Showing posts with label fake news. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fake news. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Best and Worst News Sources

Today's blog is a re-post in case you started reading a new "news source" and wondered if it's fake/skewed/partisan.  In this blog you'll find what's REAL news, and what sources provide fake or slanted news.  The graphic provides a pretty good assessment of some of the major sources.

FAKE NEWS / BAD SITES- Anything on the extreme left or right is NOT worth reading and are considered Fake News. THE WORST SOURCES: Natural News, Addicting info, Breitbart, Daily Caller, Infowars, Blaze, RedState, David Wolfe, Bipartisan Report, Fox News, Occupy Democrats, U.S. Uncut, and sometimes the Huffington Post.


BEST NON-PARTISAN NEWS SOURCES: NPR, CBS News, Associated Press, Reuters, Al Jazeera, BBC News, The Washington Post, PBS Newshour, New York Times


How do you analyze a particular piece of news (or writer) once you've check the site's bias? From Ted Ed, here's a good series of questions to ask yourself when reading news:
http://blog.ed.ted.com/2017/01/12/how-to-tell-fake-news-from-real-news/

And here's a walkthrough from Bucknell University (The first two questions Link to videos):  http://researchbysubject.bucknell.edu/framework/auth

Friday, August 18, 2017

(Satire) Wrong Cruise to be on! Plane accidentally empties toilet tank over cruise ship

*This story was published on a satirical website, so the story is false, but it was funny enough to share and give us a chance to share our cruise experiences*
   If' you've ever taken a cruise and had something go wrong you should read this (fake) but somewhat funny story. It's really unusual to be knocked out with a frozen chunk of poo, but in this story, people on this particular cruise line experienced that.
  OUR EXPERIENCES:  Fortunately, on the cruises we've been on, we've just 1) been stuck going in circles for hours when an anchor fell off a cog, and they finally cut it loose and 2) had drunken party goers making noise every night and 3) Rob got sea sick (like many others when we ran into very rough weather. The bottom line is that it can always be worse!  



Here's the FAKE NEWS STORY that has been going around. -

Plane accidentally empties toilet tank over cruise ship, 23 injured

A Boeing 777 airplane belonging to the Taiwanese airline EVA Air, dumped human excreta midair while traveling from Japan to Hawaii. Unfortunately, the content of the toilet tank was jettisoned into the sky while the plane was flying over the cruise liner Lady of the Pacific, which was hit by “large chunks of blue ice”.

Hundreds of passengers were standing on the top deck at the time, and many were hit by ice projectiles weighing up to 10 lbs.

Janis Garrison, a passenger who witnessed the whole incident, says the ice appeared very suddenly and took everyone by surprise.

25-year old Jason Matthews was hit by a 12-lb chunk of ice, suffered a severe concussion.
Five passengers were critically injured and 18 more were severely hurt, but the ship’s medical staff intervened rapidly and was able to stabilize all of the victims.

25-year old Jason Matthews was hit by a 12-lb chunk of ice and suffered a severe concussion. He still has no memory of the incident.

The ship was rapidly redirected to Hawaii to undergo some repair and to allow the injured passengers to obtain better medical care. Some of them could need weeks of care before they can go back to their regular life.

According to international law, dumping of lavatory waste is illegal, so EVA Air could also face some major fines. Despite regulations, many Asian airliners continue to jettison the content their toilet tanks over the Pacific Ocean, and even over land.
Source: http://worldnewsdailyreport.com/plane-accidentally-empties-toilet-tank-over-cruise-ship-23-injured/



Saturday, February 11, 2017

In the news MD Lawmaker's Aide Fired for Creating Fake News Site: Christian Times Newspaper

We're all about educating people and destroying "Fake News"  - and here's an article where a man in Maryland who created "Christian Times Newspaper.com" used the site to create fake news and draw in Christians to believe his baloney. Fortunately, a Republican lawmaker in Maryland fired the guy who worked for him, that was creating the fake news. - >>One of the fake news stories he published was about ""tens of thousands" of pre-marked ballots casting votes for Hillary Clinton were found in a warehouse in Ohio" - and it got shared by MILLIONS of Republicans! This is the kind of crap that cost her the election because people believed it!!!  (fortunately, the Facebook page was shut down- although it's still up; -https://www.facebook.com/christiantimesnewspaper/)

Here's the article from Snopes.com 

 Maryland Lawmaker's Aide Fired for Creating Fake News Site


Cameron Harris reportedly made thousands of dollars by posting fabricated stories on his web site, ChristianTimesNewspaper.com.

Republican lawmaker in Maryland has sacked an aide after he was exposed as the person behind a fake news website. Del. David Vogt III (R-Frederick) said that he fired Cameron Harris "on the spot" on 18 January 2017, after the New York Times revealed that Harris was the creator of ChristianTimesNewspaper.com.

Vogt confirmed firing Harris in an interview with Snopes.com on 19 January 2017, saying that the discovery of his activities would spur changes to his vetting procedures for future hires. Constituents who have contacted him regarding Harris' posts, he said, were appalled that they could come from someone so "close to home":
The integrity of public service is the number one thing that we have to defend. We have to represent people who trust us to do that here. It is the disintegration of that integrity at its worst.
Harris admitted to fabricating a story claiming that "tens of thousands" of pre-marked ballots casting votes for Hillary Clinton were found in a warehouse in Ohio. According to the Times, the story was shared with six million people. We have also debunked several other posts Harris published on the site.
Harris, who reportedly made tens of thousands of dollars from his site overall, claimed that his motivation for propagating fake pro-conservative posts was financial, rather than political:
Given the severe distrust of the media among Trump supporters, anything that parroted Trump’s talking points people would click. Trump was saying ‘rigged election, rigged election.’ People were predisposed to believe Hillary Clinton could not win except by cheating.
Harris posted a statement on Twitter apologizing to people whom he had "disappointed" with his actions:
My wish is that I will be allowed to contribute my informed experience to a larger dialogue about how Americans approach the media, tough issues, and the manner in which we, collectively, will inform our decisions going forward.
We have contacted Harris seeking further comment.
Source: http://www.snopes.com/2017/01/19/maryland-lawmakers-aide-fired-creating-fake-news-site/?utm_source=bme&bt_alias=eyJ1c2VySWQiOiAiYjg2MTJmZjQtMmE3MC00YzVlLTliZjgtMzllOGQ0ZjZjODE0In0%3D&utm_campaign=wedsat&utm_medium=email

 

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

How to Know your News Sources, Fake News, Partisan News

A friend recently provided information about valid and skewed news sources, so people can be aware of what to use for TRUE news.  He said "Preserve your sanity and avoid spreading bias or supporting the worst offenders." This graphic provides a pretty good assessment of some of the major sources.  

FAKE NEWS - BAD SITES- Those on the extreme left and right sides are pretty much considered Fake News: Natural News, Addicting info, Breitbart, Daily Caller, Infowars, Blaze, RedState, David Wolfe, Bipartisan Report.  
ALSO NOT GOOD - HYPER-Partisan include: Fox News, Occupy Democrats, U.S. Uncut, and sometimes the Huffington Post.

BEST NON-PARTISAN NEWS SOURCES: NPR, CBS News, Associated Press, Reuters, Al Jazeera, BBC News, The Washington Post, PBS Newshour, New York Times
Credit: Vanessa Otero under a Creative Commons license.   Some feel the graphic itself skews liberal: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/religionprof/2016/12/whats-your-source.html

How to Find and Support Trustworthy Journalism
https://medium.com/highlighting-generosity/how-to-find-and-support-trustworthy-journalism-d57769f176cf#.ggbull3t3
Guide to spotting fake and untrustworthy news:
How do you analyze a particular piece of news (or writer) once you've check the site's bias? From Ted Ed, here's a good series of questions to ask yourself when reading news: http://blog.ed.ted.com/2017/01/12/how-to-tell-fake-news-from-real-news/


And here's a walkthrough from Bucknell University (The first two questions Link to videos): http%3a http://researchbysubject.bucknell.edu/framework/authhttp://researchbysubject.bucknell.edu/framework/auth

Sunday, December 18, 2016

Studies: Conservatives Tend to be Less Educated and Believe Fake News

  Studies of education levels and voting trends confirm that conservatives have lower education levels than average. Several studies, including one recently from a social media site that generates "fake news" on purpose, have conveyed that conservatives are much more gullible and less informed about news, science and education. They also tend to believe fake news stories and don't fact check, where liberal-minded, more educated people question stories.  
 This is not our opinion, it's research. Below is the proof: Education and Voting and Believing Fake News
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1) PEW RESEARCH POLL: Education and Voting -   A report from the (non-partisan) Pew
This actually provides a good contrast
Research Center
finds a wide partisan gap between highly educated and non-highly-educated Americans. Not only that, but the share of college grads and post-graduates who are "consistently liberal" (based on their answers to a series of policy questions) has grown sharply in the last 20 years.
  Split it out by party, and the shift is even starker. Among the post-grad set, more than half of Democrats and Democratic-leaners today are "consistently liberal," up from fewer than one-in-five in 1994. Likewise, among college grads, it jumped from 12 to 47. NPR Reported on these findings in April 2016 (Click to read full article).
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2) MORE EASILY BELIEVE FAKE NEWS - Why conservatives might be more likely to fall for fake news
 "Numerous reports have highlighted how fake news creators began targeting conservative readers after finding them receptive to stories that reinforced their existing worldview. As one fake news creator told NPR, "We've tried to do [fake news with] liberals. It just has never worked, it never takes off. You'll get debunked within the first two comments and then the whole thing just kind of fizzles out."" 
  Click here for the Washington Post Story

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My (Rob)  personal interactions- As someone who works in science I've met a number of people who just can't look beyond their religion to see the reality of science. (That's actually the issue with the Republican Party). It's maddening that people refuse to be educated. Here are some things I've encountered:
1) GLOBAL WARMING - Most conservatives deny the science that Earth's climate is warming (97% of scientists KNOW the Earth is warming and that mankind's pollution has and continues to contribute to it). Conservatives disagree with the science because they're being funded by the very fossil fuel industry that has been exacerbating the Earth's warming.

2) DINOSAURS- Conservatives either think dinosaurs didn't exist or they roamed the Earth at the same time as humans. FACT: They  were separated by millions of years.
3) AGE OF THE EARTH - The Earth is actually 4.543 billion years old. 
In 1898, Marie Curie discovered the phenomenon of radioactivity, in which unstable atoms lose energy, or decay, by emitting radiation in the form of particles or electromagnetic waves. By 1904 physicist Ernest Rutherford showed how this decay process could act as a clock for dating old rocks.
 The best estimate for Earth's age is based on radiometric dating of fragments from the Canyon Diablo iron meteorite. From the fragments, scientists calculated the relative abundances of elements that formed as radioactive uranium decayed over billions of years.
   SO, where did conservatives come up with 6,000 years old? - Earth was pegged at a youthful few thousand years old by Bible readers (by counting all the "begats" since Adam).  
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    BOTTOM LINE - WHAT YOU CAN DO: If you're conservative, start reading, learning and become progressive. Otherwise you'll be misinformed about the world around you.  Learn science. Question news sources (go to the websites and if it says "satire" it means it's fake).  Progressive thinking is responsible for creating inventions, exploration, new technology. Conservative thinking would prevent those things. 
TAKE THE QUIZ- How Conservative or Progressive are you? https://www.theadvocates.org/quiz/quiz.php

Who I am

I'm a simple guy who enjoys the simple things in life, especially our dogs. I volunteer for dog rescues, enjoy exercising, blogging, politics, helping friends and neighbors, participating in ghost investigations, coffee, weather, superheroes, comic books, mystery novels, traveling, 70s and 80s music, classic country music,writing books on ghosts and spirits, cooking simply and keeping in shape. You'll find tidbits of all of these things on this blog and more. EMAIL me at Rgutro@gmail.com - Rob

A Classic Country Music Station to Enjoy