In a new piece, Teen Vogue gets the midterms factually wrong – which provides more disinformation than information in its attempt to “educate the influencers of tomorrow.” Misinformation is being fed to readers here: “House terms are two years, and candidates can serve up to six terms.” No, the House is not term-limited. “A senator can serve two terms.” Nor is the Senate. The Presidency is term-limited, some governors are, some state legislatures, but not Congress. We might also argue with this, concerning House and Senate: “Each state has representatives in these two groups.” Not really, no. It is indeed the…
Author: Tim Worstall
In a piece this week, Vice claimed that there was an extremism problem in the U.S. armed forces — and blamed Republicans for that problem. The piece, published this week, is headlined, “Why Republicans Are Ignoring Extremism in the Military.” “The vast majority of U.S. service members have nothing to do with political extremism,” the article says. “But more than 160 people charged so far in the Jan. 6 insurrection had military training. And that’s just a slice of the universe of military vets involved in extremist activity. According to the VA, up to 20,000 veterans are associated with right-wing…
In a new piece this week, Teen Vogue presents something that is common practice as nefarious to support the magazine’s own political ideals. The complaint addressed in the article is from a University of Florida student worried about Ben Sasse likely becoming the next president of UF. We can imagine that to a young student journalist – all three, the young, students, and journalists — as being more left-leaning than the general population – the idea of a sitting Republican Senator being chosen to lead their college could be worrying. However, the more specific complaint is over how the process of…
We do know that the American press is hand-picked from those who know how to write – we did, however, think that this might include the ability to read as well. There goes another of our illusions busted. The Verge tells us this in a piece headlined, “Climate change made drought 20 times worse this year, and there’s no relief in sight.” One of the little secrets of journalism is that the folks who write the piece usually aren’t the same as the folks who write the headline. So, in the text, we get something closer to the truth – the…
NowThis News ran a plainly political video in an election cycle while presenting it as a piece of news. It doesn’t break the law on election advertising, but that’s because it has been deliberately edited in order not to do so. We should, therefore, call it propaganda rather than party political advertising. The subject under discussion is historical carbon emissions, but it’s after they’ve detailed those that the bias becomes apparent. Once they’ve laid out who emitted what, we are told that “The transformative provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act” and all that work on clean energy and environmental justice.…
Vice inaccurately strings together several vaguely related ideas to create clickbait that ultimately makes no sense within the article in a new piece headlined, “Police to Brutalize Black People in Climate-Friendly Way with First Electric Prisoner Transport Van.” The “Cobb County Sheriff’s Office has bought an electric van to transport prisoners,” according to Vice. Maybe newsworthy, perhaps not, but the county sheriff is an elected office, so there will be press releases about this sort of thing. In that same county, there have been two – two that are mentioned at least – incidents that we’d all prefer hadn’t happened. Examples…
Vice claims in a new piece that using stock photography is the same thing as using Russian propaganda. This is, of course, ludicrous – but this is election season, and some people will turn to anything to support their own politics – as seen in a piece headlined, “Why Does Mastriano Keep Using Russian Propaganda Footage in His Campaign Ads?” The actual story. A photographer in Belarus – which is not part of Russia, note – uploaded a series of pictures to a free stock picture library. One of these was used by the Russian Embassy in Spain as the…
Cosmopolitan weighs in on the election in a new piece this week – that’s not unusual, as is election season. But the bias here is extreme to the point of weariness. Not only does every discussion end with an urging to vote for a Democrat, the only issue even seemingly on the ballot is abortion. And, you know, not even the Democratic Party is entirely about that one subject let alone politics or this election. It is true though, they run five different articles – all published at the same time – about the upcoming election. Michigan Attorney General, North Carolina Legislature, Ohio…