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A collection of 16 posts

Figure 4-1: Tone of the news, 1945–2010
Source: Leetaru 2011. Plotted by month, beginning in January.

We're Still Not Going to Hell in a Handcart

I wrote about this years back when Steven Pinker produced his book The Better Angels of Our Nature, in which he set out that things, despite what we are constantly told, are not getting worse. In fact, they are getting better across pretty much every metric (overpopulation and environment aside)

The Nonsense in Spades We Are Now Dealing with

Dealing with dyed-in-the-wool Trump supporters was difficult enough when he was in office, but now that he is gone, such cultists have doubled down to a state of psychological mania that beggars belief. I have seen Twitter feeds and forum comments that make me incredibly sad. This isn't

Murdoch Hack Owned by Right-Wing Australian Ex-PM on Climate Change

This was unexpected but, my, was it brilliant to watch. There are two things to consider here: 1. climate science denial and its connection to media sources that peddle the myths for their own ends 2. the power of the Murdoch empire in dictating political outcomes (most obviously in Australia

The Media and Pandemics

I was having a discussion today about whether coronavirus has caused the media to take up scaremongering. My personal opinion is that the media are not scaremongering, they are just really excited. And excited people tend to over exaggerates and be, well, excitable. This is a journalist's or

Brexit, the Media and Democracy: My Debate

A few months back, I was involved in a one on one debate with David Warden of Dorset Humanists on the subject of "Dorset Humanists Debates - Brexit, the Media and the Future of Democracy". David Warden spoke first followed by myself, then some cross-examination and then some

Brexit and the Media

As Winston Churchill once said, the best argument against democracy is a 5-minute conversation with the average voter, but there you go. Has Brexit represented a win for democracy? In short, no. We have a representative democracy whereby we democratically vote for a local MP to represent us in Parliament

Analysing the Muslim Foster Care Scandal: Daily Mail Hypocrisy

There has recently been a scandal in the UK regarding a child from a Christian background being fostered by Muslim foster carers. This has produced quite a lot of media attention due to the fact that the foster carers supposedly encouraged the five-year-old girl to speak Arabic and banned her

"Alt-Right"? No, the Far Right.

It's all going off in the US, that's for sure. But something that has been bugging me, and many others, is the use of the term "alt-right". This seems to be a term to describe the rise of the right amongst social media and

The Media, and Similarities between Trump and Corbyn

The UK election is hotting up. May arguably called it early because the Conservatives were going to romp through, gaining a vastly increased number of seats, and marginalising Labour and an effective opposition into the sidelines of UK politics. This might well still happen, given that the Conservatives have stolen

Quote of the Day: Michael Candelario on the Post-Fact Electorate

This one comes from facebook. Couldn't agree more: In the US, there are large swaths of voters (some examples seen here in this thread) to whom facts have become biased. Because their deeply held views have been shown to be false, the mere fact of presenting facts for

British media 'most right-wing' in Europe, YouGov survey finds

The caveat being that only seven nations took part in the survey, but the findings are completely unsurprising for anyone with an ounce of intelligence who reviews the UK media. Here are the right-wing papers: * The Daily Express * The Daily Mail * The Daily Telegraph * The Spectator * The Sun * The Times

The Lord's Prayer advert HAS NOT BEEN BANNED in cinemas

I just want to set the record straight since this is being mis-reported all over the media. I sent a complaint to the BBC and they changed their website headline, though still report it incorrectly on the TV news. Here is how the BBC report it, having changed "ban" to "snub" and "refusal":

Sara Firth quits RT over "lies"

This is yet another case of a defector from RT, the Russian news media organisation. Liz Wahl recently quit over the Crimea conflict and demands on her journalistic integrity in the context of what management and Putin were demanding of the network and its conclusions:

Liberal newspaper Express Tribune cowed into silence by Pakistani Taliban

Media group opts for self-censorship on terrorism after Taliban admits murder of three employees for critical reports on militants When it was launched four years ago, the Express Tribune set out to become the house newspaper of liberal-minded Pakistanis.

SINergy, SIN's new media channel, launches

We are trying to stay ahead of the game, as a network. Thinking about how we could provide our readers with as much content and resources, we have developed a channel here at our SIN headquarters.