The data points sound horrifying:
The verbs convey urgency (currency is an intentional affect, as the factoids are used for fundraising, establishing organizational mandates) and imply that the data are current. But are the data points true, for any definition of “truth”?
Obama, 2012 SOTU, White House Photo
In 2007, Google and YouTube broke into presidential politics by holding a “debate” in conjunction with CNN. At the time, Google had owned YouTube for less than a year.
Flash forward almost five years. On Monday at 5.30 p.m. Eastern, Google+ (which is also less than a year old), is the stage for a presidential response to last week’s State of the Union address. As in 2007, the questions are generated by us. And as in 2007, which questions get answered is not being left in the hands of the crowd.
The first live radio broadcast from a trial was the Scopes trial in 1925. John Scopes, a Tennessee high school biology teacher, was convicted of violating the Butler Act, which prohibited teaching evolution in schools. His trial highlighted the divide between science and fundamentalist (literalist) religion in the United States.
Flash forward to 2011: only one contestant in the 2011 Miss U.S.A. pageant (out of 51) said that she believed in evolution (“I’m a big science geek”) when asked if evolution should be taught in schools. That was Miss California, Alyssa Campanella, and she was crowned the winner on Sunday. Runner-up, Miss Tennessee, Ashley Elizabeth Durham, on evolution: “that’s not my belief” although she said evolution should be taught in schools. Most contestants said that evolution should be taught alongside other points of view, like creationism (or “Biblical stuff”).
It is almost a full century after Scopes and 202 years after Darwin’s birth, yet evolution remains controversial here, and Americans are scientifically illiterate. Read my complete analysis at The Moderate Voice.
Note: The two articles that tipped me to this story have incorrect headlines/information. Think Progress says two contestants “believe in evolution” — that’s not supported by the video clips on YouTube. USA Today (the primary source for Think Progress) is incorrect on several points.
The factoid, from the June Harper’s Index, sent my blood pressure north and my fingers to the keyboard:
Amount of federal money that went to National Public Radio in 2010: $2.7 million
To Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University: $446 million
WTH?
I’m late to this story. About two weeks ago, Jeff Bercovici indicted Jay Rosen, Jeff Jarvis and “citizen bloggers and crowdsourced reporting” in his take (Forbes Mixed Media) on the Terry Jones Koran-burning story. (I read it because one of my students Tweeted the link.) Bercovici wrote his column about two weeks after Jones lit a match in Gainesville, FL.
I’m so off-balance by the flaws in Bercovici’s arguments that I don’t know where to begin, so I’ll take them in chronological order.
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