Tag: journalism

Too good to fact-check? Academic journal publishes hoax on conservative takeover of higher ed

Aprestigious academic journal has egg on its face for publishing a hoax paper that claimed to find widespread concerns about “undue” conservative influence in higher education.

“Right-wing money strongly appears to induce faculty and administrators … to believe that they are pressured to hire and promote people they regard as inferior candidates, to promote ideas they regard as poor, and to suppress people and ideas they regard as superior,” according to the abstract in Higher Education Quarterly.

Peer reviewers failed to perform basic due diligence on the paper submitted in April and approved in October, neglecting, for example, to verify that authors “Sage Owens” and “Kal Alvers-Lynde III” were UCLA professors as they claimed. Owens even used an encrypted email service for correspondence with the journal.

They didn’t check whether the conservative foundations named as active funders of higher education actually existed. The “Randy Eller Foundation” is made up, while the Olin Foundation shut down in 2005.

The author who goes by Owens told The Chronicle of Higher Education that the journal didn’t even ask to see their data: “Every page has some glaring errors.”

The authors’ stated names provide a clue when spelled as an acronym: “SOKAL III.” That indicates this is the second successful hoodwink tracing its inspiration to physicist Alan Sokal’s famous parody of leftist “gibberish” in the journal Social Text in 1996.

“We wanted to improve over previous hoaxes by publishing in what was supposed to be a reputable journal,” Owens wrote in an email to Just the News. 

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‘This is obscene’: LinkedIn now censoring U.S. journos on orders from China

Axios’ Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian shared this email she received from the U.S.-based LinkedIn informing her that the company will be censoring her profile to readers in China due to “the presence of prohibited content” located in her profile.

“I used to have to wait for Chinese govt censors, or censors employed by Chinese companies in China, to do this kind of thing,” she tweeted.  “Now a US company is paying its own employees to censor Americans”.

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Where Was All The Investigative Journalism On US Airstrikes The Last 20 Years?

The Pentagon has finally admitted to the long-obvious fact that it killed ten Afghan civilians, including seven children, in an airstrike in Kabul last month.

In an article with the obscenely propagandistic title “Pentagon acknowledges Aug. 29 drone strike in Afghanistan was a tragic mistake that killed 10 civilians,” the New York Times pats itself on the back for its investigative journalism showing that the so-called “ISIS-K facilitator” targeted in the strike was in fact an innocent aid worker named Zemari Ahmadi:

“The general acknowledged that a New York Times investigation of video evidence helped investigators determine that they had struck a wrong target. ‘As we in fact worked on our investigation, we used all available information,’ General McKenzie told reporters. ‘Certainly that included some of the stuff The New York Times did.’”

Indeed, the Pentagon only admitted to the unjust slaughter of civilians in this one particular instance because the mass media did actual investigative journalism on this one particular airstrike. This is an indictment of the Pentagon’s airstrike protocol, but it’s also an indictment of the mass media.

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Washington court rules YouTubers aren’t members of the news media

The Washington State Supreme Court rules that YouTubes are not a member of the “News Media,” and therefore do not qualify for press privileges. The ruling shows how existing legislation works against individual and independent journalists whose medium is online platforms.

In the Green vs. Pierce County case, the Washington Supreme Court ruled that the YouTuber is not a member of the “News Media.” Green runs a news YouTube channel called “Liberty’s Champion,” which has more than 18k subscribers. He submitted a public records request to Pierce County after he had a disagreement with a security guard employed by the county. The purpose of the request was to get more information about the county’s security force.

We obtained a copy of the case documents for you here.

The county obliged to the request, but did not submit all the records Green requested. He requested all the records, arguing that as a member of the news media, he was entitled to the information. The county still refused his request.

So he sued the county at the district court, which ruled in his favor. The county appealed at the supreme court, which ruled against Green.

The states laws define “news media” as:

“Any newspaper, magazine or other periodical, book publisher, news agency, wire service, radio or television station or network, cable or satellite station or network, or audio or audiovisual production company, or any entity that is in the regular business of news gathering and disseminating news or information to the public by any means, including, but not limited to, print, broadcast, photographic, mechanical, internet, or electronic distribution.”

From the definition, it is clear the statute has not been updated to keep up with the current times. While Green’s channel fits the definition of news media, it is disqualified by the phrase “entity,” whose legal definition, according to the court, should be interpreted to fit the traditional news outlets included in the statutes. Unfortunately, the list only includes organizations, not individuals.

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Lori Lightfoot Just Keeps Digging in Interview Defending Racist Media Policy

“I think, in this one day, when we are looking at the two-year anniversary of my inauguration, as a woman of color, as a lesbian, it’s important to me that diversity is put front and center,” she said, defending her position. “If I, as the black woman mayor, the first ever, don’t challenge us – the collective us – to do better, to really make sure that, in every institution, it reflects the diversity, and nuance, and texture of our city, then shame on me.”

Then truly, shame on you, Mayor, because when you are avowedly blocking people because of their skin color; you are not talking about diversity, you are being racist.

She’s judging people based on the color of their skin. It’s the opposite of diversity. You’re not challenging “us” to do better; you are just straight up doing worse. Really, stop already. You’re just making it worse, when you try to defend this nonsense.

The interview suggests what this is really about is a media avoidance strategy — that she just doesn’t like coverage that she’s gotten from some outlets.

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Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot to Grant Interviews Only to Black, Brown Journalists

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s spokesperson has reportedly announced that she will only give interviews to “Black or Brown” journalists on the occasion of reaching the halfway point in her term as mayor….

It is not clear whether the mayor’s racial policy applies only to one-on-one interviews, or whether it will extend to future interviews.

Lightfoot, the city’s first black female mayor, and also the first lesbian mayor, has been a target of public criticism for her harsh policies during the coronavirus pandemic, her failure to manage the Black Lives Matter riots, and a sharp rise in crime throughout the already-violent city.

Earlier this week, as Breitbart News reported, Lightfoot said that Chicagoans who had received the coronavirus vaccine should still wear masks, despite new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance suggesting that it is not necessary to do so.

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Kamala Harris Keeps A Running Tab On Reporters Who ‘Don’t Fully Understand’ Or ‘Appreciate’ Her

Vice President Kamala Harris (D) keeps a running list of reporters and journalists who “don’t fully understand or appreciate her life experience,” The Atlantic reported.

It appears the goal of the list is to keep Harris away from reporters she and her team have deemed unworthy of receiving an interview.

“The vice president and her team tend to dismiss reporters. Trying to get her to take a few questions after events is treated as an act of impish aggression. And Harris herself tracks political players and reporters whom she thinks don’t fully understand her or appreciate her life experience. (She often mentions an episode in which a Washington Post reporter mistook the cheer of the historic Black sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha for ‘screeches,’ I was told.),” the outlet indicated. “She particularly doesn’t like the word cautious, and aides look out for synonyms too. Careful, guarded, and hesitant don’t go over well. But she continues to retreat behind talking points and platitudes in public, and declines many interview requests and opportunities to speak for herself (including for this article).”

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