While this does not yield enough observations in individual constituencies to treat the data as separate constituency polls, we can look for patterns in responses across constituencies that have similar characteristics, and then work out the implications of those patterns for each constituency. So they went from using their financial independence to root out truth and report it bravely - speaking truth to power, if you will …to now, where they are using their financial independence to remain in print, despite alienating most of the public while they shout down to the people the messages of powerful.Focaldata specialises in mapping opinion poll data onto smaller geographic areas, using a technique known as MRP, or Multilevel Regression with Post-stratification.įor this study we collected data from 21,119 respondents between 15th January and 4th November 2019 using an online panel provider. Fast forward to today, and the Guardian is so radical and so far from it’s potential customer base that it’s a loss-making enterprise that can only stay in print due to the very lucky fact that they exist off their private endowment. However, even without the ad-money corruption, over time the paper got colonised by upper middle class liberal types who began a self-reinforcing recruitment ethos of bringing in more people like them. The Guardian is funded by an endowment, which meant they could resist outside pressure better than other media outlets a kind of insulation from the corrupting influences of ad money etc. I’ve made this point re the Guardian before that it was at one point (for decades even) a truly pioneering paper, set up to be independent so they could do the brave journalistic work. We are through the looking glass at this point. Yes, it’s surreal that you can win awards for journalism covering a story that was never real. Ultimately, when everything is a conspiracy theory, there is no longer any meaningful conspiracy - except those crafted by the theorists. While the Times might fancy itself responsible enough to safely wield tactics like stamping unfavourable ideas with the dreaded “Conspiracy Theory” warning label, it won’t take long for other, less noble-minded institutions to do the same. A Google search for “New York Times conspiracy theory” returns a host of wild, wacky and outright dangerous ideas, like the infamous QAnon quackery concerning ludicrous claims about cannibalistic paedophiles taking over America.Īs I wrote in The Gray Lady Winked, the publication plays a dangerous game by using this kind of epistemic weaponry, such as the tool at the heart of the 1619 Project, which is not just a “reframing of American history” but a redeployment of the common conception of truth. The reason the tactic works so well is that the Times fervently and prominently covers actual conspiracy theories. A month before a pandemic was even declared, the Times (along with the Washington Post, which published a nearly identical article the same day) came out swinging by calling the idea a conspiracy theory spread by “fringe” elements. This was precisely the case with the lab leak theory, according to which Covid-19 emerged from the lab in Wuhan that studies coronaviruses. By appending it to any claim, the lever pullers of power are able to marginalise not just the claim but those daring to make it. That last term, conspiracy theory, has become a shibboleth of the coastal elite who run American media. At the heart of the paper’s first story about the company was an alarming claim that the “tiny” (read: innocent) company was being subjected to an onslaught of Right-wing conspiracy theories. On national TV, she claimed that Michael Bloomberg could have given each of America’s 330 million people one million dollars instead of spending $500 million dollars on his presidential campaign.īut the Konnech correction points to a much more serious problem than the Times ’s inability to work with large numbers. And as T imes editorial board member Mara Gay demonstrated, m aths clearly is not the NYT’s strong suit either. The Times issued a correction earlier this year after confusing $100 billion with $100 million and, just this month, for doing the same with 140 billion and 140 million cubic meters. Observers swiftly noted that, using the Times ’s own (erroneous) calculation, that “burden” would be 20 pence per household. The Times recently dragged the Queen into its endless Comedy of Corrections when it claimed the cost to taxpayers for Her Majesty’s funeral would come with a “hefty price tag” amid rising inflation. Among media insiders, New York Times corrections are a source of endless hilarity, almost a byword for journalistic haplessness.
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