lies

Friday March 10, 2023

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday March 10, 2023

Fake News Channel

June 16, 2010

Recently released documents as part of a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News have revealed that many of the network’s top executives and on-air personalities privately disagreed with Donald Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election and even disliked him personally. The lawsuit, filed in March 2021, alleges that Fox News spread lies about the election in an effort to prevent viewers from switching to other networks, and is seen as a significant financial threat to the network. The case is scheduled to begin on 17 April and is expected to last five weeks.

June 12, 2019

According to the documents, while publicly casting doubt on the fairness of the election, many Fox News personalities privately doubted Trump’s claims. The owner of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch, was also critical of Trump, calling his insistence on claiming foul play “terrible stuff damaging everybody.” Even Fox News personalities who publicly supported Trump, such as Tucker Carlson, privately expressed disdain for him, and has received much mockery for doing so. The documents also revealed that the network’s concern with maintaining advertising revenue was a significant factor in its decisions.

Although Fox News has released its own evidence to counter some of Dominion’s claims, the revelations from the released documents have already affected the network’s reputation and highlighted the divide between what its top personalities say in public and what they believe privately. (AI)

 

Friday January 27, 2023

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday January 27, 2023

COVID-19 misinformation cost at least 2,800 lives and $300M, new report says

August 7, 2020

The spread of COVID-19 misinformation in Canada cost at least 2,800 lives and $300 million in hospital expenses over nine months of the pandemic, according to estimates in a new report out Thursday.

The report — released by the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA), an independent research organization that receives federal funding — examined how misinformation affected COVID infections, hospitalizations and deaths between March and November of 2021.

The authors suggest that misinformation contributed to vaccine hesitancy for 2.3 million Canadians. Had more people been willing to roll up their sleeves when a vaccine was first available to them, Canada could have seen roughly 200,000 fewer COVID cases and 13,000 fewer hospitalizations, the report says.

July 15, 2022

Alex Himelfarb, chair of the expert panel that wrote the report, said that its estimates are very conservative because it only examined a nine-month period of the pandemic.

“It’s pretty clear that tens of thousands of hospitalizations did occur because of misinformation,” Himelfarb told reporters. “We are confident that those are conservative estimates.”

Himelfarb also said the $300 million estimate covers only hospital costs — the study didn’t include indirect costs associated with factors such as delayed elective surgeries and lost wages.

A number of studies have found that getting vaccinated can reduce the risk of COVID infection and hospitalization. But only 80 per cent of Canadians have been fully vaccinated, according to the latest data from Health Canada.

June 26, 2019

The CCA report defines two groups of vaccine-hesitant individuals: those who were reluctant to get a shot and those who refused. It says that reluctant individuals expressed concerns about vaccines in general and questioned the speed with which COVID vaccines were developed.

Vaccine refusers, on the other hand, were more likely to believe that the pandemic is a hoax or greatly exaggerated, the report says.

Beyond the health impacts, misinformation is depriving people of their right to be informed, said Stephan Lewandowsky, a professor at the University of Bristol’s School of Psychological Science in the U.K. and one of the report’s authors.

September 24, 2021

“In a democracy, the public should be able to understand the risks we’re facing … and act on that basis,” he said. “But if you’re drenched in misinformation … then you’re distorting the public’s ability — and you’re denying people the right — to be informed about the risks they’re facing.”

The report says misinformation relies on simple messages meant to evoke emotional reactions. It says misinformation is often presented as coming from a credible source, such as a scientific publication. (CBC) 

From sketch to finish, see the current way Graeme completes an editorial cartoon using an iPencil, the Procreate app, and a couple of cheats on an iPad Pro …

Letter to the Editor – The Hamilton Spectator, Tuesday January 31, 2023 

MacKay unfair to anti-vaxxers

Again the tolerant and inclusive left shows their magnanimous humanity. Has MacKay explored the arguments of the side pushing back against the mandates, lockdowns, and other infringements on Charter rights, or is he content to show them as loudmouths dying for their freedom?

DeWitt Shainline, Hamilton

 

Friday January 8, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday January 8, 2021

‘Incited by the president’: politicians blame Trump for insurrection on Capitol Hill

The riots at the US Capitol shocked many in the US and around the world, but for some, the violent scenes in Washington are simply the natural culmination of Donald Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud and repeated stoking of division in the US.

November 16, 2019

The descent by thousands of Trump supporters on the Capitol – minutes after the president specifically asked them to march towards it – might be the clearest evidence yet of Trump’s responsibility for Wednesday’s debacle.

But in truth, the violent insurrection was a long time coming.

Months before the November election took place, Trump supporters were already being fed a steady diet of misinformation, as Trump repeatedly claimed the only way he could lose was if the election was rigged.

Should that happen, Trump and his allies told supporters, the US would descend into socialism, communism, or worse. In August he told a crowd that if Biden were to win the election, “China will own the United States” – to the extent that Americans would “have to learn to speak Chinese”.

As the world watched the mob of Trump supporters lay siege to the Capitol building, the beacon of American democracy, it clear to some that this had been a long time coming.

November 6, 2020

“What we are witnessing at this moment is the manifestation and culmination of reckless leadership, a pervasive misuse of power, and anarchy,” Derrick Johnson, the president of the NAACP civil rights organization, said in a statement.

“This is not protesting or activism; this is an insurrection, an assault on our democracy and a coup incited by President Trump.

“For the past four years, we’ve seen him chip away at the civility, integrity and dignity of our nation. The pattern of President Trump’s misconduct is unmistakable and has proven time and time again that it is a grave threat and harm to the fragile fabric of our country.”

Johnson and others called for Trump to be impeached for his role in the siege of the Capitol. Some Democratic members of Congress have already said they support that measure, and Ilhan Omar, a progressive congresswoman from Minnesota, said on Wednesday evening she was already drawing up articles of impeachment.

October 2, 2020

The tone at Trump’s rally before the riot was combative, as the president told the crowd: “You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.” Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s confidante and increasingly beleagured lawyer, had earlier demanded “trial by combat” over the election results, further stoking the crowd.

Away from Trump’s immediate circle however, many elected Republicans have also lent credence to the president’s baseless accusations of fraud – and have supported Trump even as he defended far-right, torch-bearing marchers in Charlottesville, refused to condemn white supremacy, and spread fear among Black Americans.

“Make no mistake: the domestic terrorism at the US Capitol by armed protesters is not only Trump’s fault alone,” Julian Castro, a Democratic former secretary of housing and urban development and 2020 presidential candidate, wrote on Twitter. (Continued: The Guardian) 

 

Friday August 7, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday August 7, 2020

The Misinformation President

Facebook deleted the post – a clip from an interview Mr Trump gave to Fox News – saying it contained “harmful Covid misinformation”.

November 16, 2019

Twitter followed by saying it had frozen a Trump campaign account until a tweet of the same clip was removed.

US public health advice makes clear children have no immunity to Covid-19.

A Facebook spokesperson said on Wednesday evening: “This video includes false claims that a group of people is immune from COVID-19 which is a violation of our policies around harmful COVID misinformation.”

It was the first time the social giant had taken action to remove content posted by the president based on its coronavirus-misinformation policy, but not the first time it has penalised Mr Trump over content on his page.

Speaking by telephone to morning show Fox and Friends on Wednesday, Mr Trump argued it was time for all schools nationwide to reopen.

He said: “If you look at children, children are almost – and I would almost say definitely – almost immune from this disease. (BBC) 

After 1,267 days, President Trump had made 20,055 false or misleading claims according to the Washington Post on a website devoted to chronicling his misinformation. Some of the most repeated claims include the following: 

January 24, 2017

“We built the greatest economy in history, not only for our country, but for the world. We were number one, by far.” 

“And we’re also — on the southern border, as you know, the wall is going up. It’s going up very rapidly. We’re at 182 miles.”

“My job was made harder by phony witch hunts, by ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ nonsense.”

“The Ukraine thing was a hoax. It was a pure hoax.”

“China was ripping off this country, $530 billion a year, think of it, 530 billion a year ripping us up for years.” (Washington Post) 

 

“Graeme MacKay makes more of an observation than a wisecrack, and, since he’s Canadian, it’s not simply based on party affiliation. Trump definitely falls under the category of “Sometimes in error, never in doubt,” and it’s an open question of how much of his misinformation is deliberate and how much is misremembered facts or wishful thinking. It starts with the simple fact that we elected a bullshit artist.”