That quote assumes that when people think about "calling bullshit" in relation to the news that they would immediately think of Fox News or The National Enquirer. Is that wrong? Won't most Guardian readers immediately think of Fox News when they read this headline?
When I clicked on this article, I started from a perspective of "Oh look, it's The Guardian, a lefty publication, talking about how Fox News is bad. How shocking". I was wrong.
So yeah, I don't think the bit you quoted is an attempt to manipulate readers. By referencing Fox News, it's just trying to account for what it assumes its readers already think. And I think it's basically correct in those assumptions.
I know an awful lot of people who are too educated and internet-savvy to accept most nakedly-false claims, but happily bite on stats that lack per-capita corrections, or compare rates like change and accuracy without accounting for base values, or even make subtle but concrete errors like confusing 'ppm' with 'ppb'. They may not accept anything farcically false, but "less wrong" is not always "more right", and it's still easy to end up believe an entire-untrue claim off respectable looking sources. I think the focus on Snopes-style truth ratings has sometimes hindered our ability to literally call 'bullshit', asserting that a piece undermines knowledge regardless of its technical correctness.
I'm not sure if this article succeeds at that - I think conflating Fox with The National Enquirer and other sources that regularly invent things outright is a mistake that obscures the discussion. (Fox has run content sourced from RealTrueNews, but the distinction still matters; fake news sites and the media titans legitimizing their stories are different parts of the ecosystem.) But it's a worthwhile attempt regardless.
You make an interesting point about the recent/online deployment of it. Most examples of apophasis are about bringing up familiar topics without owning that action, as with invoking rumors or ad hominems in a debate. But I increasingly see the version you're describe, where it's used as a way to present a very specific statement without needing to defend it. A lot of old uses of the technique only work as a full sentence, specifically to avoid being quoted as saying the inappropriate thing directly. But the new ones do the opposite, very specifically accommodating misleading pull quotes. "As a recent Guardian article about critical thinking courses said, 'Fox News promotes "fake news"...'" The phrase comes into existence, soundbite ready, without anyone needing to actually defend it.
Perhaps this isn't the most extreme example, since the author might readily defend the "fake news" claim, but it still serves to associate the college course with rejecting Fox when that's expressly not the point.
Are you disagreeing with Merkel[1]?
[1] - https://www.apnews.com/438bb0ac98d04459ab2e392f3c4fc5ef
I'm sure sitting wherever you are it's easy to dismiss this as mythical, but for people living down there, it's a real problem.
edit: downvoting doesn't make the problem go away.
Maybe I'm wrong. I'll simply observe officials have various incentives to tweak the numbers in either direction.
According to the FBI it's lower. Unless it's changed dramatically in the last 2 years, at which point I'd suggest that maybe this new "tough on immigration" tactic isn't working.
We should address any crime problem if there is a solution, not ignore it because it didn't make a large overall difference and the city is safer than other cities.
Perhaps not coincidentally because they see the real impact for good and ill of both "the problem" and the "solution" and draw their own conclusions.
Or it could simply be because the people who live there would be less scared of that sort of thing and why you don't see people in California freaking out about their minor quakes. Anyone that terrified of seismic activity would have gone to a more tectonically stable place.
Why they commit the crime is not my point, the fact is they are committing the crime and endangering citizens living there.
This may be true, but it neither supports the assertion that crime is bad in that area, nor the assertion that it's due to an "invasion."
It's possible there's something peculiar to that home that is attracting problems.
Migrants come across seeking food/water/money so they break into homes.
We should secure the border with surveillance and a wall so migrants are forced to use official ports of entry. We then should take as many as possible and coordinate with Mexico to take the rest, if neither can, the two countries should deport them back to their country or origin.
No.
Migrants come across seeking food/water/money so they break into homes.
Do they actually know who broke in? Are these solved crimes?
Because if not, pinning it on migrants is called prejudice.
The situation described in another comment:
"The first was apprehended by local police while attempting to pawn the stolen TV. The second one was shot and ended up in the ER. I suppose I can't speak for the third, but if you had to take an educated guess..."
I'm sorry for what your family has been through. Your approach to arguing this isn't a good approach for an environment like HN.
We have official ports of entry. Building a wall might make it harder for illegals to cross, but they already face substantial barriers. Some of them die every single year while crossing the desert on foot or taking other risks.
Currently the border either has a low height fence that can be climbed over, holes that can be crawled under, or no fencing at all. We should install the proposed wall with surveillance.
After crossing the desert there aren't many people that will be able to scale a 30 foot steel fence. The current design can't be dug under or destroyed in a reasonable time.
The sections that have gone up have drastically reduced crossings.
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2018/12/12/walls-work
"For example, when we installed a border wall in the Yuma Sector, we have seen border apprehensions decrease by 90 percent."
"On Sunday, when a violent mob of 1,000 people stormed our Southern border, we found the newly constructed portions of the wall to be very effective. In the area of the breach, a group of people tore a hole in the old landing mat fence constructed decades ago and pushed across the border. U.S. Border Patrol agents who responded to the area ultimately dispersed the crowd, which had become assaultive, and apprehended several individuals. All of the individuals were either apprehended or retreated into Mexico. That evening, the fence was repaired. There were no breaches along the newly constructed border wall areas."
But your account is relatively new. I wish you well in figuring out how to more effectively navigate conversation here.
What would you consider a more effective conversational policy? Conforming to the same political beliefs?
It does, if the problem is the public perception rather than the reality on the ground.
They have been for years, mostly because of drug traffickers and mafia types. That hasn't changed.
A quick Google search suggests they now say "most watched most trusted" instead. That seems more like the garden variety lying-with-an-element-of-truth I expect to see from an entertainment news source.
Oh, the irony. An article about college class that teaches people to spot bad information online is itself full of standard techniques journalists use to manipulate people.
I see this one a lot lately. Someone drops a phrase that assumes something the author wants readers to remember and believe. The phrase is usually oddly specific, while the author pretends to convey a general idea or talks about something entirely unrelated.