sleazy Murdoch-owned media are — and now, if you’re in the UK, you should be aware that he’s making a grab to take control of an even larger slice of the media pie. Murdoch already controls more of our media than is legal in many countries – and is…
Some science journalists need to hang their heads in shame
Posted by PZ Myers on June 18, 2011 Ben Goldacre and others carried out a very interesting study: they analyzed the top 10 UK newspapers for a week for their health reporting, and categorized the quality of the support for health claims. It’s not encouraging. Here’s what we found: 111 health claims were made in UK newspapers over one week. The vast majority…
What’s wrong with the media, in one paragraph
Posted by PZ Myers on May 18, 2011 The Atlantic runs this regular column where they ask people about their reading habits — this time, they asked Aaron Sorkin, who sneers at the web and announces that he reads a couple of newspapers…or at least, he reads the front page and the op-eds in a couple of newspapers. When I read the Times…
Sweet Jebus, but I hate the HuffPo
Posted by PZ Myers on March 24, 2011 It’s a woo-infested sewer, a cesspit of inanity and exploitation, and they cheat their writers. There is a strike/boycott in operation. This is what you get when an unprincipled, opportunistic hack like Arianna Huffington runs the show. Guild tells HuffPost writers: ‘Don’t work for free’ The Newspaper Guild is calling on unpaid writers of the…
21st century science publishing will be multilevel and multimedia
Posted by PZ Myers on March 19, 2011 I have to call your attention to this article, Stalking the Fourth Domain in Metagenomic Data: Searching for, Discovering, and Interpreting Novel, Deep Branches in Marker Gene Phylogenetic Trees, just published in PLoS One. It’s cool in itself; it’s about the analysis of metagenomic data, which may have exposed a fourth major branch in the…
What does it take to be a science journalist?
Posted by PZ Myers on March 15, 2011 Science journalists, you really piss me off…at least some of you. Here are a couple of headlines about that recent paper I summarized that make me want to slap someone. “Eye evolution questioned.” No, it’s not. That’s just trying to stir up a non-existent controversy. The eye evolved. This was a paper exploring the details…
Old fool gets attention for being ignorant
Posted by PZ Myers on March 14, 2011 Before you say it, I know I’m giving him attention, too. Cardinal George Pell, the old fool, got lots of press for being a climate denialist, again. After a talk, he denounced the climate scientists for not being scientific, while he, the guy who believes angels and saints and great magic boojums in the sky,…