The last week or so was a heck of a fail. The Media is at the top of my list, who seem to have changed from making fun of blogs and other social media, to just repeating stuff they find on the internet verbatim with no fact checking what-so-ever. And how tone deaf is the Senate?
But the biggest fail of all is the Reinhart-Rogoff fiasco, which I talked about yesterday. So, now that Austerity has been shown to be a caused by a math error, do you think Republicans will change their tune?
Don’t hold your breath.
UPDATE: And the fails just keep on coming. Someone hacks into the twitter account of the Associated Press, posts a (false) tweet claiming that two explosions occurred in the White House and that President Barack Obama is injured. The Dow Jones immediately drops 140 points (but recovers after the hoax is revealed). Speaking of social media, read this account of the “misinformation disaster” on Reddit.
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In case you haven’t seen this…
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/04/it-wasnt-sunil-tripathi-the-anatomy-of-a-misinformation-disaster/275155/
“Meanwhile, at 2:14am Eastern, an official on the police scanner said, “Last name: Mulugeta, M-U-L-U-G-E-T-A, M as in Mike, Mulugeta.” And thus was born the newest suspect in the case: Mike Mulugeta. It doesn’t appear that Mulugeta, whoever he or she is, has a first name of Mike. And yet that name, “Mike Mulugeta,” was about to become notorious.”
You can’t make this stuff up!
I was watching on Reddit, including the apologies afterwards, but didn’t realize the full extent of the fail. OMG, “M as in Mike”.
As much as I love Reddit, that article should be required reading of anyone using it. There is a fine line between crowdsourcing and a lynch mob.
Just watching the coverage of the Boston bombing was painful. When the internet sleuths joined in it became surreal. I saw pictures showing undercover officers in matching khakis and with backpacks being looked at as suspects. I saw major news media personalities trying to do the job of the FBI and questioning why in the middle of the manhunt they hadn’t yet flown to Russia to interview the parents to find out why the suspects did this. I saw cameramen getting in the line of fire to get the perfect shot, and on and on. It would have been hilarious if it hadn’t been such a horrible incident. I think most journalists wish they had signed up for law enforcement careers, but their job is to report not interfere. I know we have this freedom of the press, but just like the first amendment there has got to be some limits established somewhere. Jeez
When there’s a crisis, the media takes on that “shoot first, ask questions later” mentality that gets us so much BS clogging the airwaves. And all these news outlets are so interested in getting the most up-to-the-minute information that they’re airing every piece of new info they can get their teleprompters to spit out. It’s like sifting for gold: they have to sift through a whole lot of worthless crap to get those few tiny nuggets of truth.
On the other hand, everyone in the country (myself included) was dutifully glued to their news channels at every possible moment, sucking it all up. As long as we keep taking it, they’ll keep serving us unverified, worthless trash.
Speak for yourself.
The one thing I’ve learned is that, eventually, it will all get figured out. I’m not in Boston. I only know a few people running in the Boston Marathon and they were fine. Thus, this story certainly doesn’t affect me personally.
In short, I can wait until things get figured out. Then I’ll read about it.
Just because they stick this crap in front of you doesn’t mean you have to watch it. Hell, if you’re watching CNN/MSNBC/Fox News, that means you have cable and probably can find something else to watch.