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Fluorinated drugs, a type of PFAS, widely contaminating US drinking water (www.thenewlede.org)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The MBFC bot would be useful here. Here's what they say about the group behind this site:

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/environmental-working-group-ewg/

Overall, we rate the Environmental Working Group Left Biased as a strong Pseudoscience website based on the promotion of ideas and claims that oppose scientific consensus

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Failed Fact Checks Done in the last 5 years Overall, we rate the Environmental Working Group Left Biased as a strong Pseudoscience website based on the promotion of ideas and claims that oppose scientific consensus. (D. Van Zandt 5/10/2017) Updated (05/07/2024)

You know D. Van Zandt, is one guy and it is just this one guy's personal opinion on the website, with no examples, if you are basing anything off of the ravings of D. Van Zandt you are deeply unserious, find actual things you disagree with the publication, don't take this random guy's (who is not even a fucking journalist) word for it.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/about/

Dave Van Zandt is a registered Non-Affiliated voter who values evidence-based reporting. Since High School (a long time ago), Dave has been interested in politics and noticed as a kid the same newspaper report in two different papers was very different in their tone. This curiosity led him to pursue a Communications Degree in college; however, like most 20-year-olds, he didn’t know what he wanted and changed to a Physiology major midstream. Dave has worked in the healthcare industry (Occupational Rehabilitation) since graduating from college but never lost the desire to learn more about bias and its impacts.

www.cjr.org/innovations/measure-media-bias-partisan.php

The armchair academics

Amateur attempts at such tools already exist, and have found plenty of fans. Google “media bias,” and you’ll find Media Bias/Fact Check, run by armchair media analyst Dave Van Zandt. The site’s methodology is simple: Van Zandt and his team rate each outlet from 0 to 10 on the categories of biased wording and headlines, factuality and sourcing, story choices (“does the source report news from both sides”), and political affiliation.

A similar effort is “The Media Bias Chart,” or simply, “The Chart.” Created by Colorado patent attorney Vanessa Otero, the chart has gone through several methodological iterations, but currently is based on her evaluation of outlets’ stories on dimensions of veracity, fairness, and expression.

Both efforts suffer from the very problem they’re trying to address: Their subjective assessments leave room for human biases, or even simple inconsistencies, to creep in. Compared to Gentzkow and Shapiro, the five to 20 stories typically judged on these sites represent but a drop of mainstream news outlets’ production.