So this morning I posted a rather lengthy and hopefully thorough debunking of an execrable doomsday story trying to tie the Earth’s magnetic field with big "superstorms" pummeling the US and Australia. I was pretty clear where I stand on this; I loathe it when people ramp up the pseudoscience to try to scare other people about an imagined doomsday scenario. You could probably point your finger anywhere in my post and find some stern words about how the Earth’s magnetic field is unrelated to these storms.
So why oh why did the Press-Enterprise website pull this quote from my article? Here’s a screen grab:
Whaaaaa? That quote says:
The earth’s climate has been significantly affected by the planet’s magnetic field, according to a Danish study published Monday that could challenge the notion that human emissions are responsible for global warming. Our results show a strong correlation between the strength of the earth’s magnetic field and the amount of precipitation in the tropics.
In fact, that quote was not from me. It was from a pseudoscience website I was quoting and debunking! So Press-Enterprise managed to find, extract, and post just about the only thing in my entire article that is the opposite of the entire point of what I wrote.
So in a blog post about media fail, I get a followup media fail.
It may be a media fail, but at least it’s an irony win.
February 9th, 2011 at 2:07 pm
Hey…at least they have a link that sez “View quote in context”…which just shows the same quote again, but adds a tiny little link at the bottom to your full post that they pulled the quote from.
So all anyone has to do to set the record straight is to:
- bother to click the ‘View quote in context’ link, then…
- recognize that the resulting screen adds that tiny little link at the bottom, then…
- bother to click THAT link
Surely EVERY ONE of their readers will do that, right? Right???
sigh…
February 9th, 2011 at 2:24 pm
idiots
February 9th, 2011 at 2:29 pm
Thinking is so hard for some people…
February 9th, 2011 at 2:35 pm
What, you other posters think they selected that part because they were stupid? I don’t think that’s the case. Notice how the phrase “challenge the notion that human emissions are responsible for global warming” is front and centre? I think that’s the whole point of the selection. Accuracy be damned.
February 9th, 2011 at 2:38 pm
How frustrating!
February 9th, 2011 at 2:40 pm
It may not be a purposeful fail. A lot of the software behind these sites just looks for material that appears between quote marks and pulls it out.
February 9th, 2011 at 2:42 pm
Yes, selected for maximum sensationalism.
February 9th, 2011 at 2:55 pm
Irony is dead….
February 9th, 2011 at 3:04 pm
*loses all faith in humanity*
February 9th, 2011 at 3:04 pm
Well I just let out a big laugh. How stupid can mass media be. But even worse: how stupid can people be to believe what mass media says.
February 9th, 2011 at 3:16 pm
At least they got the headline right.
February 9th, 2011 at 3:18 pm
Looks like you will have to get a patent on an exclusive font for the display of others text. Barring that, increase your own font to 72 point to try to get the eggheads to see what they are missing, ie point of the article (for that matter the full article itself).
Does this mean that Fox is holding training seminars on how to properly present news……
February 9th, 2011 at 3:25 pm
Nothing new for the media. It’s all about eyeballs to advertisers and selling copy. Accuracy? Are you kidding? First consider the audience, then figure out what to write to pay the bills, then blow off accuracy and review. Watching what the media does with information technology is sad, pathetic.
February 9th, 2011 at 3:33 pm
It’s like an onion of FAIL. So many layers!
February 9th, 2011 at 3:35 pm
Nemo, good one
February 9th, 2011 at 4:32 pm
Lazy journalists or sensationalist journalists? Both?
February 9th, 2011 at 4:33 pm
8. Bob
Irony is dead….
…long live sarcasm!
February 9th, 2011 at 4:34 pm
What did they say when you contacted them?
This is a pretty boneheaded mistake, and if one of my staffers did such a thing, I’d have a rather strongly worded conversation with them. It’s fine to rail at the media and call them out publicly when something like this happens, but there are plenty of us out there trying to fight the good fight, waging war against stupidity when we see it pop up in newsrooms.
But we do need help. When something crops up on a stray page on a website, someone in charge sometimes needs to be told that the problem exists before it can be corrected. And then, the person who did it can be corrected from ever doing such a thing again.
February 9th, 2011 at 4:35 pm
I bet the next round of sensational journalism will be the Yellowstone Volcano:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41494177/ns/technology_and_science-science/
February 9th, 2011 at 4:36 pm
My first thought would be that they picked a random <blockquote> chunk from your post. But, I note that their “quote” of your post “mysteriously” ends right at the point where is says:
which makes it appear that you said it, rather than you quoting an article which quoted some Danish geophysicist.
And their “view quote in context” simply changes the font they use to display it (and adds that little “full article” link), without showing anything about its context. It doesn’t even finish the <blockquote> from your post. Brings out the skeptic in me.
February 9th, 2011 at 4:54 pm
FYI – the pe.com website’s “contact us” link actually takes you to the “about us” page. The closest thing I see to a contact for such things would be “feedback-at-pe-dot-com”, which is listed as “newsletter issues”.
February 9th, 2011 at 4:58 pm
Fail begets fail, it seems.
February 9th, 2011 at 5:00 pm
Fail is a matter of perspective.
Did they fail to correctly present news information? Yep.
Did they fail to get more pageviews for themselves by pissing you off and getting you to post a link? Nope!
From their perspective, this was pure win. I’m ashamed I even helped (because I had to see what that “view quote in context” thing did…).
February 9th, 2011 at 5:09 pm
Never mind the pole shift is comet Elenin going to smash into the planet on 9/11 this year like i’m reading on the conspiracy sites?
February 9th, 2011 at 5:55 pm
I am embarrassed that this is the paper where I grew up. They do have a link to send an email for corrections on the about us page.
February 9th, 2011 at 6:30 pm
You should demand a correction and an apology, Phil. They’re attaching your name and reputation to something that not only did you not say, but which runs entirely counter to your whole point. They’re deliberately misleading their readers and using your credibility to do it.
February 9th, 2011 at 7:37 pm
Computers are still weak on context and irony…
February 9th, 2011 at 8:31 pm
@24. Mark : Never mind the pole shift is comet Elenin going to smash into the planet on 9/11 this year like i’m reading on the conspiracy sites?
No.
Protip : If they’re saying it on a conspiracy website it probably ain’t true.
February 9th, 2011 at 8:55 pm
I wonder how they’ll treat this follow up article here? Oh wait :
BREAKING NEWS JUST IN!!!
*****
BAD ASTRONOMER CONFIRMS “DOOMSDAY STORY!”
Recent comments from Dr Phil Plait in an article posted on his blog today have confirmed the world’s worst fears. The popular astronomer wrote on his much respected blog today :
****
Sorry, BA, Okay, clearly I’m joking there.(Except about the “popular” and “much-respected” parts, natch!)
Yet it does go to show how absolutely anything can be taken out of context and edited to seem the opposite of what it is. Its all too easy & all too frequently done.
Don’t believe the media on anything folks.
Always, *always* check the facts for yourselves & consider the likelihood that the media has got it wrong yet again.
Do people still need to told this? Are there people who are really silly enough to honestly beleive what they hear on the news these days? That seems so – which is unbelievable enough in itself given what keeps happening with media stories. Sigh.
As Shakespeare said & Isaac Asimov quoted :
“Against stupidity (& the media) the Gods themselves contend in Vain.”
————–
“Nostradamus correctly predicted that in this age many people would be so guillible they’d fall for anything!”
- Letterman Late Show “top ten” Feb 2011. (If memory serves?)
“We apologise for the error in the last edition in which we stated that Mr Fred Nicolme is a defective of the police force. This was a typographical error. We meant, of course, that Mr Nicolme is a detective in the police farce.”
- ‘Derby Community newspaper’ (Other info. unavailable.)
“Two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity and I’m not sure about the universe.”
- Albert Einstein
February 9th, 2011 at 9:12 pm
If you would like to contact the author of the debunked article, you can do so at @TerrenceAym on Twitter. While there, look at his other stories and you will see that he clearly believes that sensationalism whether accurate or not is the correct choice in journalism.
February 9th, 2011 at 9:25 pm
A much funnier & also 100% spot on take on the media treatment of science can be seen here :
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/10/26/felicia-day-collides-galaxies/
Via this blog & Felicia Day. One of my all time fave posts here.
February 9th, 2011 at 11:29 pm
19. Terry. Lordy mercy, haven’t you ever been to Yellowstone? The park is one huge caldera and why do you think there’s so many hot pools, geysers and mud pots? Because lava is so close to the surface and heats it all up. Geologists and other scientist types are keeping an eye on the lake because sometimes the earthquakes there intensify. The land is rising on one side of the lake.
The hot spot that’s under Yellowstone used to be under the Snake River Plain – which is southern Idaho, where hot springs remain in Soda Springs, Hagerman and some other places I’m not telling. Just saying check your facts first.
February 10th, 2011 at 1:16 am
#29 – “Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain…” – Schiller, actually, not Shakespeare.
Like you said – don’t believe anything the media says…and always, always, check the facts.
February 10th, 2011 at 3:44 am
Evidently, the concept of checking sources by journalists is dead. Let us have a moment of silence for the passing of this important idea.
February 10th, 2011 at 5:44 am
I never had an journalism training at all and even I know better than that!
February 10th, 2011 at 7:55 am
@33. Martin : D’oh! You may well be right, I’ll have to check on that.
Isaac Asimov certainly used & quoted it in his novel ‘The God Themsleves’ which is one of my favourites.
Oh well. Thanks for that correction.
Nobodies perfect least of all me.
February 10th, 2011 at 8:06 am
Today on Bad Astronomy:
“So this morning I posted a rather lengthy and hopefully thorough [...] story trying to tie the Earth’s magnetic field with big “superstorms” pummeling the US and Australia. I was pretty clear where I stand on this; [...] doomsday scenario.”
February 10th, 2011 at 10:36 am
@ MTU:
It’s true; I read it on a conspiracy site!
Waitaminute… *hed asplodes*
February 10th, 2011 at 1:17 pm
I’m currently re-watching BattleStar Galactica(with Edward James Olmos) and railing at how stupid, narrow minded, prejudiced, selfish and self centered, etc. are their human protagonists. Then I came here and saw,,,it’s all true. Bummer.
I think we invented civilization too soon. We’re undermining natures method of culling our idiots. Perhaps another 100,000 years would have fine tuned the gene pool enough for us to have a REAL civilization.
Oh well, we ARE on the verge of engaging with a new environment that could go a long way toward separating fools from their bodies, as in “Don’t open that air lo,,,oh, never mind,,,”
Gary 7
February 10th, 2011 at 4:21 pm
HA HA
February 10th, 2011 at 8:41 pm
“It may be a media … win.”
February 11th, 2011 at 2:55 pm
I’d demand a retraction and correction for sullying your name.
February 14th, 2011 at 6:04 pm
A suggestion: when quoting, especially quoting something you would never ever want attributed to you, perhaps you can present the quote as an image file, a picture of the text. That way it would not register on a Google search – which may or may not be something you would want.
Snopes and other sites do something to make their text unselectable and uncopyable. It could still be copied by hand, but that would require effort.
February 14th, 2011 at 6:14 pm
Oh, and I did sort-of warn you about this a while back:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/01/31/repeat-after-me-apophis-is-not-a-danger/#comment-355191
I really want to post this to Facebook as “Phil Plait says, ‘Apophis is…a danger!’”
I really, really wish your site had some sort of indexing system to find past posts.
March 12th, 2011 at 3:20 am
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March 18th, 2011 at 6:29 pm
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