“All right, who farted?”
Here’s a rule that I would like to propose: if a news outlet can’t find a reporter who has the education and analytical ability to comprehend a complex concept, then the story shouldn’t be covered at all. Better no coverage than misleading coverage. What do you think?
Of course, this would mean that about half of all news stories wouldn’t be covered, since if journalists had the ability to understand those topics, they would have entered professions other than journalism.
Fox News shocked the world this week by announcing that a new study had shown the dinosaurs farted themselves out of existence:
“Dinosaurs may have farted themselves to extinction, according to a new study from British scientists. The researchers calculated that the prehistoric beasts pumped out more than 520 million tons (472 million tonnes) of methane a year — enough to warm the planet and hasten their own eventual demise. Until now, an asteroid strike and volcanic activity around 65 million years ago had seemed the most likely cause of their extinction.”
Except that this is not what the study showed at all. P.Z. Myers, a genuine scientist, actually read the research paper Fox was referring to, and could understand it. He wrote:
“There is nothing about extinction in the paper; it would have been ridiculous and I was prepared to dismiss such a claim without even reading the paper (the Jurassic lasted 55 million years, the Cretaceous 80 million, with dinosaurs farting away throughout). But the paper makes no such claim, instead suggesting that the mass of herbivores during the Mesozoic would have made a substantial, but stable, contribution of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere that may have been partially responsible for the warmer, moister climate of the era and the greater primary production.”
Thanks, P.Z. Now if you can just come up with some way for us to get accurate information about developments when former students who got D’s in Chemistry, Biology, Physics are presuming to digest technical information and communicate to those of is who got B’s and C’s, we’ll really be grateful.
For the record, Fox: it’s unethical to report fiction because you can’t or won’t hire writers competent enough to report facts….even if you can’t tell the difference. Because when you print stuff as fact that is not even close to true, it really stinks…kind of like dinosaur farts.
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Pointer: Fark
Facts: Pharygula
Sources: Fox News
Graphic: All Posters
Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work was used in any way without proper attribution, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at jamproethics@verizon.net
Ethics Alarms 
It’s unethical for you to report that dinosaur farts stink when you haven’t smelled them for yourself.
I had a slam dunk punch line to your comment, and then realized it would have me sleeping on the porch.
Ah, the art of saying something while claiming you’re not saying it.
Shhhh.
If you’ve ever ridden in a Prius with an Apatosaurus after a brown bread and bean potluck, well………..
Another day, another opportunity to see that both what is called science and what is called journalism smell worse of partisan politics every new day.
Um, there’s nothing wrong with the science here, just the “journalism”.
Beware olfactory hallucinations.
Fox may have supplied the instant example, but reporters and anchors who are unencumbered by science-knowledge are not limited to Fox News. Many in the media also display a shocking lack of knowledge of economics, history and math, again, a market Fox has failed to corner.
Yes, I was kind of sorry it was Fox, because the rest of the media likes to encourage the myth that it is somehow less sophisticated, since conservatives are, after all, self-evidently dumb. It easily could have been any of them. Though it was ironic, as one of Myers’ commenters pointed out, to see a Fox reporter erroneously assuming that increased gaseous emissions caused catastrophic global warming, don’t you think?
The rest of the media, unfortunately, set the bar very low.
It is pleasant to contemplate the possibility that the Fox reporters might be the next species to fart itself out of existence. I guess foxes just don’t generate enough methane, though.
Well, this started my day right. Although now in my 8th decade, there is a certain small portion of my brain that has failed to mature out of adolescence, and that is the portion that loves to laugh at fart jokes.
Best buds Jerry, Joe and I used to delight in driving poor Sister Rita to distraction with our repertoire of artificial “rude noises”.
I’ll assume it was intended as a “silly news” filler! After all that nutty junk we’ve been hearing about cattle driving “global warming” in a similar manner, that dinosaur story was just the icing on the cake… if you will.