Pic True and Thru now Anew

When is News Is Not News?

Is it propaganda? Fake news releases, fake reporters, and fake polls, whether it be Medicare or other hot buttons, the passing off of these items as "news" is disingenuous. It seems that in today's marketplace, as in the internet, credibility can be bought and sold. The principles of a moral society, based on ethics and scruples, can be snookered for a short time. Unfortunately, some citizens will lose economically, or base decisions on faulty data causing chaos and distrust in our system.

pictruandtru

The following book with review, and link are inline with this premise:

Rampton, Sheldon and Stauber, John. Trust Us, We're Experts! -- How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future. New York: Tarcher/Putnam, 2001..

This book blows the lid off of "expert opinion" and "research" in America. While many recognize the threat from the big corporations, it remained for Stauber and Rampton to show that scientists and experts are often eager to sell their lab coats to the highest bidder. When you hear about some new research, what may be happening is that mega-corporation "A" hired PR firm "B", which hired expert "C" to fake some research. Then "B" organizes some astroturf pseudo-activists "D", to spin the results to the media "E", or better yet, "E" just runs the video feeds produced by "B" on the evening news, pretending that it's a story. This all translates into more profits for "A" through "E", while We the People get "F*****".

http://www.prwatch.org

found at: http://www.namebase.org/sources/eD.html

posted by pictruandtru @ 6:50 PM