Friday, June 05, 2020
Headlines for May 29, 2020
Worst, Most Misleading & Funniest Headlines for May 29, 2020
*Black man dies in Minneapolis police custody after video shows officer kneeling on neck
"Dies". No, George Floyd was killed. "It drew comparisons to the case of Eric Garner, an unarmed black New York man who died in 2014 after he was placed in a chokehold by police and pleaded for his life saying he couldn’t breathe." Again, killed.
And another standard euphemism from Amy Klobuchar (in a tweet): “My statement on the officer-involved death in Minneapolis”.
And the response? No mention that the police tear gassed the protesters. But just two days ago, there were screaming headlines, like this from the Mercury News: “Police fire at protesters with tear gas and water cannon”. Local TV mentioned, with video, protesters throwing rocks; no mention of tear gas.
*Bystander Videos of George Floyd and Others Are Policing the Police
Subhead: The initial police account of the death of a Minneapolis man did not mention that an officer’s knee pinned him to the ground.
Front page, print edition: Videos and police reports differ in string of deadly encounters
Proper headline: Videos thwart police attempts at cover ups
“The Minneapolis police statement was short and sanitized. An allegation of forgery. A suspect who “appeared to be under the influence,” who “physically resisted officers” and who appeared to be “suffering medical distress.””
*Iranian fuel starts arriving in Venezuelan waters despite U.S. warning
“Warning”? No, it was a “threat”, accompanied by the presence of U.S. Navy destroyers.
*Trump sides with religious leaders in fight against governors
Headline makes it appear that all religious leaders agree with Trump which is, of course, completely false. I doubt it’s even a majority.
*Finding time to golf and jab enemies
Front page three days later: “Trump slams MSNBC host with a smear”.
The enemy Trump is “jabbing” and “slamming” is Joe Scarborough, who Trump accuses of murder.
*Roughly half the Twitter accounts pushing to 'reopen America' are bots, researchers found
But the CMU study press release on which this article is based is headlined “Nearly Half Of The Twitter Accounts Discussing ‘Reopening America’ May Be Bots” [emphasis added]
“Accounts that are possibly humans with bot assistants generate 66% of the tweets. Accounts that are definitely bots generate 34% of the tweets.
"When we see a whole bunch of tweets at the same time or back to back, it's like they're timed," Carley said. "We also look for use of the same exact hashtag, or messaging that appears to be copied and pasted from one bot to the next."”
Actual study: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/news/nearly-half-twitter-accounts-discussing-%E2%80%98reopening-america%E2%80%99-may-be-bots
To analyze bot activity around the pandemic, CMU researchers since January have collected more than 200 million tweets discussing coronavirus or COVID-19. Of the top 50 influential retweeters, 82% are bots, they found. Of the top 1,000 retweeters, 62% are bots.
"We're seeing up to two times as much bot activity as we'd predicted based on previous natural disasters, crises and elections,"
“it’s being used by various countries and interest groups as an opportunity to meet political agendas,"
“"We do know that it looks like it's a propaganda machine, and it definitely matches the Russian and Chinese playbooks, but it would take a tremendous amount of resources to substantiate that," Carley said.”
Even before coronavirus, Social Security was staring at a shortfall
The shortfall in benefits payments doesn’t happen until 2035; easy to miss that from the headline.
*GOP Plans Stronger Role in Who Gets To Vote
NYT Front page, 5/19
Online: Freed by Court Ruling, Republicans Step Up Effort to Patrol Voting
Nice euphemisms for “voter suppression”
Merkel cites 'hard evidence' she was targeted by Russian hackers
Missing from this article? The slightest clue as to what that “hard evidence” consists of. Also missing? Any reminder that the NSA tapped Merkel’s phone for years.
