Newsweek journalist loses his mind, Mother Jones coincidentally defends them immediately
A journalist demanding that another journalist not use a science site as a source? Someone not only doesn't want us to talk about science they happen not to accept, they demand that everyone else suppress us also? If it sounds weirdly social authoritarian, yeah, it is, but unsurprising in modern corporate media.
If I were as much of a conspiracy theorist as he seems to be, I would contend that he is almost certainly a plant for some environmental group that is in a panic because we are actual trusted guides for the public and stand up to their scaremongering about anything that has a chemical name - which is everything.
Bet: If challenged on his Google University specious claim, this demographically just-what-you-expect millennial will scramble and cite SourceWatch and Mother Jones after the fact. Why an actual neutral journalist would do that is a mystery but clearly that is not Mr. Main. SourceWatch is a dark money-funded attack site run by a former Clinton lawyer that only vilifies pro-science groups. Mother Jones created a foundation that only has one recipient - Mother Jones - and the only reason it exists is to launder corporate money for Mother Jones. Doug Main is also paid by a corporation yet would likely insist that makes no difference in his writing - ironically, the exact thing he says scientists are incapable of doing.
That is modern journalism? Newsweek got sold for $1 - if their journalistic critical thinking is as keen on other topics as it is about us, someone overpaid.
But the story doesn't end there...
What happened the moment I criticized SourceWatch on Twitter, since it was obvious this writer at Newsweek filters his science through them?
Tom Philpott, the favorite mouthpiece for anti-science groups in a war on poor people, immediately chimed in.
Why would a writer at a far-left political magazine rush to defend SourceWatch? If you look on Google's page about us, the answer is obvious; it is all the same groups, consisting of the same core people, all parroting each other. Lisa Graves, the former Clinton lawyer who runs SourceWatch, also helps run U.S. Right To Know, which is overtly funded by Big Organic, and they routinely attempt to bully and intimidate scientists as part of their mission, and they repeatedly lean on Mother Jones, which published a stolen document cobbled together by a fired employee and stated it meant we were a corporate PR firm.
Well, if you want corporate PR, go to Mother Jones.
Who is a reliable shill for organic food corporations, according to their own internal documentation?
The same Tom Philpott of Mother Jones rushing to defend SourceWatch. Here he is in a corporate email listed by discredited anti-GMO economist Chuck Benbrook as "DONE", which means he did exactly what corporate handlers wanted him to do.
Who has never shown up on a corporate list as being a go-to source for misinformation the way Philpott routinely is? Me.
Yet Mother Jones lets a writer continue to insist pro-science groups are the corporate shills when their corporate donations are usually around a whopping $13 million a year. To logical people, that makes no sense - you have to be a hard-left Denier For Hire to understand that nuance.
2. ACSH helps keep Macalester College from purchasing toxic property
A school was considering buying a mixed-use building known as the Stoltz property, contingent on the results of an environmental review. The review came in and it was found that it had perchloroethylene (PCE - a common dry cleaning chemical that can result in nausea, headaches and dizziness in instances of really high exposure) residue and petroleum pollution, which the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry says can lead to nausea, fatigue, headaches and drowsiness, and perhaps central nervous system damage in really high doses.
We love science, and that means we love chemicals that benefit society, but not all chemicals are great for you.
3. International Business Times questions WebMD's advisory for consumers to buy organic
If you want good health advice, you should avoid WebMD, and a 30-page-click (really, they were so shameless they put an organic item on 30 different pages, making you click through each one to sell 30 ads) love ode to Environmental Working Group's ridiculous list - which doesn't even have a source more recent than seven years old - tells you why. It is just a jumble of what has never passed for health advice and should be banned at medical sites: rehashing an anti-science press release by a partisan group whose insiders sell the products it recommends.
4. A radioactive wave from Japan is scheduled to hit the U.S. in 2014
Here is a strange thing to have show up in a media list over the weekend: a warning about the nuclear plant incident in Fukushima prefecture, Japan. It was dated May, 2016 and said that as "radioactive water from a Japanese nuclear reactor tsunami nears the U.S. -- it is expected to hit in 2014 -- can we be sure it's safe?"
It was enlightening to read, though what it said was nothing unexpected to science and health readers here: WHO recommended panic, of course, the U.S. EPA said they didn't know because they don't monitor the Pacific Ocean, of course, and the American Council on Science and Health assured the public that Fukushima radiation was the last thing we need to worry about - even a Japanese infant born in the prefecture had an increased risk of cancer that was in the negligible range. We instead said, “If you want to list health concerns that Americans should worry about, start with the real killers -- drunk driving and smoking.”
5. Your inner child: Coloring books
Last year, more than 12 million adult coloring books were sold, while colored pencil sales have increased 27 percent and chains like target, Barnes & Noble and Walmart have dedicated entire sections to this new fad. Does it work to reduce stress? It probably does, much like knitting or any other relaxing pastime. It's not therapy advice, nonetheless Fox has an article on it and used our piece as a source, so thanks.
