Most of us have at least an inkling that we have been misled terribly by news organizations in recent years.
But how do these high-powered teams of journalistic elite get things so wrong?
It is actually fairly simple, and in this article I dig into the details to help readers better understand how they have been led down the garden path by the former bastions of editorial integrity.
If you are a subscriber of The New York Times, Washington Post, Globe & Mail, or virtually any other major news organization, you are probably blissfully unaware of how inaccurate their coverage has been in recent years.
Because none of them has said, “Oops – we blew it!” They never will. And they will go to great lengths to avoid public perception that it is the case.
They are still pretending that they did not mislead you with abysmal coverage regarding such critical matters as COVID-19 and climate change.
A principal flaw in the mainstream media model is the ubiquitous focus on the SIZE of the audience rather than the INTELLIGENCE of the audience.
Whether it is pressure from management to keep advertising dollars flowing (usually) or because of editorial egos, the reporters and editors are almost always focused on coming up with stories that blow (rather than inform) people’s minds.
They use cherry picking of sources, data, and “facts” to increase the WOW factor of their work.
Sensationalism is in their blood. It starts in journalism school, where they are taught to come up with an exceptional lede and then support it, usually through expert testimony. It only gets worse once trained journalists get into the business, competing with colleagues and competitors to get that big scoop.
How many times in an editorial meeting at one of the media giants do you think someone has said something along the lines of, “Hey – I have an idea for a story that will be extremely informative, and the critical context will help everyone calm down.”?
Such heresy could get one fired.
Editorial teams are focused on shocking readers/listeners/viewers into maximum engagement and doing everything they can to keep consumers coming back for more.
Reliance on expert testimony is arguably the biggest flaw in the deeply broken mainstream news model. Rather than doing their own research, reporters rely on the Anthony Faucis and Greta Thunbergs of the world to dictate the narrative.
I call it “press release journalism”. Those experts, of course, have personal agendas that are usually not aligned with the common good.
In North America, when it came to covering the COVID-19 pandemic, almost all of the reporters at the leading news publishers and wire agencies treated the words of Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical officers, the World Health Organization, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as facts.
Nearly all “top” news agencies did not conduct proper investigative practices before publishing.
Apparently, having medical officials who work closely with politicians and pharmaceutical companies dictate the narrative and drive government policy is appropriate in their eyes.
Why was our little news platform (BIG-Media.ca) the first to properly document the relative lethality of COVID-19 (Assessing the relative lethality of COVID-19: a Canadian case study )?
Why were we the first news company (to the best of my knowledge) to illustrate with government data that the majority of excess deaths during the pandemic were among younger age groups (20-59) and NOT from COVID? Analysis of excess deaths in 2020 reveals surprising deviations
First, the news media is generally uninterested in content that does not shock or scare its audience.
Second, most news organizations do not have journalists who have the scientific acumen and data prowess required to provide the level of analysis that, for example, my BIG Media co-founder Laurie Wetson provided in the articles linked above.
Before writing a single word of her series of articles, Laurie looked at every cell of data in the Alberta death database and did the cleaning necessary to provide accurate analysis.
For example, in examining the 500+ causes of death, she noticed that there were two different spellings of Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, meaning the data was inappropriately divided into two categories. Data scientists, Laurie points out, are not big fans of hyphens and apostrophes.
Laurie also came across a curious category of death that apparently claimed many lives called “Other motor vehicle accident involving collision withfectious and parasitic diseases” (Man dies from vehicle collision with parasite ). This, you may have guessed, was an inadvertent combination of categories; a simple data-entry error.
As Laurie diligently pored over the data (on evenings and weekends while running international geophysics firm Sound QI Solutions) in order to provide extremely accurate analysis of a critically important matter, our news media rivals were falling over each other to tell you the latest COVID death tolls … with little or no details that would help us understand that COVID was almost exclusively a severe threat to people in very poor health, and that collateral damage of COVID interventions seemed to be far outpacing any perceived positive impact.
Most – if not all – mainstream news reporters probably still don’t understand that those death numbers on the dashboards that had everyone freaking out in 2020 and 2021 were grossly exaggerated for one simple reason that Laurie explained to our readers: when someone tested positive for COVID, there were only two possible outcomes on those dashboard databases – dead or recovered. This meant that the people who were about to die from other causes but tested positive before passing, were originally listed as COVID deaths. Nearly 28% of the “COVID deaths” in Alberta, for example, were eventually classified as deaths from causes other than COVID. Laurie also used Bayes’ Theorem to explain significant margins of error in COVID tests.
Meanwhile, fellow BIG Media team member Lee Hunt, a renowned geophysicist and novelist, was tackling the data on adverse reactions to COVID vaccines (Analysis of severe events following COVID vaccine shows increase incidence of myocarditis and lymphadenopathy ), and diving into the fundamental principles of triage (Examining the ethics of triage in a pandemic ) and biomedical ethics (Mounting COVID frustration is no reason to abandon fundamental principles ).
And BIG Media contributor statistician/epidemiologist Dr. David Vickers was helping point out fundamental flaws in what were being treated as important scientific studies (Bold statements regarding hybrid immunity belie checkered evidence , Random COVID-19 response rankings no reason to boast , Potentially polarizing paper anything but model behaviour ), including one peer-reviewed study in which the conclusions of the authors were the exact opposite of what the data in their own research indicated (Higher rates of adverse events after mRNA vaccines interpreted poorly by study authors ).
Why did the New York Times and Washington Post, with their massive editorial budgets, not break any of these stories? Put simply, the facts are just not good for readership numbers. Never let the facts get in the way of a good story, as they say. And most journalists are not brilliant scientists who understand how to conduct thorough research and present data at a high level.
COVID is by no means the only category in which we are trouncing the large news media agencies.
For instance, mainstream news groups consistently quote climate alarmists who have in the last few decades correctly forecasted climate doom a grand total of zero times.
Is quoting a screaming Swedish teenager the best way to get to the bottom of climate change issues? Of course not. But it certainly pulls at the heartstrings and makes for compelling video clips.
Why on Earth would a reporter want to interview a thought leader such as doctor of geology/entrepreneur/educator Brad Hayes to educate their audience?! Sheesh – his rationally constructed arguments are obviously not suitable for international news sections.
However, Brad, an entrepreneur with direct experience in oil & gas and renewable energy projects, is an ideal journalist for BIG-Media.ca. Thousands of people have enrolled in the Massive Open Online Course on energy transition that he leads. Brad is that rare human who reads 250-page reports from the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) and International Energy Agency (IEA), and then helps us make sense of it all – Is it really ‘now or never’ to stave off climate disaster? What the International Energy Agency is actually telling us
His body of work for BIG Media includes many fantastic articles on fundamental energy truths and the kind of information that should be required reading for policymakers – Return to sensible energy policy – a painful but necessary transition, Energy transition – a lesson in advocacy and models, Diving beneath the surface of the energy transition discussion, Examining the real meaning of ‘energy transition’ in the face of undeniable historic trends, It’s time to start setting realistic goals for energy transition, Halfway between Kyoto and ‘Net Zero by 2050’, how are we doing?, Is ‘Big Oil’ holding up the energy transition?
On the topic of energy crises, while our mainstream rivals focused on superficial analysis and ill-founded climate change fear-mongering narratives, Brad and Laurie both provided exceptional sub-surface analysis that empowered readers with critical facts – Recognizing roots of global energy crisis might help us move toward solutions, Power struggle – data analysis puts Texas energy debacle in perspective
On the subject of Canada’s invoking of the Emergencies Act in 2022, while our competitors focused on getting quotes from politicians and other officials, our chief legal correspondent Kevin Burron provided definitive analysis by citing actual text from the Liberal government’s order as well as legislation outlining the Emergencies Act and using Canada’s legislated definition of “national emergency”. Kevin did not tell anyone what to think, but anyone reading his article could see clearly that the Emergencies Act was not a suitable action, given the circumstances.
Our small but potent team (An editorial team worth celebrating) has also provided industry-leading coverage of the following topics:
- Grocery prices – Are groceries really that expensive?, Homemade burger fries competition in price war
- Pipe problems – Pipe problems – a detailed examination of what lies beneath us
- Artificial intelligence – How AI is going to terminate us, Understanding machine learning
- Fundamental principles of science – Do you ‘believe the science’? How about starting with understanding the science?
- Peer reviewed research – Real science requires real peer review
- Is Canada broken – Is Canada broken or not?
- Abortion law – The demise of Roe v. Wade – breaking down the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the Dobbs case
- Pandemic restriction legal challenges – Rule of law wins in pastor’s successful appeal against pandemic protest contempt charges
- Drugs and crime – Responsibility, jurisprudence, and the magic mushroom decision – Part 1, How many of us are doing drugs – and what is the connection to crime?
- Fracking – Fracking 101: Just the fracts
- Climate science – Real climate science – uncertainty and risk
- Climated modelling – What do models actually tell us about the future of climate change?
- Climate change context – Climate change and energy: context for the great debate
- Litigating climate – Can climate be litigated?
- Renewable energy – Will renewable energy costs continue to drop – and will this make electricity cheaper?
- Global emissions – Putting global emissions in perspective
- Sea level rise – Sea level is rising; should we be worried?
- Glacial recession – Funeral for a glacier
- Polar bear population – Polar bear population analysis presents balanced picture
- Plastic prejudice – Are you prejudiced against plastics?
- Microplastics – Trash talk: are microplastics truly the horror story we are being told?
- “The Pacific Garbage Patch” – Taking a critical look at the ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch’
- Recycling – Coffee cup quandary is catalyst for recycling research
- Carbon capture – Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) – effective technology or convenient scam?, Capturing carbon – the science and the subtleties
- Global oil reserves – Global oil resources – how much is left and do we have enough?
- Geothermal energy – Geothermal energy and its place in the evolving power paradigm
- Critical minerals – Geothermal energy and its place in the evolving power paradigm
- Thermal physics – Having a little fun with thermal physics
- Mathematics – The ubiquitous exponential and its many applications, The numbers game – conquering confusing card quizzes and investigating information theory
- Science and music – Analog to digital music – where the magic happens, Music, mathematics, and physics
- Philosophy – Selfishness, hypocrisy, the golden rule, and hope, The third hand of fate
- Historical weather patterns – Optimal holocene climate is in our rear-view mirror
- History of vaccines – Vaccines – a historical perspective
- Monkey pox – Monkeypox data indicates no reason for panic
- Sun exposure and skin cancer – Goldilocks goes to the beach – assessing the benefits of sunlight versus the risks of skin cancer
- Defibrillators – Cardiac arrest data highlights importance of access to defibrillators
- Coffee culture – Coffee culture continues to carry colossal clout
- Meat market – Deep dive delivers definitive data on meat marketplace
- Vitamins and supplements – Vitamins and supplements – linchpin of optimal health or expensive urine?
- Sleep – Wake up to the alarming A to ZZZZZs on the importance of sleep
- Troposhperic CO2 growth rate – Pacific Walker circulation and the tropospheric CO2 growth rate, Pacific Walker Circulation and the tropospheric CO2 growth rate – Part 2
- Energy security – Are we throwing away our energy security?, Policies that took energy security for granted have put much of the world in a tough spot
- Energy fundamentals – Energy fundamentals – an essential element of the transition discussion
- Earth’s history – Examining the great Spokane Flood yields many lessons
- Energy prices – Energy prices climb … no surprises here
- Politics – A different take on the political spectrum, Barrage of attacks on Trump could backfire, Is the political left committing harakiri?
- National debt – No doubt about debt – is it time to push panic button?
- Ethics in social media – Twitter Files confirm what we suspected – agenda trumps truth in social media backrooms
- Misinformation and disinformation – The smallest of lies are destroying our democratic institutions, It is time to reject the liars
- Pandemic policy – Learning from pandemic policy missteps is critical
- News media – BREAKING NEWS … into rational pieces
- Hate laws and censorship – Bill C-36: hate, truth, and the return of the tribunal, Censorship abounds
- COVID vs the flu – COVID-19 is definitely not the flu
- Masks – Mask media – research is mixed but provides valuable lessons
- Mental health – COVID-19 collateral – strained mental health a global concern
- Suicide – Mother of suicide victim implores adults to look for new signs of trouble
If you are up for a fun experiment, search the topics above on the sites of the “leading” news organizations and see how they compare to our little editorial engine that could … clean the clocks of the competition!
