Anyone know where I am based on this single picture?
.@adamsteinbaugh was right first: Grand Junction, Colorado! I was siked about my first "business trip" of the pandemic, to Aspen, but it wasn't meant to be... flight was diverted... there was no way to get there in time for my event... and suddenly I actually MISSED Zoom.
Front page of today's @DailySentinelGJ is about one of the other reasons why I couldn't make it to Aspen on time: Massive mudslides on I-70. "Canyon project manager amazed at size of debris flows, sees climate change role"
Mini-thread: In a typical newsroom, one team covers elections. A different team covers crime and justice, like 1/6 riot prosecutions. A wholly separate team covers health and science, like the pandemic and vaccines. Fact-checking? A separate unit too.
Structurally this makes sense: Different reporters bring expertise to bear on all sorts of subjects. But there are connections between these beats, and they need to be covered accordingly. The connections are part of the story...
The folks who are wrongly convinced that Trump actually won the election are also more likely to resist the Covid-19 vaccines that Trump fast-tracked. The folks who want to believe that the riot was "peaceful" are also susceptible to other types of misinfo cnn.com/2021/07/16/med…
Fox Weather was announced last year. I viewed it as part of a bigger story Fox is telling via the press – portraying CEO Suzanne Scott as an expansionist, leading Fox into new lines of businesses like lifestyle (they produced a Christmas movie) and weather and podcasts and books.
"But," I wrote in HoaxTheBook.com, "these experiments belied the fact that Fox was more dependent than ever on its propaganda players." Sure, Fox News Media has lots of arms, but its face is Tucker Carlson. The profits come from Carlson, Hannity, "The Five" – rage TV.
Today is the launch day for HOAX in paperback. It's the final edition of a book I have been writing for years. You can order a copy at BuyHoax.com. But this is more than a promotional thread, I promise! This is the "story behind the story," as I like to say on TV
I started blogging about cable news in 2004. Which means I've been studying Fox News for a long, long time. When Trump became the "Fox president," I felt compelled to write it all down. We were going to call the book WINGMEN, until the pandemic hit, and @jcheiffetz coined HOAX.
The Trump age was really the "hoax" age. This was clear when the hardcover edition came out last August. But the story wasn't over yet. I asked to add a few more chapters. Then, after the election, a few more. After the riot, a new prologue. Eventually I added 20,000+ new words.
Is there an "information lag" about Covid-19? I perceive that reliable info about the *reasons* for relaxed Covid guidelines and rules is lagging behind the announcements and adjustments. Short thread here...
For example: How many American adults know the facts about (virtually nonexistent) outdoor transmission of the virus? Are they relying on one-year-old guesses rather than the latest research? Are news outlets doing enough to amplify the newest info?
"Information lag" may explain why some public outdoor spaces in blue states are still posting "wear a mask" signs. And it may explain why some red states are lagging far behind in vaccinations. cnn.com/videos/busines…
As you read this interview with Tucker Carlson, about how much he hates "the media," remember that he works for a major media company that employs hundreds of journalists. outkick.com/tucker-carlson…
Carlson is right that "journalism should always be upward. We should be doing the tough stories on the people with the most power." But he's clearly not reading much, because that's what journalists ARE doing. He claims "there's no scrutiny on Jeff Bezos," for example. Really?
Carlson touts his new streaming docu-series, "45 minutes or an hour on one topic," and says it's "basic journalism. That's almost groundbreaking today. It doesn't really happen anymore." Huh? Tell that to the 1000s of folks who are part of a decade-long documentary renaissance!
Well this is a mouthful: CBS is merging its national news division with its local TV stations and naming two execs -- Neeraj Khemlani and Wendy McMahon -- to jointly run it all.
The pitch for this new structure: "It speaks to our ability to scale newsgathering, production, technical and operational resources to serve both national and local, linear and digital, with the agility to deliver trusted information to every platform." businesswire.com/news/home/2021…
CBS says "Susan Zirinsky will continue as President of CBS News until the new leadership has started and will assist with the transition. The Company is in discussions with Zirinsky for a significant role at a new CBS News Content Studio to be launched later this year."