The Good, The Bad, The Spin

I’ve been informed that merely having a Myspace page is an exercise in narcissism, so apparently having a blog is the ultimate display of grandstanding and being a blow-hard. But, it’s been a year for this blog, and so far it’s been a good run.

I set up this blog for multiple reasons. I began in January 2007 starting to write posts, flirting with the idea of making the blog public. It took me months to decide what I would write about, and how. As you can see from my archives, my sense of posting was sporadic and hesitant. I was researching what makes for decent blog readership and what strategies to employ to get a blog successfully up and running.

I decided not to pursue too actively the normal route of following blog etiquette and getting the blog out there. I’m not a good blogger in the traditional sense. I post sporadically–sometimes in spurts, and sometimes not for a week or two at a time. I rarely comment on other blogs. And I have a knee-jerk, fascistic sense of over-lording the few comments received here–I’ve considered just turning comments off altogether, for example. (more…)

I have more than once pointed out the irony of news media outlets having to cope with public relations crises. From having to play defense when the accuracy of news stories is challenged, to having to admit reporters fabricated news, the news media needs public relations counsel now more than ever. As fiscal pressures enhance the likelihood of screw ups, as well as an increased drive to be more sensational in order to compete for readers and viewers, the legacy news media is becoming a more perilous and less-trustworthy information industry.

Nothing exemplifies this more than the the Associated Press’ recent problems in its reporting. When the AP’s John Solomon went after U.S. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) implying legal and ethical wrong doing in land deals, he was once again omitting key facts. More recently, the AP’s recent mountain-out-of-a-mole-hill reporting of supposedly toxic waters adds to the news agency’s growing credibility gap.

This past week, the AP solidified its public relations ineptitude by issuing ‘takedown notices‘ to the Drudge Retort and Rogers Cadenhead, which I was first alerted to here and then here. The alleged crime is copyright infringement. (more…)

How a consumer protection law may be defeated by a faux consumer watchdog campaign

By Daniel Loxton

[Editor's note: This is republished from The Skeptic. The intention with this post is to illustrate how 'grass-roots' campaigns, activist causes and the like don't have play by the rules of transparency, accuracy and the free flow of information.]

Is it possible for a vested business interest to derail national legislation by posing as a consumer watchdog? We’ll soon learn whether a shadowy mail order drug company’s fierce, artificial grassroots campaign will rob the Canadian people of an important public safety law.

In April 2008, Canada’s federal Parliament began considering a proposed law¹ — Bill C-51 — that would revise the body of laws regulating food and drugs in Canada (the Food and Drugs Act). Of particular interest to skeptics, C-51 would finally allow Canadian federal health authorities (Health Canada) to enforce existing laws² that require substances sold under the multi-billion-dollar “natural health products” umbrella to be safe, unadulterated, honestly labeled, and marketed with supportable claims. (more…)