Study faults media coverage of COVID vaccine requirement for transplants

Study faults media coverage of COVID vaccine requirement for transplantsPortraying views opposed to those held by health experts stokes needless controversy When they launched their study, Timothy Caulfield and Marco Zenone could hardly have anticipated how the issue would capture headlines in Alberta. And yet they decided to examine how the common COVID-19 vaccination requirement for organ transplant recipients is represented in the popular…

Netflix’s ‘Ancient Apocalypse’ is more fiction than fact

Netflix’s ‘Ancient Apocalypse’ is more fiction than factShow should be reclassified as “science fiction” rather than “documentary” Since the controversial documentary series Ancient Apocalypse dropped on Netflix last November, academics and journalists around the world have been incensed at its false claims and misinformation. Earlier this month, the Society for American Archaeology wrote a letter to Netflix urging the platform to reclassify…

Has media literacy led us down the path to partisanship?

Telling someone to "do the research" may in fact do more harm than good

Has media literacy led us down the path to partisanship?The expression that beauty, or art, is in the eye of the beholder means that it’s the viewer who decides. The same is true of the beholder of news stories. More simply, new research shows us, again, that news consumers see what they want to see. The latest research data comes from the ongoing conflict…

The Liberals are masters of misinformation and disinformation

When it comes to the lust for power, the first victim is always the truth

The Liberals are masters of misinformation and disinformationThe Trudeau government has taken #fakenews, #alternativefacts, #misinformation, and #disinformation to a whole new, breathtaking level. This week, the Liberals introduced legislation that will freeze the buying, importing, and selling of handguns and pretended gun owners won’t be affected. You may agree or disagree with that approach, but what is clear is that if you…

Disinformation, misinformation are the new energy battlegrounds

But what happens when disinformation campaigns run headlong into reality?

Disinformation, misinformation are the new energy battlegroundsI’m not a fan of making predictions because there are usually way too many variables at play. Trying to guess the price of oil leaves me speechless despite the pathetically large number of hours I spend trying to understand the market. Yet, given the way 2022 is unfolding, I offer the following predictions as more…

Time to unmask the truth about wearing masks

Since 2020 Alberta chiropractors have been required to wear masks. Now one of them has had enough

Time to unmask the truth about wearing masksSince last September, experts have testified at a tribunal hearing for an Alberta chiropractor on how well masks do, or don’t, slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Unfortunately, the chiropractor’s college, YouTube and LinkedIn didn’t want you to know what was said because most of it contradicts what people have been told…

Lazy journalism becoming a mouthpiece for the State’s narrative

There is a growing comfort in institutional journalism to follow rather than question

Lazy journalism becoming a mouthpiece for the State’s narrativeWarning lights should always flash before our eyes whenever journalists mix raw numbers and percolating percentages in the same paragraph. Numbers clearly state actuality. Percentages are the ups and downs of context. Regardless of the axiom attributed to Stalin that one death is a tragedy and a million is a statistic, if two people die,…

Social media campaign takes on COVID vaccine hesitancy

Aims to help people find credible information online

Social media campaign takes on COVID vaccine hesitancyThe problem with combatting the misinformation swirling around COVID-19 is, according to University of Alberta health law professor Timothy Caulfield, that all fronts the fight takes place on are of equal importance. “For a long time there has been this tolerance of pseudoscience and misinformation,” said Caulfield. “But there are recent studies that show once people believe…
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