False balance is the bane of a science communicator's existence. KATU's Genevieve Reaume provided false balance in abundance in a story about the measles outbreak and the antivaccine movement.
Category: Television
Amazon, Facebook, and other streaming and social media platforms are finally cracking down on antivaccine misinformation
Over the last two weeks, Amazon, YouTube, Facebook, and other social media platforms started to crackdown on the spread of antivaccine misinformation on their services. Will it be enough?
A commercial disguised as a local news report about “functional neurologist” Chris Turnpaugh
Chris Turnpaugh, a chiropractor and "functional neurologist," treated a young man with a traumatic brain injury. Did it do any good? Of course not, functional neurology is just as much quackery as any functional medicine.
Curewell: IV hydration woo on my local news station
I saw my favorite station airing an advertisement disguised as a news story for a Curewell IV HAUS, which sells IV "therapy." I did not approve.
Sharyl Attkisson is back, and she’s flogging a new-old antivaccine conspiracy theory
As a reporter with a decade-long history of credulously reporting antivaccine conspiracy theories and pseudoscience as news, Sharyl Attkisson is an old "friend" of the blog. This time, she's reporting a new-old conspiracy theory about the Autism Omnibus proceedings. I say "new-old" because she tries to mightily to produce a new version of the central conspiracy theory of the antivaccine movement.
My Cancer Free Life: Reality docuseries as a commercial for cancer quack Stanislaw Burzynski
When I first encountered Stanislaw Burzynski and the Burzynski Clinic around a decade ago, I didn’t know what to make of him. Sure, he seemed quacky, with all the testimonials of miracle cures and the claims that he cured deadly brain cancers like diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) that conventional oncology could do no more than palliate. Sure, it was rather odd that he had never done a fellowship in oncology or an oncology-related specialty. However, he was a Polish expat who seemingly was an excellent student, and he did have a brief career as a real cancer researcher at …
The University of Northern Iowa promotes facilitated communication quackery
The University of Northern Iowa is hosting a conference on facilitated communication, despite multiple warnings from academics that it's quackery and overwhelming evidence that it is the "facilitators" who are actually producing the claimed "communication" from nonverbal people and a history of producing false cases of child abuse. Why is UNI being so dangerously irresponsible?
Who cares what celebrities think about vaccines?
Parents Magazine published an article in which it listed what various celebrity moms think of vaccines. Unfortunately, it was an example of false equivalence. Indeed, it was one of the worst examples of false equivalence I've ever seen.
Stephen Colbert sells out to Gwyneth Paltrow and Goop
Almost alone among celebrities, Stephen Colbert used to ruthlessly (and justifiably) mock Gwyneth Paltrow's lifestyle brand Goop on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. So eyebrows were raised (at least mine were) when it was learned that Paltrow would be a guest on The Late Show. During a bout of insomnia last night I saw the episode and had time to write about it. Her appearance was worse than I expected, a veritable puff piece promoting her her quackiest In Goop Health, where a featured speaker is a rabidly antivaccine doctor named Kelly Brogan.
False balance in reporting the case of a local mother jailed for contempt of court for reneging on an agreement to vaccinate her child
Rachel Bredow is antivaccine and doesn't want her children vaccinated. Her ex-husband disagrees. When Ms. Bredow violated a court order to vaccinate her child, she was thrown into jail for contempt of court. Unfortunately, our local media have not exactly covered themselves in glory covering this story.