Good summary of some of the reasons why we don't trust newser nitwits. Thanks for posting.
ping
The beginning of this crap science was the Corvair. Close up photo’s showed they were intentionally pushed to oversteer causing them to spin out in corners.
We can thank Ralph Nader(Rat) for setting the precedent.
Good summary of some of the reasons why we don't trust newser nitwits. Thanks for posting.
- Jane Pauly, NBC Dateline anchor apologizing for falisifying test data in a GM truck segment in 1993.
We deeply regret we included the inappropriate demonstration in our Dateline report. We apologize to our viewers and to General Motors. We have also concluded that unscientific demonstrations should have no place in hard news stories at NBC. That's our new policy."
- Stone Phillips NBC Dateline anchor apologizing for falisifying test data in a GM truck segment in 1993
Fantastic article!
Thank You for posting it!
I think NOT. In 1968, in a hit piece on Corvairs, 60 Minutes interviewed a GM executive engineer about the Corvair issues. 60 Minutes didn't like his answers, so they fabricated new questions after the interview to make his answers sound the opposite of what he said.
Since then, GM has had a policy of never granting 60 Minutes an interview unless GM also records the complete interview. None has happened since.
We have been treated so many of these journalistic manipulations (pinto, trayvon martin, Bush’s TANG memo’s, and so on) that I am given to wonder, dare I say even suspect, that similar manipulations are applied to their reporting of opinion polls. Given how much time that is devoted to the reporting of polls (which has dubious news value to say the least), and to the obvious willingness for MSM outlets to push their agenda, doesn’t it seem likely that they would manipulate polls as well? Think about it, it is far easier to produce bogus polling data that other news stories due to the fact that there are far fewer individuals that would know the facts about a poll than with other stories. Furthermore, the pollings outfits, who are being paid by the news outlets, KNOW what results they want. I may be wrong, but I believe that I have every right to be suspicious.
bttt
Keep in mind that these are only the stories where the networks have been found liable. Who knows how may others were “settled” or not even contested.
The media has been doing this for DECADES in this country.
Here’s an example: In 1991, at one location, over 2,500 people got arrested for a single protest (over 6 weeks). On some days, well over 100 people were arrested. This was easily the LARGEST number of people arrested for protesting since the Vietnam War, and maybe even a larger number of people than during that war (at one place). Yet I only knew about it because of two paragraph AP stories in my major local newspaper. The stories would say something like “132 protesters were arrested yesterday...”. That was it - nothing on TV (which I did watch back then), nothing in Time, Newsweek, etc. Just that tiny little wire story.
So my question for you guys: What was the big deal about and do you remember anything in the news on it?
IIRC they killed the Suzuki Samurai in the same manner, mid-nineties.
‘plodin’ gas tanks and doctored tapes.. Deja Vu.. or what?
They make loads of money so there has to be more to their idiocy than that.. I don’t even know who runs them now, what are they, Comcast? or still GE?
Like Ike said, beware or the social media gubamint complex. or sumthin’ ;-)
In itself, there's nothing wrong with simulating extreme adverse conditions, so long as you make it clear that that's what you're doing. (Automakers themselves frequently "test to failure," as it's called, to find out how far a system can be abused before giving out.) When news broadcasts air such videos, though, they tend not to bother listing the artificial conditions. Disclaimers, as we know, make for dull journalism: it's not very grabby to say, "This could happen to you on a rutted shoulder with sleet on the ground, bald tires, and a fair bit of driver error." Network execs want their safety exposes to match the emotional tone of a murder trial, not a drivers' ed class. And so do trial lawyers.Journalism is entertainment, not truth. Journalism is self-aggrandizing propaganda, not truth.
It would be one thing if we had a multitude of competing journalisms, but we do not. What we have is one journalism - Associated Press journalism - and many participants in it. Associated Press journalism is attack journalism limited only by never attacking other journalists - or, for that matter, attacking the friend of a journalist.You get to be the friend of journalism in precisely the way discussed in the article - you promote propaganda directed at someone who is important because they do or provide something the people need. Like the trial lawyers in the story.
How to identify Kelley and his doings on screen is a point of some perplexity at the networks. 20/20's Jeep expose in 1990 tagged him as an "auto safety expert" formerly with the Insurance Institute; it did not mention that he had for years been working as a hired courtroom expert for Jeep rollover plaintiffs. Last year CBS Evening News got flayed in a cover story in TV Guide ("Fake News") for running a report on allegedly defective seat belts without doing enough to inform viewers that its source was a "video news release" from Kelley's Institute for Injury Reduction (IIR), which frequently sends made-to-order footage on auto safety to broadcast news departments. CBS's Street Stories, in another Kelley-sourced piece, identified the institute blandly as an "auto safety consumer group." In fact, as its letterhead states, it was "founded by trial attorneys," who remain its major constituency. "We are made up of trial attorneys," Kelley readily acknowledges. "This is like saying that the Democratic Party is a front for Democrats."