From Abracadabra to Zombies

Mass Media Bunk Archive

a commentary on news stories or articles in the mass media that provide false, misleading, or deceptive information regarding scientific matters or alleged paranormal or supernatural events

This blog ran from February 1996 to September 2007 and has been replaced by Skeptimedia.

2007

No. 35 Feb 17-Sept 28 Tim Russert of NBC News ask Democratic presidential hopefuls: What is your favorite Bible verse? (SU); vitamin D study (JS); 20/20 and comatose saints (SU); Steven Milloy (JS).

No. 34 Feb 16 Oprah's 3-ring psychic circus (P).

2006

No. 33 Dec 30 Animal Planet makes a monkey out of Jane Goodall (JS).

No. 32 Dec 26 the season for miracles (SU).

No. 31 Dec 13 media madness over Mary Cheney's pregnancy (O).

No. 30 Sept 3 three strikes against psychic crime fighters: seeing what we want to see (P).

No. 29 June 27 framing articles to promote psychic drivel; the Bee's Allen Pierleoni strikes again (P).

No. 28 April 14 busting the cholesterol myths of Uffe Ravnskov et al. (JS).

No. 27 March 30 9/11 conspiracies: the war on critical thinking (CT).

No. 26 Jan7-Mar 10 psychics (P); cloning humans (JS); and attacking atheists and Richard Dawkins (SU).

2005

No. 25 July 15-27 facilitated communication at Syracuse U. (JS); Kevin Trudeau's natural cures (JS); healing prayer studies (SU).

No. 24 Mar 7-July 13 Robert F. Kennedy's rant on Big Pharma & the government conspiring to kill our children, mostly via MMR vaccinations to produce autism (JS) (O); Australia's Sunday Telegraph for psychics (P).

No. 23 Feb 2005 the global consciousness project (P).

2004

No. 23 Sept 1-Dec12 various kinds of blindness (SC); Russian-born energy healer Alla Svirinskaya (CAM); pet psychics (P); and PBS's "The Question of God" (SU).

No. 22 Jan 29-Mar 28 testing psychics (P); Allen Pierleoni panders to hypnotherapist (JS) (CAM); New York Times promotes astrology (JS); the Truster & other lies (JS); Natasha Demkina's x-ray vision (JS); John Stossel debunking myths (CT) (JS).

2003

No. 22 Dec 6-10 fighting crime with prayer (SU); Sylvia Browne tells woman her mother's dead, much to the woman's surprise (P).

No. 21 March 23-Nov 15 pet psychic Sonya Fitzpatrick (P); George Barna, the Christian pollster, has bad news for Christians (SU) (SC); stupidest story I've ever read (go right to it!) (JS); healing prayer (SU).

No. 20 Jan 8-March 13 the end of the world (SU); naturopathy (JS) (CAM); psychics and cold reading (P).

2002

No. 20 Dec 18 mediums and cold reading (P); medical quackery at Harvard (JS) (CAM).

No. 19 June 3-Nov 8 Jed C. Macosko Discovery Institute ID warrior (JS) (FH) (SU); lunar effects (SC); Fox Network beyond belief again (FH); David Icke (P) (U); the end times (SU); Padre Pio (SU); pet psychics (P).

No. 18 May 10 media gaga over psychic scam of dead talk (P) (SU).

2001

No. 18 Sept 17-Oct 14 the sealed envelope reading trick: is David Copperfield psychic? (P); the Kwang Y. Cha study on in vitro fertilization and prayer (JS) (FH) (SU); Janelle Brown's puff piece for Francine Shapiro's EMDR (JS); President Bush declares himself "a good guy" and vows to "rid the world of evil-doers" and declares we are war, while I declare that how we carry out this war will determine not only our own destiny but the destiny of our planet (O).

No. 17 Aug 13-Sept 13 Mark Phillips's photo of Satan (O); Charles Tart, collector of anecdotes for the paranormal and supernatural (P) (SU); crime data: Utah State Bureau of Criminal Identification (BCI) claims data shows that a mother is three times as likely to be assaulted by a man on Mother's Day as on any other day of the year (JS); Peter Popoff & wife still scamming after all these years (FH) (SU).

No. 16 June 28-July 23 the polygraph (JS); and life after death (SU) (JS).

No. 15 Jan 2-June 23 Atlantis guesses (JS); memory & Freud's theory of repression (SC); Sylvia Browne, Van Praagh, and Jon Edward exposed on Larry King Live (P); remote viewing (P); Fox and the moon landing hoax hoax (FH); acupuncture (JS).

2000

No. 14 July 7-Dec 16 psychic dogs? (JS); the science? of spiritual exercise (JS); a modern shaman (CAM) (JS); ghosts (P); North Pole melting (SC); acupuncture for cocaine addiction (JS); Shirley MacLaine's website (O); "Crossing Over" with John Edward begins (SU); secularization of public education (O).

No. 13 May 5-June 29 "48 Hours" phony test of the paranormal (JS); CNN promotes dowsing (JS); WebMD soft touch on therapeutic touch (JS); crystal skulls (P); 43% of CAM studies have no positive effect (CAM); feng shui (P); shroud of Turin (SU); Einstein and religion (SU); intuitive medicine (JS); Vatican reveals Fatima prophecy (SU); Fox's "Powers of the Paranormal" (JS); St. Gennaro (SU); Larry King's parade of buffoons (P); James Van Praagh, a "medium-for-asses" (P).

No. 12 March 19-May 2 Ogopogo (CZ); child care and crime (JS); Fox: ghosts, sea monsters, & psychic pets (P); miracles are in the eye of the beholder (SU); astrology (JS); Sylvia Browne's cellular memory (JS); History Channel UFOs (U); dowsing (JS); Barna poll on spirituality (SU); homeopathy (JS); obstetrics & astrology (JS).

No. 11 Jan 5- March 16 homeopathy (JS); Our Lady of the Ice Cream Spill (SU); AIDS among Catholic priests (SU); prayer may or may not help (SU); bones on tour (SU); geomancy in Hong Kong (P).

1999

1998

1997