A Christmas Present..or two..or ten.

The following video is a very nice compilation from the folks at the Conan O'Brian show that reveals some important truths about the way local media functions:

As one can see from the clip, it is clear that many local and national news anchors are all literally reading from the same script. As this excellent article from Jeremy Barr at Poynter shows, many local news stations are simply buying or using pre-packed content from other sources. This pre-packaged content from various wire-services or public relations firms is often just read word-for-word by the anchors, a process known in the business as "ripping and reading." This is another excellent example illustrating Chomsky and Herman's Propaganda Model of the Media. In this case, this nicely illustrates the third filter, which is the fact that media outlets rely on a limited range of sources in crafting their news content. The fact that so many news stations are relying on exactly the same source provides as clear an example of this as one could imagine.

h/t to the AV Club

"Journalist" Chuck Todd: Reporting Ain't My Job

In a previous post I talked about how the media is actively misinforming its viewer about the recent CBO report discussing the impacts of the Affordable Care Act on the labor market. On person I singled out as particularly guilty was  Chuck Todd who is NBC's Chief White House Correspondent and the host of MSNBC's The Daily Rundown. The following video clip provides a very revealing insight into Todd's understanding of his job, and it helps explain why people who watch him get stupider.

Edit: I seem to be having problems with the video embed. Here is a link to the original article with the video. Go watch the video and then read the rest of what I have to say.

I would ask Todd why he thinks Republicans have been able to "successfully message" lies about the ACA. It couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that "journalists" like Chuck Todd are failing to accurately report what the law says, and are instead just repeating Republican lies and distortions. It seems to me that, as a journalist, if you report on something someone says, you also have an obligation to fact check those claims to ensure that they are true. Simply reporting on what other people say isn't journalism. It's stenography, and I don't need Chuck Todd to tell me what Republicans are saying. I can just go to their webpages or C-Span to get that information for myself. The true function of journalism is to serve as a check on the power of governments. If people like Chuck Todd just report in a he-said/she-said manner without providing the proper context and correct information, they really aren't doing their jobs. More evidence that watching the Mainstream Media makes you stupider.

h/t to Tom Kludt of TPM

The Media Makes you Stupider

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has just released a report in which they predict what effect current laws and tax policies will have on the US economy over the next ten years. For those who don't know, the CBO was created by Congress in 1974 to provide objective, nonpartisan analyses of the economic effects of laws and taxes in order to help Congress determine the actual economic impacts of that legislation. As part of its report, the CBO has made some predictions about how the Affordable Care Act (ACA, informally known as Obamacare) will effect the labor market in the US. One of their main conclusions is the following:

CBO estimates that the ACA will reduce the total number of hours worked, on net, by about 1.5 percent to 2.0 percent during the period from 2017 to 2024, almost entirely because workers will choose to supply less labor—given the new taxes and other incentives they will face and the financial benefits some will receive.

What this means is that because of the healthcare guarantees provided by the ACA, many people who are working solely to obtain health benefits will stop working because they can now get healthcare on one of the state-run exchanges. This will have the effect of freeing up these jobs for other workers who are looking for employment. As a result, according to the CBO, the ACA will result in the equivalent of about 2-2.5 million workers leaving the labor market. As an illustration, here is ZGare commenting on an article about this in the Washington Post:

At 64, I am about to retire, but my wife who is 55 with a pre-existing condition (diverticulitus 15 years ago) would have had to keep working for health insurance to protect against catastrophic illness wiping out our life savings. But with ACA, she can retire in a couple of years instead of 10 years and travel with me.

So, because of the ACA, ZGare's wife will retire earlier than she would have without the ACA. The job she was performing will still exist, but because she isn't doing it, there will now be a vacancy for a new employee (assuming the employer doesn't decide to reduce its workforce through attrition for some other reason).

So, now that we are clear about what the CBO actually said in its report (and if you don't believe me, just go read it). Let's take a look at how many people in the Media reported on this report. A recurring theme will be that if you get your information from these media outlets you will actually be misinformed about what the CBO actually said. In effect, after watching these programs you will have less understanding about the world, and you will, in fact, be a little stupider.

First up is Fox News. Here is a headline followed by the first paragraph from their website:

ObamaCare could lead to loss of nearly 2.3 million US jobs, report says

The long-term effect of ObamaCare on the U.S. economy was rewritten Tuesday with the Congressional Budget Office issuing a revised projection that nearly 2.5 million workers could opt out of full-time jobs over the next 10 years -- allowing employers to wipe 2.3 million full-time jobs off the books.

Again, the report does not say that the jobs will be lost, but that the equivalent of 2.3 million people might choose to retire, work less, or quit their current job to start up a new business. These kind of lies and deception are par for the course at Fox News, but they weren't the only one's guilty of misrepresenting the report. Here's a tweet from Luke Russert of NBC:

New report from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office is an election year killer for Affordable Care Act/Obamacare
— Luke Russert (@LukeRussert) February 4, 2014

And here is a tweet from Chuck Todd, also of NBC:

CBO essentially reaffirms GOP talking points on health care. Says it will cost jobs, feel as if it raises taxes and contributes to deficit
— Chuck Todd (@chucktodd) February 4, 2014

In both these cases, we have individuals who claim to be journalists actively misrepresenting the content of the CBO report to their followers. This is a clear example of those in the Mainstream Media who call themselves journalists actually misinforming their audience about a subject of great importance. And this is very strong evidence that getting information from the Mainstream Media actually makes you stupider.

h/t to Dylan Scott of TPM

GMO Fallacies

If you honestly follow the debate surrounding Genetically Modified foods you will find that it is extremely difficult to find accurate, unbiased information on the subject. For every reputable article discussing the dangers of GM foods and the destruction they will wreak on the planet you will find an equally reputable article explaining how safe these foods are and the promises they hold for the future of humanity. As I am not a scientist, I won't take stand here on this issue (I have my views), but as a philosopher, I do feel quite qualified to look at some fallacious reasoning surrounding this issue.

The following quotation comes from an article written by Anna Lappe responding to a lengthy series of articles published over 6 months by Nathanael Johnson at Grist. For what it is worth, I think Lappe's response slightly misses the mark and doesn't really engage substantively with Johnson's claims, but that is neither here nor there. Instead, I want to focus on the following paragraph:

Consider Monsanto and Dow’s chemical 2,4-D used in an herbicide concoction called Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, which caused untold cancers, birth defects, and other serious illnesses among Vietnamese and veterans. (And the companies are now pushing the chemical again through corn and soybean seeds engineered to be resistant to, and therefore used with, 2,4-D.)

This paragraph is presented as evidence that Monsanto and Dow "are chemical companies with long histories of failures to protect human and ecosystem health—with tragic consequences." This is an example of the Genetic Fallacy in which one argues that an idea or concept (in this case GMO foods) is bad because the source of that idea or concept is bad or has done bad things in the past. Just because Dow and Monsanto produced chemical weapons for the US government does not mean that GMO foods are equally bad. Lots of companies are involved in a a variety of different industries. The fact that General Electric is a defense contractor does not mean that your GE coffeemaker is out to kill you.


More significantly, the above passage is also guilty of the fallacy of Division. This is a fallacy in which you erroneously derive a conclusion about the parts based on attributes of the whole. A simple example would be, "This machine is heavy. Therefore every part of this machine is heavy." The fallacious reasoning here should be obvious. Just because a machine has a certain weight does not mean that every part will have the same weight. It is easy to imagine a machine made up of a billion pieces, each of which weighs an ounce. Each piece is light, but when you add them together you get something quite heavy. In the passage above, Lappe is arguing that because Agent Orange is bad, every chemical component of Agent Orange is also bad. Now Agent Orange (WARNING: there are some gross images at the link) is certainly a nasty product, but if one reads the linked Wikipedia page, one finds that most of the concern is not with chemical 2,4-D, but with the other component of Agent Orange, chemical 2,4,5-T. Now I don't know anything about chemical 2,4-D beyond what I read at Wikipedia, but the key issue here is that one cannot legitimately argue that because a substance is bad, every component of that substance is also bad. To do so, as Lappe, does is to commit the fallacy of division. And it is because of stuff like this that it is so difficult to figure out the truth about GMO's.

Crank Up the Grumpalodean!

Bill O'Reilly says some crazy stuff, but in this video he really goes off the rails, and is resoundingly mocked by John Stewart for it. Here is the link for the segment titled "Burn Notice."

The argument in this video is so nonsensical that it is actually a bit difficult to identify which fallacies are being committed. The most obvious candidate is the Non Sequitur as it is virtually impossible to understand the connection being drawn between marijuana and text messaging. I am also inclined to identify this as a False Analogy, since some sort of comparison between them is being made as well. Don't ask me what the comparison is supposed to be because I can't figure it out, but O'Reilly seems pretty convinced that there is a problem. If I had to guess, I would hazard that this segment is targeting elderly viewers who are upset about the kids of today. By linking up a bunch of things that kids do (at least in the minds of O'Reilly's elderly conservative viewers) O'Reilly can produce a story that will resonate with these viewers and reinforce their already existing prejudices. This is speculation, but it is the only way I can make sense of this clip.

The Oxford Comma

For those not in the know, an Oxford comma (also called a serial comma) is a comma placed before a coordinating conjunction in a list. For example:

He went to the grocery store, the bank, and the mall.

The Oxford comma is a stylistic choice, but it is one that I am fond of because it helps eliminate ambiguity. For example:

In this screenshot, the information from Sky News lacks the Oxford comma, and ends up being guilty of amphiboly by making it sound as if Obama and Castro have set the date for their same-sex marriage. Without the comma the sentence is ambiguous and can be interpreted in several ways. With the inclusion of an Oxford comma the sentence would read as follows:

Top Stories: World leaders at Mandela tribute, Obama-Castro handshake, and same-sex marriage date set...

With the inclusion of the Oxford comma it becomes clear that these are three, distinct news stories, not two stories, one about the Mandela tribute and one about the Obama-Castro relationship. Because it helps avoid these kinds of ambiguity, I am a fan of the Oxford comma.

h/t to George Takei

Are all American wars sold the same way?

I blogged previously about the circular argument made by Dick Cheney to garner support for the US invasion of Iraq. In that example, Vice-President Dick Cheney leaked information to the New York Times, and then cited the Times reporting as evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Now we are seeing the current administration (particularly Secretary of State John Kerry and Senator John McCain) try to pull a similar scam. 

This time the story begins with an op-ed by Elizabeth O'Bagy published this week in the Wall Street Journal. The thrust of the op-ed was to argue that the rebel forces in Syria are not all allied with Islamic fundamentalists and that were they to gain power they would oppose those forces and support democracy in Syria. This op-ed was then quoted by Sen. McCain as part of a question directed to Sec. Kerry in an attempt to alleviate concerns that bombing the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad would inadvertently assist Al Qaeda:

Secretary Kerry then later endorsed that op-ed and recommended it to other members of Congress to help them make a decision about whether or not to support attacks on Syria.

What the Wall Street Journal, O'Bagy, Kerry, and McCain all neglected to mention (that is until some actual reporting from folks at The Daily Caller and the Huffington Post) was that O'Bagy is actually paid by the US Government to advocate on behalf of the Syrian rebels. As a result of this reporting, the Wall Street Journal has since added the following to the original op-ed by O'Bagy:

In addition to her role at the Institute for the Study of War, Ms. O'Bagy is affiliated with the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a nonprofit operating as a 501(c)(3) pending IRS approval that subcontracts with the U.S. and British governments to provide aid to the Syrian opposition.

To summarize, O'Bagy is paid by the US Government to provide aid to Syrian rebels. She then writes an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal advocating for increased aid to the Syrian rebels. Agents of the US Government then cite her op-ed as part of their argument for increasing aid to the Syrian rebels (in this case by damaging the military capabilities of the Syrian government)! This is an excellent example of a Circular Argument in that the government is basically paying someone to advocate for policies. This advocacy is then cited as independent evidence of the wisdom of pursuing those policies. Once again everything moves in a giant circle, and those of us who paid attention during the run-up to the US invasion of Iraq are struck with the most disturbing sense of deja vu as we see the same tricks and lies used to sell that war trotted out just a decade later to try and sell America on another war.

UPDATE: It turns out that O'Bagy is also a liar. She doesn't have a PhD and has been fired from the Institute for the Study of War.

UPDATE II: Despite the lies and misinformation that she has spewed, Elizabeth O'Bagy (like many conservative commentators) keeps falling upwards. Though she was unsuccessful in getting the US to attack Syria, John McCain has recognized her valiant efforts on his behalf and has gone ahead and hired her as a legislative assistant. Apparently in conservative circles no bad deed goes unrewarded.