The American Council on Science and Health has teamed up with Real Clear Science to rate science journalism. What scientific technique did they use to do this?
Our assessments were based off more than fifteen years of shared experience aggregating quality science content. We tried our best to disegard our own ideological biases to evaluate the sources based on our chosen criteria (more on that below), presenting evidence to back our claims. We placed all the selected sites onto a grid and moved them around over the course of a week’s worth of discussions. After eight iterations, here are the results.
….Notable bottom feeders in science include The Huffington Post, Mother Jones, INFO WARS, and Food Babe. Read these sites only if you want to reinforce your comfortable cocoon of pseudoscientific hokum.
Goodness. They don’t seem to think very highly of Mother Jones. Let’s take a look at the infographic:
Jeez, we’re not even as good as Fox News, which rates better than the New York Times on the quality of its reporting. Does this seem a wee bit unlikely to you? Well, the Real Clear empire is a conservative outfit, while ACSH was initially a Scaife-funded group which then branched out to oil companies and other industry groups. Under the circumstances, I suppose it’s only natural that they’d think fairly well of Fox and fairly poorly of us. After all, ACSH has a long history of skepticism toward government regulation of food and chemicals, while we have a long history of skepticism toward the food and chemical industries that have worked tirelessly over the decades to manufacture doubt about any attempt to cut into their bottom lines. I guess we’re natural enemies.
But I wonder what they think about lead and crime?
