THERE IS A SURE-FIRE WAY to make the news these days: Just issue a press release beginning with the words, “New scientific study shows,” and have it assert a conclusion that the MSM fervently want to believe–especially if the resulting story would serve to debunk or refute a Bush administration policy. Slam-dunk! Your press release will become news!
You are skeptical, you say? But what other explanation is there for the decision by CBS and MSNBC to post on their websites a ridiculous story about a new scientific “finding” that global warming is causing an increase in the world’s earthquakes–an item that was even linked for a time on the Drudge Report.
Now I am not a scientist, but the idea that a few alleged degrees of warming–with none apparently in the last decade–could cause an increase in earthquakes seemed pure quackery to me. So, I decided to perform Google and Yahoo searches of the “scientist” who had issued the finding, one Thomas Chalko, MSc, Ph.D. In less than five minutes I found that Chalko was perhaps the last person who should be quoted on the purported impact of allegedly man-caused global warming.
Chalko is best described as a pseudo-scientist–at least when it comes to the fields of global warming and earthquakes about which he was quoted by CBS and MSNBC as an authority. He is not a meteorologist. Nor is he a geophysicist or seismologist. His website reveals that he is into “self healing,” “vibrations,” and alien visitations. Thus, he writes:
Chalko’s “aural” workshop promises to explain “how to see your own aura,” and “the meaning of the aura and its colors.” Chalko also writes in the online NU Journal of Discovery–which he founded and for which he appears to be the only writer–that global warming could cause the earth to explode:
One doesn’t have to be a scientist to know this is beyond nutty.
Wait it gets even worse. The story published both by CBS and MSNBC is a verbatim copy of an article on Chalko’s website, which announces: “Earthquakes 5 Times More Energetic Than 20 Years Ago.” The article begins:
Now, here is the headline and opening of CBS’s June 18 story (now removed) purporting to be from the AP (but I couldn’t find an AP story on Chalko’s prediction): “Today’s Quakes Deadlier Than In Past.” The entire story is exactly as it appears on Chalko’s site, beginning with:
Ditto MSNBC, only MSNBC went even further, linking to a Chalko article in NU Journal of Discovery, and even included his personal contact information!
The media love to repeatedly parrot the liberal meme that the Bush administration is scientifically ignorant. But the Chalko non story shows that many in the MSM are the true scientific ignoramuses–as well as true believers. Even if a story that is patently ridiculous comes across their transoms supporting their mass-think, and, better yet, purports to be based on a “scientific study,” why bother with fact and source checking?
No wonder the public is fast losing faith in what the media tell them. File this debacle under Stupidity in the Media.
Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow in bioethics at the Discovery Institute and a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture. His blog, Secondhand Smoke, can be accessed at www.wesleyjsmith.com.
