Comment 76KN Re: A couple years ago

Story

Claims of gender bias in Canada's Science Hall of Fame nomination process

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A couple years ago (Score: 3, Informative)

by vanderhoth@pipedot.org on 2015-04-16 11:47 (#7608)

A couple years ago I would have believed this story, but the CBC has become a nest of agenda pushing click bait journalists who will take any opportunity to take a story and blow it out of proportions [1]. They have to feed the outrage culture to keep generating income. There are so many cases now of reporters knowing they're not reporting the truth, not just in CBC, but pushing it anyway, then apologizing later [2] or insisting in spite of actual evidence they've done nothing wrong.

I've seen so many reporters in the last year involved in scandals, pushing personal agendas and involved in conflicts of interest [3][4][5][6]. The media just wants things to get people angry and journalists will do whatever they can to get the "facts" that back whatever narrative they decide they're going to push.

Honestly I believe there's no such thing as a reliable source in the media anymore. If it's not coming directly from the horses mouth take it with salt. You can't even trust the sources I'm listing below.

Be skeptical.

[1] http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/11/cbc-breaches-multiple-journalistic-ethics-standards-to-smear-gamergate/
[2] http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/31p2sz/success_entertainment_weekly_corrects_and/
[3] http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/10/26/cbc_fires_jian_ghomeshi_over_sex_allegations.html
[4] http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/the-rolling-stone-rape-scandal-when-subjects-come-before-readers/article23820366/
[5] http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/a-rape-on-campus-what-went-wrong-20150405
[6] http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/global-tv-anchor-leslie-roberts-resigns-after-probe-finds-he-breached-conflict-of-interest-rules

Re: A couple years ago (Score: 3, Interesting)

by rocks@pipedot.org on 2015-04-16 14:25 (#76BD)

Thanks for this... it's a good reminder...

I believe that I am pretty skeptical about media output, but maybe I'm not, in fact. I am conscious that I am the easiest one to fool in the case of self-perception. I really appreciate your comment as it provides an outside perspective for me.

In any case, my motivation to submit the story was that I thought it provided an opportunity to discuss an issue that I believe is important -- i.e., how we recognize and reward scientists for their contributions to knowledge (with jobs, tenure, salary, grants, awards, or, in this case, a nomination to a Canadian Science Hall of Fame). One of the ways to evaluate how we reward scientists is to look at what is actually happening. I was prepared to trust the CBC article -- without further research -- in its claim that no women have been nominated for the Canadian Science Hall of Fame in the last two years. Maybe I am naive, but I didn't think the article would fake this fact. If true, on its own it is an interesting observation with two end-member implications that either: (1) women's contributions haven't warranted a nomination when compared to the competing nominations of male scientists, or (2) the nomination process is biased in regards to gender. I was hoping Pipedot readers would have some views on this, either from direct observation of women's worthy contributions or the lack thereof. Maybe there is no way to sort that kind of thing out on an internet forum, however, and the article and story ends up just being clickbait. I suppose I could have looked up the statistics independently from the Science Hall of Fame site itself and linked to that, if I had found anything noteworthy, and maybe that's the lesson for me here.

Re: A couple years ago (Score: 1)

by vanderhoth@pipedot.org on 2015-04-16 15:01 (#76EN)

Sorry, I found the hall of fame website right after my last post

These are all the recipients, I can't figure out what years each of them won in:
http://cstmuseum.techno-science.ca/en/hall-of-fame/hall-of-fame-hall.php

This is the nominations page, it looks like nominations are open to anyone and they have guide lines post as to what the committee will accept:
http://cstmuseum.techno-science.ca/en/hall-of-fame/hall-of-fame-nominations.php

Ha, I won't say which one, but one of my old University profs actually sits on the committee.
http://cstmuseum.techno-science.ca/en/hall-of-fame/hall-of-fame-selection-committee.php

Re: A couple years ago (Score: 2)

by rocks@pipedot.org on 2015-04-16 16:05 (#76KN)

Thanks. Your second post motivated me to do my own fact-checking as well and I went to the same website.

It was actually quite eye-opening to go directly to the source rather than taking the CBC article as the most effective reading of the data. It might make posting stories to Pipedot harder, but incorporating this kind of fact-checking could make the story summaries more balanced and fair (just like Fox News).

Mind you, if Pipedot is engaged in news aggregation, it raises the question of what is news when news agencies might be creating stories out of no or little evidence.

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