Brief Note by Kip Hansen —7 September 2023
When I was in what Americans call Junior High School (grades 7-9), we had many rather innocent parties. Naturally, there some of that then-exciting “dancing with girls” but also a lot of party games. One of those games was the ever-hilarious “Telephone Game”, which, I am told, is also called “Chinese Whispers”. The game is simple, as described in the Wiki:
“Players form a line or circle, and the first player comes up with a message [and writes if down, word for word] and whispers it to the ear of the second person in the line. The second player repeats the message to the third player, and so on. When the last player is reached, they announce the message they just heard, to the entire group. The first person then compares the original message with the final version. Although the objective is to pass around the message without it becoming garbled along the way, part of the enjoyment is that, regardless, this usually ends up happening. Errors typically accumulate in the retellings, so the statement announced by the last player differs significantly from that of the first player, usually with amusing or humorous effect.”
When we played it, the importance of repeating the message exactly was emphasized and intentionally altering the message was considered cheating.
In our day, the mass media plays The Telephone Game with news stories. Recently I wrote “Why Your Local Newspaper and TV Station Get Climate Facts Wrong” which reveals that Columbia Journalism Review and The Guardian and the other partners and members (and many many others) of Covering Climate Now (CCNow) write complete climate alarm stories and also supply and share climate alarm story-ideas. Each member is then encouraged share their work with all the other members.
I have an example that would be amusing if its effects were not so very pernicious.
Here the first player in the Telephone Game about Hurricane Idalia – the one who first writes down the message to be passed along, is the National Weather Service (NWS) which is a sub-agency within NOAA. It is in the form of an Interactive NWS Alert, the specific alert being passed along is found here.
Now, these alerts have some very local and time sensitive information and further warnings along with Potential Impacts. The Potential Impacts are boilerplate chunks of text that are pre-composed for each type of storm of threat, and are not site and storm specific. Here is an example supplied by NWS for the following conditions:
“…HURRICANE WARNING IN EFFECT……STORM SURGE WARNING IN EFFECT…
A Hurricane Warning means Hurricane wind conditions are expected somewhere within this area and within the next 36 hours
A Storm Surge Warning means life-threatening inundation levels are expected somewhere within this area and within the next 36 hours”
The full alert (see the link) is four computer screens long on my machine or about 900 words. Only a few words are changed from iNWS Alert to the text for any particular hurricane (mostly severity by type and details of expected storm surge.)
The alert issued for Tallahassee, Florida in regards to Hurricane Idalia
“Event extended (area): Hurricane Warning for Leon County, FL
Sent via Email at 1103 am EDT, Aug 29th 2023“Event extended (area): Hurricane Warning for Leon County, FL
Sent via Email at 1103 am EDT, Aug 29th 2023
[skipping lots of text….]
– POTENTIAL IMPACTS: Devastating to Catastrophic
– Structural damage to sturdy buildings, some with complete
roof and wall failures. Complete destruction of mobile
homes. Damage greatly accentuated by large airborne
projectiles. Locations may be uninhabitable for weeks or
months.” [emphasis mine – kh ].
You can guess which phrases were picked out to be broadcast over and over all around the country (and the world).
The purpose of these warning is to inform people living within the affected area to be properly prepared for the possibilities of threat to life and damage to property. The affected area for this warning are given as: “LOCATIONS AFFECTED – Tallahassee – Woodville – Bradfordville”. By this I mean that an apartment dweller in the Bronx, New York, does not really need this information (unless, perchance, they have relatives living in Tallahassee).
In our Telephone Game the Mainstream Mass Media goes to town with this message:
NBC: “National Weather Service in Tallahassee says some “locations may be uninhabitable for several weeks or months””.
NPR: “”Damage will be greatly accentuated by large airborne projectiles. Locations may be uninhabitable for several weeks or months,” the forecast warned.”
OPB (Oregon Public Broadcasting) copies and pastes NPRs story verbatim.
Digital Journal: “The National Weather Service office in Tallahassee said “locations may be uninhabitable for several weeks or months” because of wind damage. Storm surge could prevent access, too.”
Washington Post: “The Hurricane Center warned Florida residents to prepare for long power outages and said some locations may be uninhabitable for several weeks or months”
Now we begin to get going in our game:
TMZ: “The Tallahassee area is also predicted to be uninhabitable for several weeks or even months, according to the National Weather Service office.”
NY Post: “Hurricane Idalia batters Florida with catastrophic floods as nearly 270K left without power, officials warn areas won’t be habitable for ‘months”.
The generalized boilerplate warning from the NWS, issued for every landfalling hurricane, has rapidly morphed from a warning “some locations may”, to a “predicted to be” to a definite “the Tallahassee area predicted” and/or “won’t be habitable for months”.
My favorite Climate Propaganda Cabal, CCNow, provided this in its Newsletter: “Superheated Oceans Are Hurricane Food”, which uses the phrase: “Parts of the state’s capital, Tallahassee, “may be uninhabitable for several weeks or months,” NBC News reported, citing the National Weather Service.” [Note that the linked NBC News page does not say that – although, as we saw above, some news outlets used similar language.]
And, finally, what is the real story?
According to The Boston Globe: “Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday that Idalia had knocked out power for 250,000 residents, but that the road conditions in the state were “probably better than what I would have thought.” The governor canceled campaign events for his 2024 presidential run and returned to the state for the storm.
The two deaths were traffic accidents, one in Pasco County, where a motorist collided with a tree, and the other in Gainesville, where the driver veered into a ditch. In both cases, the Florida Highway Patrol reported that stormy conditions had contributed to the crashes.” [possibly re-printed from the NY Times – kh]
As of yesterday, DeSantis said that 96% of power outages had already been repaired.
Bottom Lines:
1. Major hurricanes hitting densely populated areas can be monstrously damaging – to infrastructure, to homes, to human lives. Hurricane Idalia was shifted just enough away from Tallahassee, the capital of the state of Florida, to prevent the worst damage to that city of about 400,000 inhabitants.
2. The cities of Florida’s west coast were again hit with storm surge and flooding of low-lying areas – as they always are when a hurricane arrives from the west.
3. Almost no loss of life as a result of Hurricane Idalia – two fatal auto accidents, both of which could have happened on any rainy day.
4. Altogether, Florida came away pretty much intact considering the size and intensity of the storm.
5. The Mainstream Mass Media, propelled and urged on by climate alarm propagandists exaggerate warning meant locally to national disaster size and then focus their stories on the down-side and not the “it’s a miracle” side.
# # # # #
Author’s Comment:
The Telephone Game is the direct result of journalists not doing their own homework, but letting their stories be formed by “everybody says” and directed pushed to the left by intentional propaganda.
When a journalist sits down to write a story – he/she has to file in ten minutes or miss the deadline — the easy thing to do is say “Hey Google…What does NBC says about the threatening hurricane?” and then just type that into the story. No checking, no understanding, no recognizing NBCs statement as boilerplate NWS Hurricane Alert text.
But, you know, when you are plagiarizing another news source, you have to use some different words, or they’ll catch you. So one might write “predicted” in the place of a “may be” or even the stronger “won’t be habitable”. Thus CCNow writes “Parts of the state’s capital, Tallahassee, may be uninhabitable….” all with the NWS Alert as its original source.
The Climate News you read, hear, and see in the media is not news, it is regurgitated propaganda, intentionally created.
Thanks for reading.
# # # # #
A catchy phrase now going through this media system appears to be “climate breakdown”.
USA Today’s Nicole Fallert posted that ‘Climate breakdown has begun’.
Having read her “reporting”, I am still wondering what “climate breakdown” is.
I wonder who first used this phrase and what the folks using it think it means.
Try passing this along:
There is a rumor of a Climate kerfuffle in Kalamazoo County
🙂
First, it was AGW.
But, it didn’t “warm” to any scary degree (not at the mid-level troposphere, not on the surface).
So, then, it was “climate change” and “climate weirding.” “Climate change” won out — any scary weather event became “evidence” of “climate change.”
But, a lot of The People are wise to this since the word is out that there is NO significant upward trend in any of those events.
So, now, voilà!
CLIMATE BREAKDOWN!
It’s scary! It’s an emergency!! SEND MONEY, NOW!!!!!!!
************************
And, bottom line: there is still NO DATA proving human CO2 emissions cause to any significant degree meaningful shifts in the climate zones of the earth.
I’m waiting for the Climate Quakes to begin rumbling through the media
We already have Climate Quacks and Climate Clowns
First?
I have this mental image of Climate sitting by the road side, sobbing uncontrollably, having an emotional breakdown. It’s car, hood up, has just had a mechanical breakdown. That’s what a climate breakdown is.
Mumbles ==> If I see the poor guy there on the roadside, I’ll stop and console him.
here’s a catchy one
blue climate breakdown
https://youtu.be/KYTvj9Z_rlo
It’s a dumb term- doesn’t make any sense- in what way is the climate breaking down? WTF?
Well, according to one report…
well as I keep saying here, this year my garden, flower beds, trees and shrubs and lawn have grown faster and look healthier than I’ve ever seen in my 73 years so whoever thinks ecosystems are collapsing is clearly having a mental breakdown
also, I’ve been a forester for 50 years- the forests are fine- other than some invasive species that are getting to be a problem- most have come from other continents so the problem has nothing to do with “carbon pollution”
Chairman Mao sent intellectual nitwits out to work in the fields and rice paddies- people who probably never got their hands dirty actually doing real work. The same punishment should be given to many of these so called climate scientists. Not that I have any respect for Mao- just saying. 🙂
Perhaps the same could be said about the great majority of ‘cosmopolitan’ voters.
JZ,
Our 40-year collection of rare and popular camellia bushes is looking the best ever. The production of full sized, uniform, deep green leaves contrasts with decades ago when yellow leaves, often malformed and straggly, were the norm. We have not changed our added fertilizers much, nor the watering regime. Sure, this is not a tightly controlled factorial experiment like I used to do at CSIRO plant nutrition, but the overall effect is so pronounced that I cannot argue against the most likely cause being CO2 fertilization. Geoff S
It was the rainiest spring on record for Colorado as I understand it. It delayed the start of our tomatoes and other vegetables, but they’re coming along now. Cold rainy nights didn’t help our fruit trees. Not a peach, plum, or apricot. One pear.
“as reported by a top-ranking climatologist at an important UN conference.” a person so significant that they need not be named?
…and everyone stands around, laughing and pointing at the guy who does not know Saint Gretha…
Said guy goes: “Damn, I forgot about that little twattlebutt!!”
Climate breakdown is taking 30 years of weather and not being able to form an average.
Kevin ==> Ah ha…a mathematical breakdown.
Or some folks are perpetually having a breakdown because they’re not experiencing the 30 year average weather all the time.
John ==> USA Today quotes:
“The following statement by UN Secretary-General António Guterres was issued today:
The dog days of summer are not just barking, they are biting.
Our planet has just endured a season of simmering — the hottest summer on record. Climate breakdown has begun.
Scientists have long warned what our fossil fuel addiction will unleash. Our climate is imploding faster than we can cope with extreme weather events hitting every corner of the planet.
Surging temperatures demand a surge in action. Leaders must turn up the heat now for climate solutions. We can still avoid the worst of climate chaos — and we don’t have a moment to lose.”
Stop reading this now — we don’t have a moment to lose!
John ==> A quick Goggles Search for “climate breakdown” already returns over half a million results….
@kip hansen
That should have been the first sentence 😉
From 2 paragraphs: “biting”, “endured”, “breakdown “, “addiction”, “unleash”, “imploding”, “extreme”, “hitting”, “Surging”, “chaos”.
I lost patience with the word “surge” during the COVID scare. If I surge every second during an activity, then that’s how fast I do that activity – no tall punctuation required.
Naomi Oreskes and Mikey Mann first started using it a couple of years ago, I think it was. I mentioned it at the time as I’d seen them using it in a joint report or seminar.
Richard ==> search the earliest useage?
Had a quick look but there’s been a lot of use since and can’t find it. Have to keep looking.
It’s definitely post 2018/19 and it was definitely Mann and Oreskes that I read where they used it first (at least in a reported source). Since then the Guardian has stated that they have ‘standardised’ the term in their reporting and it’s become very popular amongst the usual crowd.
I think it may be Naomi Oreskes and possibly from one of her books, ‘Why trust Science?’ Which I’ve not read (and probably never will) but is mentioned in reviews from 2019, such as the New Statesman ‘Trusting science in an age of climate breakdown.’
Climate breakdown – the sobbing is pitiful, “I can’t go on.” it keeps repeating. I’ve tried tea and sympathy, but the climate is just inconsolable.
Doncha know that there were no hurricanes, floods, droughts, tornadoes or anything else dangerous before SUV’s started contaminating the atmosphere with that evil CO2 stuff.
The only recent Hurricane to reach the 30 deadliest Hurricane list was Katrina with 1,200 deaths in 2005. The worst was in 1900 with 8,000 deaths. The early 1900s and the 1800s had the deadliest Hurricanes. We are better prepared to deal with Hurricanes today with warnings and evacuations if necessary.
https://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/articles/deadliest-us-hurricanes
And the deaths from Katrina were mostly due to the damage to the poorly engineered levees- not the storm itself. We can’t blame “carbon pollution” for those levees failing.
Wanna bet?
Led Zeppelin (which I saw 3 times way, way back in the good old days)- I guess it’ll have to be rewritten to say “when the carbon pollution causes the levees to break…”
************************
If it keeps on rainin’, levee’s goin’ to break
If it keeps on rainin’, levee’s goin’ to break
When the levee breaks, I’ll have no place to stay
Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan, Lord
Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan
It’s got what it takes to make a mountain man leave his home
Oh well, oh well, oh well
Don’t it make you feel bad
When you’re tryin’ to find your way home
You don’t know which way to go?
If you’re goin’ down south
They got no work to do
If you’re going down to Chicago
A-ah, a-ah, a-ah
Cryin’ won’t help you, prayin’ won’t do you no good
No, cryin’ won’t help you, prayin’ won’t do you no good
When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move, ooh
All last night sat on the levee and moaned
All last night sat on the levee and moaned
Thinkin’ ’bout my baby and my happy home
Ah-oh
Ah, ah, ah, ah
Ah, ah, ah, ah
Goin’
I’m goin’ to Chicago
Goin’ to Chicago
Sorry, but I can’t take you, ahhh
Goin’ down, goin’ down now
Goin’ down, goin’ down now
Goin’ down, goin’ down
Goin’ down, goin’ down
Goin’ down, goin’ down now
Goin’ down, goin’ down now
Goin’ down, goin’ down now
Showoff!
scvblwxq ==> Not even close to : “Cyclone Bhola, which grew from a depression in the south central Bay of Bengal, hit what was then East Pakistan on 12-13 November 1970. It caused an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 fatalities,” [ source ]
Idalia didn’t cause any fatalities — there were two car crash fatalities “associated with” Idalia, but not caused by.
Perhaps the storm so fascinated the drivers they were unable to pay attention to where they were going.
Or perhaps the drivers were so anxious about “CLIMATE BREAKDOWN!!!!!”, they forgot to check the road ahead
“November 1970. It caused an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 fatalities,”
A statement about population density.
As the vast majority of Katrina deaths were really caused by politics, by building of an “unsustainable” landscape and then deliberately and knowingly refusing to maintain it, in favor of spending the resources on pork barrel politics, the particulares of the storm were minor factors.
Lifespans are a terrible way to measure anything but lifespans.
Historic body counts are a terrible way to measure anything but population.
Historic disaster repair costs are a terrible way to measure anything but inflation.
etc.
Hurricanes are strong winds bearing water, so lets measure them by wind speed or water volume.
Great post and right on point. it’s also very possible that the news person / broadcaster knows exactly what they are doing and feel it is their job to sensationalize the news, in other words they understand what they are doing. They are conditioned to sensationalize the news because that gets them reposts, credits and kudos. So the only way to counter this is to point out as you have what they are doing and why it is wrong, let alone unprofessional.
“If it bleeds, it ledes.”
Danley ==> With all the CCNow cabal partners, they not only admit, but insist that : ” it is their job to sensationalize the[climate/weather] news.”
It is not a case of innocent-but-slothful journalism. The pseudo-science parroted by all the weather blogs, newspapers, etc., is a coordinated, deliberate, effort to promote lies about human CO2.
At the bottom of it all: MONEY (that of those who own/control those blogs/”news” providers who are HEAVILY invested in SOLAR, WIND, EV’S, “CARBON STORAGE,” etc.).
Here is a recent example of such “climate change” lies coordination:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/08/30/major-media-plans-a-massive-collusion-fest-to-get-their-stories-straight-on-climate-change/
Janice ==> Yes, Anthony is writing about CCNow in that piece as well. CCNow is one of the climate crisis news propaganda outfits operating today.
The MSM has been bought by the Marxists …. is that hard to understand? If reporters/journalists (sic) fail to toe the party line they won’t have jobs. Me thinks most everyone understands that but those that support the party line turn a blind eye.
In the U.K. it’s Chinese whispers. I’m surprised it hasn’t been banned as being offensive, racist and wrong!
After all it isn’t about facts and data, it’s about feelings. As the computer put it to Spock: how do you feel?
When I was young and gullible my parents always said this was true.
An army patrol sent a message back to HQ
Send us reinforcements we’re going to advance.
HQ received
Lend us three and four pence we’re going to a dance
Still makes me smile.
🙂
Ben ==> A fine example, thanks. Other readers can supply their own examples — there used to be a lot of them floating around.
“Rule Britannia
Two tanners make a bob
And five make two and six pence
and one for his Nob’ “
Ah, yes. That’s a Golden Oldie.
This is slightly ruder, but also a classic.
Yes, I’ve forgotten how many times I lived through those episodes in my 40 years in the corporate world.
And from what I can see, today nothing has changed.
strativarius ==> “I’m surprised it hasn’t been banned as being offensive, racist” — well . yes, we much more correct Americans don’t call it that…
True but us rather less correct Brits were playing it before telephones were invented…
MSM is largely an echo chamber for “If it bleeds, it leads.”
With Idalia, Florida got lucky. It went north of Tampa Bay, and south of Tallahassee. Big Bend is rural and lightly populated. It was fast moving. And as it came ashore was undergoing eye wall replacement.
Rud ==> “With Idalia, Florida got lucky” — yes, one news story called it a “weather sneeze”….the little shift that saved Tallahassee.
Does population growth in Florida increase the odds of climate change?
This is a problem with more than just the whole climate thing. Journalists routinely copy and paraphrase reports without ever checking accuracy or applicability. Health reports, science reports, hell, even astronomical reports often get twisted beyond recognition through this “telephone game.”
By the way — that’s a great term for this phenomenon. Thanks.
First it was the telegraph, then the teletype, and now the internet. So much easier to ‘rip and read’ than do any questioning.
Christopher Simpson ==> You are exactly right. One problem is too few journalists and too many story demands. It takes be several work-days to put together a real good essay for WUWT. Today’s journalists are not the same quality we saw in the 1950-1980 decades — when one got fired for a story with factual errors.
Even in the early 1970s, as a radio journalist, I had to be exceptionally careful to get facts straight or they’d pull my Press Pass.
I have used, in the past, the analogy of an echo chamber between the media and advocacy groups. In an echo chamber, the sound is bounced around continually becoming more and more distorted. I have seen examples where some sloppy journalist mistook meters for feet or years for decades in a scientific journal article, and then an advocacy group will repeat the distorted news report as fact to gain contributions. Then some other journalist will repeat what the advocacy group has written. And around and around the noise goes.
Who in their right mind would ever put somebody like say Rachel Maddow in charge of a really important intelligence gathering project for example? Or a bubble headed bleach blond that comes on at 5. Yet people gobble all this stuff up. Surprised humanity has made it this far.
Reminds me of this:
Gunga ==> Your Federal Government (or EU government) in action!
And it’s not just weather news, you could say the same for everything they report. I have zero confidence in the mainstream media.
Yes, I see this kind of reporting every day. Half a dozen news articles on the same subject, with minor changes.
“The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
-Thomas Jefferson, 1787
Pew Research figures that the average amount of time Americans spent in reading at top 50 U.S. newspaper websites by circulation was 2 1/2 minutes in 2014 with a more or less straight line decline to 2020 of less than 2 minutes. In other news…
“People are dying. Ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a massive extinction…”
kip
5. The Mainstream Mass Media, propelled and urged on by climate alarm propagandists exaggerate warning meant locally to national disaster size and then focus their stories on the down-side and not the “it’s a miracle” side.
Im sorry, but its not Mainstream Media.
as the storm approached local media and Desantis,ALL took to the airwaves to do 3 things
how much stuff is preplanned, pre deployed, lineman, tree trimming services, sand bagging machines.
look there will always be competing narratives
like YOUR bogus narrative
3. Almost no loss of life as a result of Hurricane Idalia – two fatal auto accidents, both of which could have happened on any rainy day
A. there were three deaths
clue: dont engage in propaganda when calling out propaganda
Sounds like a well-planned response. We should elect him president.
Like most of those on the left, steve starts with the assumption that everyone who doesn’t agree with him is stupid.
That’s why he was shocked to find evidence that DeSantis actually knows what he is doing.
Yet another incoherent load of rambling garbage from moosh !
“don’t engage in propaganda when calling out propaganda”
Says moosh… while engaging in empty attempt at his own propaganda… and failing.
Mosher ==> I am sorry that you were unable to understand the issue discussed in the essay.
DeSantis and local media rightly did their jobs — warning the public of the dangers of a powerful landfalling hurricane in the areas at risk. The Mayor of Miami did not, as did Oregon Public Radio, take to the airwaves to rant about the hurricane nor inappropriately morph boilerplate text into a “prediction” or an actual occurrence.
DeSantis and his emergency team did a terrific job positioning relief teams and electrical repair crews, which is how they got power back on for so many so quickly.
Shall I write to The Boston Globe and the New York Times, whom I quoted, on your behalf of course, and tell them that they mis-reported the death toll from Idalia? You might be able to excuse them on the basis of early reporting. After all the state’s 25 local district medical examiners had reported, there may be a couple more deaths that could be “attributed to/associated with” Idalia. Even you missed the windsurfer, off Cape Canaveral 200 miles away, who went missing at sea the same day, and the man who died in a traffic crash in Gainesville 50 miles inshore, hours before Idalia made landfall. You’ll just have to do better.
Thank you for checking in.
It’s not that he couldn’t understand, rather understanding is not in his job description.
So much effort with so little result.
OK, local news sources were equally bad about serving up scary scenarios. That doesn’t excuse the big boys doing it.
If you are shocked that people who live in areas routinely hit by hurricanes know how to get ready for one, that’s just more evidence of how out of touch you are.
Now you are claiming to know more about the damage done than do the first responders who are actually on scene?
If you think that the only time Florida gets more than a drizzle is during a hurricane, you are even more clueless than you indicated in the past. Florida gets heavy gully washer types storms 3 or 4 times a week during the summer.
If you believe it takes a hurricane to knock down a tree, then you are either an idiot or incredibly ignorant.
Even if your “fact” is correct, funny how you equate getting something wrong with deliberate propaganda.
I guess steve’s type of idiocy is what happens when his first goal is to deflect attention from the failures of his allies.
For a ‘reporter’, it makes no difference whether the story is researched or cribbed , the pay is the same.
Gabby ==> If journalists were considered as information sources on the same level as the checkout clerk in your local convenience store, then we could excuse this sort of irresponsibility.
From what I have read, a good checkout clerk might end up making more than a cub reporter.
Of course the checkout clerk provides a service that people benefit from.
To be fair, Mark, the cub reporter might provide a beneficial service at first, but won’t remain in that line of work long if he continues to do so.
G’Day Kip,
“… information sources …”
It was the early 1960’s. I’d just bought my first transistor radio. Sanyo, Ten Transistor, medium wave and short wave bands. Got home, unboxed it, installed AA cells. Out to the front verandah, antenna extended. Local stations, loud and clear. Started tuning across the short wave band. A strong signal, a female voice, no particular accent, reading the news. “Today Indian forces fired two hundred rounds of artillery fire at Chinese positions.” I waited till a station ID was given “This is Radio Peking”. Had supper. Back outside, still on short wave. An Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) news, “Today Chinese forces fired two hundred rounds of artillery fire at Indian positions.”
For some reason it was about that time that I started to have some slight doubts about ‘accuracy of the news’. That doubt has only been reinforced over the years. Today when I come across a ‘news source’ I’m not familiar with, I look at how they report on subjects that I have personal knowledge of. If my experience tells me “That’s wrong”, then I assume that stories about other subjects are just as wrong. Forget that source. (It works for me, your mileage may vary.)
Send three and fourpence. We are going to a dance.
A famous (?apocryphal) case of the Telephone Game dating from WW I when the field telephones to the trenches were a bit dodgy. The message was supposed to be “Send reinforcements. We are going to advance.”
The news media has been at this for a long time.
Remember Jessica Lynch? The female US soldier captured in Iraq during the 2003 invasion. It started with the first reports saying she fired at enemy troops but she didn’t due to her rifle having jammed. She had been knocked unconscious when her vehicle crashed during the ambush, from which she sustained major injuries. In other words the only things the media got right was her name and that she had been captured during a convoy ambush.
Later, when she was released from hospital to return home, a reporter wrote a happy story of her homecoming, which Reuters repeatedly edited and altered until it was a story of a bitter and disgruntled veteran disillusioned with the military etc. The reporter demanded Reuters remove her byline from the article that had nothing left from her original but they refused to do so. She had to resort to publishing her original story on her own website to get what she really wrote out to the public.
Isn’t it called “Churnalism”?
Years ago my Mom and Dad lived in Wilmington NC and out my way in Arizona we would hear awful stories of destruction on the news, so as a concerned child I would call and my Dad would say what are you talking about, just a little storm and we are OK. Fear always seems to be the main thrust of any newscast, same as CCBS, and I would say call me if it gets real bad. Never did get that call. Not that it might someday happen but sick of being scared everyday of something coming. Look under the bed young man, you never know where evil lurks.
“The Mainstream Mass Media, propelled and urged on by climate alarm propagandists exaggerate warning meant locally to national disaster size and then focus their stories on the down-side and not the “it’s a miracle” side.”
Propelled by lots of things – including competition from Kip Hansen – to draw an audience. Mass media is comfort noise for people who rarely change their buying habits.