Dishonesty doesn't help...

[Thinking Aloud]

Just spotted a link on Facebook about some Salvation Army guy apparently agreeing in an interview that LGBT parents ought to suffer the death penalty. Here it is: http://www.examiner.com/article/lgbt-pa ... ation-army



The FB link uses this image as the thumbnail, and The Examiner's article prominently leads with it in their photo gallery (including it as a separate image credited to the author).

Naturally, the comments associated with the article and its posting to FB are roundly negative about the coverage, but the image puzzled me.

Here's the original.



There's no indication in The Examiner that their image is altered - some commenters clearly used it as a lead-off for their reaction, in terms of 'they don't even try to hide their bias' - and it puts the whole article into question as far as I'm concerned. Shooting ones-self in the foot...

Just thought I'd share the deception.

[Jason]

Well.. at least they did a better job on the text perspective than on the vagina lady.

[klr]

So what sort of reporting organisation is The Examiner then? Does it has some sort of axe to grind?

[Thinking Aloud]

No idea, but it's how bad information spreads.

[Brian Peacock]

So can the ladies save me?

[JimC]

What about dat honesty?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

So can the ladies save me?

Honestly? I don't think so.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

So what sort of reporting organisation is The Examiner then? Does it has some sort of axe to grind?

Not as much as some. It seems a fairly typical online, blog-led publication. Although weirdly, its owner, Philip Anschutz, has contributed to conservative and christian causes including those opposed to same-sex marriage! I guess he doesn't proof-read all 55,000 contributors in person...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Examiner.com

[pErvinalia]

I'm surprised that anyone actually thought it was real. I didn't read the article attached to the facebook post when I saw it this morning, but assumed right from the start that the image was shopped.

[Audley Strange]

I don't like this sort of thing. It's a tacky rhetorical trick normally used by those who have no or have run out of arguments and instead seek to put the opponent on the defensive by deliberately and uncharitably maligning them or their intentions. I should know, I do it all the time.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

It's like Huff Post - it just prints whatever its contributors provide - and a lot of that is bound to be dubious! But if a fake is not obvious enough for a cursory check to miss, it gets through - like anywhere - Hitler diaries, anyone?

[Thinking Aloud]

It's like the whole internet - it just repeats what it's fed, without any background checks. I did some more checking - the original interview the article is reporting on occurred sometime around June 2012, and the Salvation Army in Australia hurriedly apologised for, and clarified their position on, the remarks in the interview (which one can easily interpret as back-pedalling if one wishes) - but the article I posted came out over a month later, without any reference to the retraction. Typical "shock horror" Fox News reporting of the copy/paste kind, without any checking as to whether there had been follow-up or any kind of effort to get a balanced view.

And as I've just found, the internet continues to copy/paste it a year later, as if it's new. And we keep on lapping it up.

[pErvinalia]

I thought the story sounded familiar.

[Brian Peacock]

It's like the whole internet - it just repeats what it's fed, without any background checks. I did some more checking - the original interview the article is reporting on occurred sometime around June 2012, and the Salvation Army in Australia hurriedly apologised for, and clarified their position on, the remarks in the interview (which one can easily interpret as back-pedalling if one wishes) - but the article I posted came out over a month later, without any reference to the retraction. Typical "shock horror" Fox News reporting of the copy/paste kind, without any checking as to whether there had been follow-up or any kind of effort to get a balanced view.

And as I've just found, the internet continues to copy/paste it a year later, as if it's new. And we keep on lapping it up.

So much is bent and politicised on the internet that most, if not all but the mostly tightly edited 'news' sites really should be read as 'comment and opinion' sites, and some of the crap that is passed in the name of 'citizen journalism' barely qualifies as coherent comment.

The thing with this one is that we have seen similar placarded statements from religious groups so the deception relies on what we already now of Fred Phelps or muslim fundamentalists and tars the good ladies of the Salvation Army handbell ringing association with the same brush. It doesn't really help or do anything but make people who might have quite reasonable objections to religion look like deceitful liars.

I vote we brutally slaughter all liars, their wives and children, and their livestock and then set fire to their corpses - that'll teach them.

[camoguard]

I only kill people using apathy. They aren't worth extra effort.