Hello again everyone! Last week we delved into the pit of content consumption over a twenty-four hour period, sharing a personal look at ideas creating algorithms. This week we’ll be focusing on ideas as facts, how they’re made, and how they can be debunked. That is, with a little help from Reuters Fact Check. I hope you’ll keep a hopeful eye open for the ways you can participate in this process.
The post and bit of news we will be discussing comes in the name of Fact Check: ‘Disease X’ is a preparedness scenario, not a real disease planned by WEF. The article goes through the process of fact checking the claim that there is a mysterious disease that the World Economic Forum (WEF) is planning to unleash onto the public. The problem with this claim is there is a lack of understanding of pandemic preparedness. The claim is evidenced by a screenshot of the WEF’s article describing what will be discussed at the session. The problem is, there was a recording that talked about the hypothetical pandemic and preparedness efforts that ought to be taken. The “Disease X” is just the name for whatever disease comes along that we are not already prepared for; with a vector or pathogen we are yet to have knowledge of.
To remain neutral and uphold uniform standards of accuracy, Reuters follows the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) Code of Principles in their exploits. The fact checkers listened to the recording of the discussion that the claimant alleges Disease X’s rollout was to be communicated in. The minds also spoke with a representative of the organization and referenced their prior work fielding the problems with misinterpreting “pandemic preparedness.” Reuters concluded that there was missing context to the story and that there was not a planned disease being discussed. But now we need to some digging of our own.
Reuters did a fantastic job at primary source acquisition, but what did the rest of the world have to say when they reported on it? Well, if you’re Alex Jones, popular Mediatition of news analysis pieces, you’d have a lot to say. Specifically though, Jones surmised on his show, Disease X is not just a hypothetical future disease. He cites his own website’s article from June 2018 on the subject, claiming “this is UN,” stating that this is not him speaking, but relaying information from the UN. He also dictates that there are China factories developing this deadly strain of bird flu to be used alongside a mouse pox “blueprint” that he says will be retrofitted for humans. These in conjunction are to be utilized as a “race-specific bioweapon,” according to Jones. He states that this is the plan of a group of “Globalists,” teaming up with billionaires, hoping to reduce the world population. He says his sources state that this shadow organization is planning to release bioweapons, claim it was naturally occurring, and use it as a cover to initiate a state of emergency across the globe.
One is compelled to ask about this inflammatory article, is this news? Well, the technique given in a report Mitchell et al. (2018) wrote in Distinguishing between Factual and Opinion Statements in the News, will tell us that this depends if these are statements of fact. Some things he said include, China made this bird flu, he has sources that say that this is going to take place and be done via the “globalists,” and “this is historical fact.” Therefore, these are statements of fact, making it news. To some of you, these ideas sound farfetched, have no fear, they are also not credible.
Why isn’t this credible??? What an excellent question, allow me to explain. Perry Bacon Jr., over at FiveThirtyEight.com tipped that unverifiable predictions are suspicious, and Jones’ sources claim that the virus’ release will happen, not that it did. Also stated by Bacon Jr. in the same article is the idea that one must be specific even if the source must be anonymous, an example would be if I were an anonymous source; I might be quoted as: an ASU student in Digital Media Literacy; the closer you go to the ethos for the sources’ statement, the better. Jones does not make reference to any ethos of the sources, he instead claims that there are many of them. He also uses his own website as the source of the UN’s statements, never putting them on screen or linking to them. Each claim he makes is not backed up by any secondary article that he does not own, believe it or not. These are all reasons why I don’t trust the credibility of the claims made.
Alrighty then! Now that we’ve sufficiently covered a news source, credible or otherwise, we ought to move on towards something based in opinion. Peter Daszak has one such article in the New York Times: “We Knew Disease X Was Coming. It’s Here Now.” Daszak’s piece is unabashed in its idea that “Pandemics are on the rise, and we need to contain the process that drives them, not just the individual diseases.” This is not a statement of fact, it is his worldview, and stated here are his ideas. According to Mitchell et al. (2018,) this makes it an opinion piece and not a news article.
The question now becomes, how much do we trust this opinion? Also such a good question, thank you for asking. Daszak makes proscriptive statements, what we ought to do as a collective in preparing for the next pandemic. This article comes in late February, 2020, and he speaks as a Disease Ecologist. More specifically, he is one member of the team of experts responsible for the term, “Disease X.” He calls X the “next pandemic,” that it would be “caused by an unknown, novel pathogen,” not referring to any specific disease that is underway. He uses this as background information in order to make his more specific claims about Covid-19 being Disease X, that we should prepare for another X, as it simply means unexpected. As he is one of the primary sources of Disease X’s origin and not simply someone with a phone who quickly recorded an event, as Jay Smooth highlighted in Media & the Mind CCML #4, we may be able to trust his credentials. What are his credentials, though? Well, as stated above, he is part of a group of experts that coined the term, he is the president of a global health research organization, and he is an advisor to WHO (World Health Organization) on pathogen prioritization. So, he has a decent track record. Due to this ethos and the rest of the statements above, I’d say this is credible. Now how do I segue into a conclusion?
Oh wait, I think I know how to wrap this up. Today we discussed Reuters Fact Check on a debunked viral scare claiming an organization is planning to make you sick. In the process we learned how you can investigate the information you’re consuming, verify if the sources are talking facts or fates, and what level of credibility a site might have. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Tune in next week for another hopeful inquiry into a new controversial topic: vaccines and autism. See ya then!
Be intelligent and get off the internet,
pey
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