Is This How We Will Get Our Official Science News?
Republicans defend Trump on media coverage, The Hill
“But that didn’t stop House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) from taking the House floor Monday night to claim the media would cover Trump differently if he weren’t a Republican. … Smith said. “No, the national liberal media won’t print that or air it or post it. Better to get your news directly from the president. In fact, it might be the only way to get the unvarnished truth,” he concluded. Smith delivers House floor speeches at least once a week criticizing the mainstream media. Earlier this month, he denounced a New York Times column describing the impact of droughts in Africa believed to be exacerbated by climate change as “fake news.”
Actually that is how you do get it, in articles written directly by the scientists who make the discovery. Its been that way since Galileo.
So why shouldn’t the President now skip the intermediaries and communicate directly? Sure the gatekeepers are mad, but the tweets on Boeing and Lockheed seemed to have worked. The Boeing CEO indicated they would lower the cost of the new Air Force One aircraft while the Lockheed CEO indicated they would find ways to significantly lower the cost of the F-35.
Intermediaries like newspapers had a function of reporting the President’s words in the days before electronic media. But that function started disappearing with President Roosevelt’s fireside chats, which he did because he was tired of the media distorting what he was saying.
Sure, for something like a “fireside chat”, the POTUS can communicate directly. The problem is when there is clear indisputable photographic evidence that he had a small crowd for his inauguration, and there was no evidence of “millions of illegal votes” during the election. President “man-child” Trump can’t handle the facts and truth, so he trys to change it. The news media pushes back on this as they damn well should.
I don’t like being gaslighted by the POTUS, and no one else should stand for it, either.
Doctor Who: You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don’t alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit the views, which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering.
The problem I’ve seen by both the media and Trump is both misrepresenting facts and using a different frame of reference. While Trump has made numerous exaggerations (which seems to be typical of many politicians), I have seen numerous examples of the media being careless with the facts and in some cases, appearing to outright lie. I’ve found myself ignoring much of the media reporting and preferring direct information.
Regarding crowd size, was Trump referring to physical crowd or including those watching on TV and Internet? When were the pictures taken? How accurate are the numbers? These seem to be questions a good journalist would discuss, but typically reports are flavored with the authors political bias. In reality, this particular subject doesn’t matter but both media and the administration go after each other like 2 dogs.
I understand why you feel like that, put I just want to point out that the idea you’re articulating here is profoundly problematic for citizens to ascribe to in a democracy.
Just using the inauguration as an example: there clearly is a factually correct answer to the question of “how big was the crowd?”. But saying that we can never know the true value because both sides lie ignores the fact that you could try and figure it out yourself from photos, from TV ratings, etc. Since that’s a decent amount of work, you could also look for crowd size estimates based on reputable sources.
Hold on though, what’s a reputable source? That, I think is the real problem here. Consider that modern propaganda works by getting you to believe nothing. It’s like lowering the defenses of your immune system. If they can get you to believe that all the news is propaganda, then all of a sudden propaganda from foreign-controlled state media or sourceless loony-toon rants from domestic kooks, are all on an equal playing field with real investigative journalism. If everything is fake, your news consumption is just a dietary choice. And it’s different messages for different audiences – carefully tailored. To one audience they say “All news is fake”, to those who are on their way to conversion they say “Trust only these sources.” To those who might be open to skepticism, they just say “Hey isn’t it troubling that the media is a business?”
Incidentally, making us all go down this rabbit hole is precisely how the Russian government plays ball: http://www.politico.com/mag…
I would suggest that all of our duties as citizens is to cut through this process by doing things like not staying in our Facebook news-bubble, or reading (reputable) news sources from both sides of the aisle.
Throwing up our hands and deciding that everything is a lie is, ultimately, doing a disservice to the Republic.
Democracy cannot function without an informed electorate. Consequently we cannot accept the suggestion that all politicians lie, let alone that it is acceptable for them to lie. It is not acceptable for any politicians to lie.
For the most part the media has far more capability to verify facts than the public. The media represents all parts of the political spectrum. It is no accident that the First Amendment guarantees freedom of the press.
Unlike the media, the Administration is working on our dollar. The Administration has repeatedly made statements to us, the public, that were clearly false. To say they can just use “alternative facts” is completely unacceptable. There is no excuse for it. Period.
The media might have the capability to verify facts, they don’t always do that. I’ve also seen many examples where these “fact checkers” ignore facts that don’t agree with their narrative.
All the more reason that we as observers should be alert to claims by public officials that are exaggerated, inaccurate, or deceptive. If we allow such statements to pass unchallenged we simply invite more deception. We are each entitled to our own opinions. There is only one set of facts.
But what about Obama lackeys saying that that his administration was scandal free? Have you forgotten Fast and Furious? Or his trillion dollar “Stimulus Bill” that did absolutely nothing too stimulate the economy? Benghazi? Where were your challenging questions back then?
Perhaps I’m missing your point. Republican leaders, including Mr. Trump, have spent most of the past eight years falsely claiming that Mr. Obama was not a citizen and therefore illegitimate, as well as attacking every aspect of his administration and blocking every legislative initiative. Surely you will agree that Mr. Trump should expect the same level of scrutiny.
When it comes to politicians and lying, I think there is a grey area, or at least some need to define a “lie.” I expect people (not just politicians) to put some spin on what they say. To emphasize facts that make their point more convincing and downplay facts that weaken their point. Others will do the reverse, and that sort of debate is a healthy way to let the audience hear all sides of the story.
But there is definitely such a thing as taking good rhetoric too far. It is a fact that the weather in Boulder, Colorado wasn’t very nice today. Some media reports used the phrase “ice storm.” I’d call it drizzle in below-freezing temperatures. That’s spin, and I wouldn’t call either statement a lie. If someone said it was clear and sunny, I’d call that an objectionable lie.
Nuts.
There’s spin and there’s lying. The current President has taken the form to an entirely new exponent.
And this isn’t a case of ‘both sides do it’.
That’s fine. Now we’ve discussed it, and established what we expect from politicians (spin) and what we consider objectionable (flatly false statements.) Good. Let’s refer back to this the next time someone claims that politicians are expected to lie.
Boeing and LM didn’t change anything other than to publicize the work they were already doing to reduce costs. It’s been great showmanship all around between both Trump and the industries he’s pushed to make “changes”. I think this makes people feel like things are getting better, but I don’t think anything is really changing. Maybe that is all the matters considering things haven’t been that bad to start with.
I’m all for getting information directly from the source. But that is not automatically the President. When it comes to issues like the environment or climate, he would at best, provide second-hand information. When it comes to the number of people physically present at his inogeration, I suspect he was thinking of other things than observing the crowd and estimating its size. The number of people who watched on television or the internet, or the number who listened on radio, is something he only knows second-hand. So, when it comes to getting data directly from the source, “listen to the President,” is not very good advice.
An anti-science head of a science committee, who routinely spreads falsehoods about scientific matters, while insulting scientists integrity, referring his base to only the leader for facts, a leader who does not recognize facts. This is the classic sign of a demagogue trying to weaken the very democracy that put him in place, democracy as not convenient, facts as bothersome to his agenda and that of others.
You go after the intellectuals, you go after the press. All a bad sign.
False News…Take Action. Limiting retweets of facts is a goal.
Recognize that special interests have an extreme amount of $ at stake. They need a few ‘leaders’ to initiate their ‘marketing’ message. They attack those who fact check because folks accept the message delivered by leaders. Here’s how:
Once the myth is stated, social media counts shares/ comments/reactions for that content. Mainstream outlets typically have higher ‘engagement’. ~4 months ago, a fake news spike occurred–mainstream declined. Many fake news websites resided offshore, done so simply for money via hits from webads, simply by copying stories/hoping for hits. Big $.
All it takes is multiple clicks on the ad to deliver payment for service rendered. Its compounded by hackers who break into servers to change settings to have certain ads popup. Algorithms watch for robot clickers (clicks-no sales) to cut feed to that server, but the company can allow it as well. 😉
The two elements at play are the human and algorithm factor. read more in the link below. Today, the debunking rarely gets more engagement since you are telling a person that what they shared and saw is not true! You are ruining their fun!
Actions: Folks will need to a) share more facts! in person and social media– retweet them b) report false news, not something most scientists/older generation are inclined to do.
Unfortunately, once folks believe false news, they often report the facts as false news. ;( ==> Hence the tactic of attacking mainstream is all part of a very deceptive marketing strategy.
How to report false news
https://www.buzzfeed.com/cr…
How false news spreads and why folks believe them
http://www.npr.org/2016/12/…
Newt Gingrich Exemplifies Just How Unscientific America Is
http://www.forbes.com/sites…
Reminds me of NDT in his presentation when Islam was at heights of science and mathematics but then in 13th century along comes one guy who said people need to be more “spiritual” and poof.
I think the mongols invasions in that century had a much larger negative impact than any internal decisions.
What will NASA’s new mission be? Mars, Moon, Asteriods? What about other aspects of NASA, i.e. aeronautics? It all depends on what random POTUS tweet limited to just 140 characters will determine how $18B will be spent but is subject to wildly interpretation.