Comments on: Media FAIL (or, Superstorm followup)

By: Global Superstorms - Mayan 2012Mayan 2012

Global Superstorms - Mayan 2012Mayan 2012 — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 00:29:27 +0000

[...] Media FAIL (or, Superstorm followup) (blogs.discovermagazine.com) [...]

By: No, la “superluna” non ha causato il terremoto in Giappone « Query Online

No, la “superluna” non ha causato il terremoto in Giappone « Query Online — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 10:20:47 +0000

[...] mano che il 19 Marzo si avvicina. Lo vedo già su Twitter e nei principali media (e sappiamo quanto siano tremendi nella copertura di notizie scientifiche), e riceveremo valanghe di mail da gente che sente queste [...]

By: Harold

Harold — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 01:14:13 +0000

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.

By: Harold

Harold — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 01:04:24 +0000

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.

By: morgajel

morgajel — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 21:55:26 +0000

I’d demand a retraction and correction for sullying your name.

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 03:41:53 +0000

“It may be a media … win.”

By: Lascas

Lascas — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 23:21:14 +0000

HA HA

By: Gary Ansorge

Gary Ansorge — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 20:17:40 +0000

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

By: CB

CB — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 17:36:54 +0000

@ MTU:

Protip : If they’re saying it on a conspiracy website it probably ain’t true.

It’s true; I read it on a conspiracy site!

Waitaminute… *hed asplodes*

By: Casey

Casey — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 15:06:18 +0000

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.”

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 14:55:53 +0000

@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.

By: Miss Cellania

Miss Cellania — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 12:44:02 +0000

I never had an journalism training at all and even I know better than that!

By: Christopher R. Vesely, PharmD

Christopher R. Vesely, PharmD — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 10:44:37 +0000

Evidently, the concept of checking sources by journalists is dead. Let us have a moment of silence for the passing of this important idea.

By: Martin

Martin — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 08:16:24 +0000

#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.

By: katwagner

katwagner — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 06:29:17 +0000

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.

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 04:25:54 +0000

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.

By: Bill

Bill — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 04:12:08 +0000

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.

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 03:55:35 +0000

I wonder how they’ll treat this follow up article here? Oh wait :

BREAKING NEWS JUST IN!!!

*****

BAD ASTRONOMER CONFIRMS “DOOMSDAY STORY!”

By Ima Meedjapoe, The Daily Fever, posted 13.13 pm.

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 :

So this morning I posted a rather lengthy and hopefully thorough … doomsday story … I was pretty clear where I stand on this; … Here’s a screen grab: … 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.

… Press-Enterprise managed to find, extract, and post just about the only thing in my entire article that is the … entire point of what I wrote.

****

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

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 03:31:46 +0000

@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.

By: Jojo

Jojo — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 02:37:18 +0000

Computers are still weak on context and irony…

By: Wil

Wil — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 01:30:11 +0000

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.

By: Missy

Missy — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 00:55:21 +0000

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.

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 00:09:17 +0000

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?

By: CB

CB — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 00:00:47 +0000

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…).

By: J. Major

J. Major — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 23:58:41 +0000

Fail begets fail, it seems.