What is science doing next to news, anyway? Is “science” whatever a scientist says? Is it just another buzzword politicians use to mask their motives? “News” comes from “new,” just like “information” comes from “inform,” both terms over 500 years old. In print, news usually...
Three years have passed since Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates imposed a blockade on Qatar. This dispute began with the hacking of the Qatar News Agency in order to make Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani appear to be making highly controversial remarks.
In early 2019, Foreign Affairs took a detailed look at the social and potentially political implication of the emergence of a phenomenon called “Deepfakes,” the result of recent advances in digital technology. The article describes the kind of manipulation of images and sound that now...
In a hallucinating development concerning what increasingly appears to be the unsinkable imaginary drama of overwhelming Russian influence on the 2016 US presidential election, Reuters, echoed by The Hill, offer some breaking news: “Former CIA Director John Brennan said on Wednesday that at...
In this edition of The Interview, Fair Observer talks to Rebecca Vincent, UK bureau director for Reporters Without Borders. Reporters Without Borders, known internationally as Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF), recently launched its 2018 Press Freedom Index that chronicles the decline of press...
Increasing risks enable data analysis companies to make fortunes by interpreting information and managing risks. Political analysts have adopted new jargon to get people to pay attention to them. Going where no bald men have gone before, they warn of a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous...
CNN faces criticism over its reporting of the North Korean leader’s family. The Huffington Post reports that “CNN is facing a backlash over an article about North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, which critics claim paints her family’s repressive regime in a positive...
Belief can be the “community organizer” for people who have no need to meet. For some curious reason, undoubtedly linked to what could be called the growing existential crisis around the notion of truth in the media, certain news outlets have taken to giving serious play to the outlandish...
Aside from the fake news stories, the UAE and Qatar have been at it for a while. Revelations about two incidents of Gulf-related fake news shine a spotlight on a long-standing psychological war between the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, as well as both states’ seemingly repeated and competing...
James O'Keefe's latest "exposé" does, in fact, provide us with a valuable insight into the workings of mainstream media. James O'Keefe is one of the most odious, disreputable and despicable characters in American political media. His devious and tendentious techniques can, however,...
