How many ways are our media failing?

What’s happened to the media? Something, that’s for sure. Yesterday over at Velociriot!, the brilliant Sam gave us all the lowdown on just how idiotic the coverage of the Boston Bombings really was. Sadly, she make a good case that because “the entire country sought information about what had happened” the normal process of confirming information and general values of skepticism disintegrated. Islamophobic attitudes went wild because the normal process of filtering at least a good chunk of them out went out the window – whether we’re talking about print, televised, or online media. It’s the phenomenon that gave us a stampede to call Florida for Bush in 2000 on steroids, and with numerous information networks now competing to instantly inform their audiences, it’s only going to get worse.

Today over there, the equally insightful Amanda pointed to a success story of sorts, where the Associated Press’s twitter account was hacked but was quickly called out as such. As much hope as there is in this reminder that even US media consumers aren’t as docile as we might sometimes think, it’s also a warning. The conditions in which modern media operate in the US aren’t conducive to the best reporting, but there’s also the various risks still posed by those that want to deliberately spread false information (in this case, that the White House had been attacked – following last week’s bombings, the intent to cause panic seems pretty transparent).

Of course, any such conversation about efforts to intentionally misinform the public has to acknowledge that it’s not just criminals. Sometimes these attempts are openly admitted to, and with perfect legality. Look no further than the Koch brothers’ interest in buying up the newspaper market.

(Of course, News Corporation owner Robert Murdoch proves you can have a hand in both of those cookie jars at the same time, from here.)

In this day and age, we can’t afford to not be skeptical of everything. Remember that.

Maddows gotta Maddow

I’m currently traveling, so I’ll keep this quite brief. I’ll just point out that Rachel Maddow is doing an excellent news series starting this coming Monday on the way the US was led into the Iraq War under false pretenses. If her promo for it last night is any indication, it’ll be unfortunately all too relevant with regard to false or misleading information being used to legitimize a strike on Iran or Syria.

(The imaginary tunnel mockingly used to explain Romney’s comments during the debates last year that Syria is Iran’s “pathway to the sea”, from here.)

I might end up live blogging that, so be sure to check my twitter Wednesday night to see if I find any parts of it worth repeating or elaborating on there.

The gendered component of medical misinformation

TW: misogyny, abortion, coercive restrictions on bodily autonomy

As flu season descends upon us, everyone seems to be preparing for the almost inevitable pseudo-scientific nonsense about the vaccines being a terrible trick of some sort. Lost amid those and other criticisms of scientifically groundless claims, however are a few that are not just whispered rumors, but actual state policy. For instance, five states in the US have written it into their laws that doctors are legally obligated to provide written warnings to their patients that include statements that abortion increases the risk of developing breast cancer. The fact that there’s no link between having an abortion and experiencing breast cancer is apparently irrelevant (see page 23 for details).

(Thankfully at least one image going around Facebook is trying to inform people. If only the same sort of energy went into debunking abortion laws that went into the endless online debates about vaccines. From here.)

So the next time you hear  the conversation shift towards baseless medical hearsay, be sure to at least inform the bystanders that there’s no there there. And that counts double in cases where the government is on the side of misinforming women so as to coerce their decisions about their bodies. This goes double if you live in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Mississippi, or Alaska, where these laws are already on the books.