Summary: Zero Hedge gives today’s example of an ominous trend. The manufacturers of clickbait thrive while journalists are fired and the revenue of newspapers evaporates. They provide a dramatic mixture of fact and fiction, optimized for specific tribes of Americans. Worse, our diminished interest in telling fact from fancy creates audiences for fringe politicians (promoted by clickbait manufacturers) — the kind of people who shouldn’t be allowed near the controls of a great nation. {2nd of 2 posts.}
Zero Hedge breaks a big story: “Why Has The Government Stopped Reporting Lake Mead Water Levels?” And they point the finger: “In the spirit of data obfuscation a la China and Obama, Lake Mead’s daily reporting has not been posted for six (6!) weeks.” As evidence they go to the private website the “Lake Mead Water Database“.
Update: on the morning of day two, Zero Hedge’s allegation has already has been repeated on 5,500 websites (hundreds of tweets). It will echo through the right-wing internet for weeks.
Through the magic of Google in fifteen seconds I found the Bureau of Reclamation website giving daily water levels through yesterday. And, for a better perspective, the monthly water levels from February 1935 to July 2015. Unfortunately, the truth will never catch up with this lie — and American’s trust in the US government erodes away one particle more.
For fun I suggest scrolling through Zero Hedge’s headlines to see what wing-nuts are worrying about these days. Enemies everywhere. Conspiracies behind every door. Markets are crashing or about the crash, always. The government is broke, with a rising tide about to overwhelm America. Then there are Zero Hedge’s really weird headlines…
Larger conclusions
The important aspect of this story: it is commonplace in our America.
Zero hedge provides daily proof that in today’s tribal America almost any nonsense will be unquestioningly accepted if it matches the tribe’s prejudices. Providing clickbait to gullible Americans has become a lucrative business. The Right has the largest disconnect with reality — and so the largest market for truthiness and outright fiction (have you read that Obama is a foreign Islamic usurper?).
But the Left is affected, albeit to a lesser degree. It’s easy to find examples See Real News Network’s video compendium of misinformation: Climate Change: Have We Reached the Point of No Return? My favorite is The North Pole is Melting!
I’ve documented scores of examples on both the Left and the Right.
This gullibility makes us easy to rule. Can such a people govern themselves? I doubt it. The good news: it’s a fixable problem, requiring only our will to do so. For more about this see…
- Learning skepticism, an essential skill for citizenship in 21st century America.
- Remembering is the first step to learning. Living in the now is ignorance.
- Swear allegiance to the truth as a step to reforming America.
For More Information
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. For more information see all posts about propaganda, about Zero Hedge, and especially these…
- Start of another swing of the media narrative – to global cooling?,
- Global Cooling returns to the news, another instructive lesson about America,
- A look into the GOP mind: untethered from reality and drifting in the wind,
- Climate science deniers on the Left, captured for viewing,
- Watch the Left burn away more of its credibility, then wonder why the Right wins, 29 January 2014
- Apocalyptic thinking on the Left about climate change risks burning their credibility,
Good Post. Sad how gullible we can be. How many will question something that fits their beliefs. We need to question everything even our own ideas.
doprof,
When more Americans agree with you we’d have taken the first steps toward reform. I increasingly believe that must be the first step.
I’ve learned over the years to not believe everything I read and do attempt to debunk as many stories as I can however I’m sorry but the rights stories have a lot more truthful stories than the left.
Ie I read one about a new environmental police harassing someone over their bbq. The smell crossed the plain of the neighbors yard. All my research showed the story to be true.
Thank you for the correction. Reclamation has only had a few hours of down time in reporting Lake Mead water levels after some server issues. The other site is a non-sanctioned site and Reclamation is the reliable source for the water levels. They work hard at it in all the Regions.
Rose,
Suggestion: put out a press release. Zero Hedge has a massive audience, and this story has already gone viral. Plus hundreds of tweets and Facebooks, seen by thousands — and uncountable number of email lists.
If you think a new lack of gullibility will signal the beginning of Reform, well, don’t hold that breath too long. It wont be coming along all that soon with this current older demographic.
It is probably the result of a shrinking world, connected-wise. There was a time when people here believed they had known or visited most of the world. All of the 750 mile radius of it. And it made fine sense to them. Now well, we know very little about the World, actually. The older people could trust the info they received and experienced of the world around them.
Today? Unsure and certainly afraid as they know they are just a little bit out of touch, so to say.
Result? Prone to hyperbole we try to comprehend the world on a speed track. And guess what, there are a lot of very smart people that need to and enjoy adding to the uncertainty. And encourage hyperbole.
It is all a part of a tacit agreement or understanding and an old idea used by those who are in Power. And so life goes on in a big way, ready or not.
Breton
Breton,
“If you think a new lack of gullibility will signal the beginning of Reform, well, don’t hold that breath too long. It wont be coming along all that soon with this current older demographic.”
I think you meant to say that you don’t believe that we will become less gullible, especially the boomers. I agree about the boomers; they’re too old to change for the good. As for the younger generations — reform is an inherent quality of humanity, and should never be counted out. It appears mysteriously.
I loved the ZH diatribe written by a proudly admitted GED high school equivalent grad dumping on Paul Krugman for suggesting we need more deficit spending not less world wide. This useful idiot makes all the usual austerity arguments:
Government budgets must be at least balanced if not run in surplus because they will go broke otherwise. We are soon to suffer the fate of Greece. Notwithstanding Greece cannot print their own currency and has debt denominated in Euros.
Money printing is indistinguishable from a tax so money printing (deficit spending) is theft.
I quit reading about there.
Really depressing when you realize much of this is parroted by current leaders in UK and Germany. Austerity proponents are thriving world wide by making these same arguments. This has me quite worried.
Hmmm…well said FM. Well said and close to what I would have said but.
And I too like your optimism.
Thx
American’s trust in the US government erodes away one particle more – the US government deserves NO TRUST; ZERO. We have a Kenyan in the Whitehouse ruling by EO, probably being run by some CIA black op, back door drug running cartel, branch of the Khazarian Mafia (look it up). The water levels in lake Mead are dangerously low and you’re esoterically mincing about whether the government reported it on 2 out of 3 websites.
So why did the rate of change reverse suddenly once it reached the critical level – sudden changes in a statistical direction usually only occur in presidential elections where Diebold machines are involved in counting the votes (look it up). My guess is the water is being siphoned into the underground bases. This website gets Zero credibility until it is vetted by Vetrans Today; just my $0.02.
You want to reignite this nation grown cold: get rid of that gay maggot in the Whitehouse, send he Marines down wall street; in particular special arrests and shut down JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and arrest all of the Federal Reserve cartel for treason; Rothschilds, Warburgs the lot and push for the death penalty. Then put the nation back on a constitutional footing, I believe the plans are already in place (look it up). I am all for the Military and the purpose it serves; the Military Industrial Complex, not so much – so whining about why people don’t trust the government is like nails on a chalkboard.
KD,
Thanks for the demo of what state of mind is produced by two generations of propaganda!
Attention readers: KD is well worth reading for a reminder of close we are to tyranny. Lots of people like that will vote it in. We need only some sort of crisis to give them a strong minority (it never takes a majority).
Don’t forget that “fiat money” and “fractional reserve banking” are destroying America. The solution to all our economic problems is to mint gold coins and hoard them instead of that vile worthless paper currency.
You have to wonder how many times the fringe lunatics can repeat this claptrap before people catch on.
Thomas,
That is an important question. My answer, based on thousands of conversation over 37 years, is “never” — until we have a substantial change in society. These beliefs are tribal truths on the Right, immune to logic or fact.
Much like belief in the apocalypse on the Left, as nature rebels against capitalism.
Both sets of beliefs vary between sects among the great tribes of Left and Right. Sometimes these fight amongst themselves, as Jonathan Swift mocked in the Lilliputians’ wars between the big-Enders and little-Enders.
The Editor’s last post about Zero Hedge provoked enormous cage rattling from some True Believers. Here’s hoping for more. I read (past tense) Zero Hedge almost from its inception and it was quite insightful, sly and informed. but it is a shadow of that now. Sometimes I pop it open for a laugh.. and to keep track of what delusion de jour belongs to the commenters.
At some point about 2 years ago they ran out of news and had to start throwing wilder and wilder click-bait at the audience ever more wacky once the gold tards fully climbed aboard. It’s sad to see people using impending EMP’s to argue the financial merits of gold holding.
There was a point in time when they posted a lot of Alex Jones stuff but they’ve actually accelerated past even Alex’s own lurid Twilight Zone and anyone now left seriously defending Zero Hedge has rocketed into a vacuum-filled dimension of dementia.
hidfect,
ZH is useful for professionals, as they print difficult to get research (e.g., Goldman’s). It’s also a good place to see the shat’s happened — a testimony to the incompetence of modern journalists (no wonder they’re getting laid off and their employers profits are falling). Some of their coverage is excellent.
But, as you note, it’s mixed in with a large volume of exaggeration and fiction. Which makes it a dangerous source for non-experts.
This combination is the essence of clickbait. it’s like the invention of heroin, having a large and ill effect on society.