Newspapers misreport PR as science

July 29, 2009 D. H. McKee

Off

Yes, but are they listening in on my thoughts?

There’s a fundamental problem here: the condition, electrosensitivity, doesn’t appear to exist. A variety of studies that we have covered in the past show that people who claim to be electrosensitive are incapable of determining whether there is an active wireless signal in their vicinity. In multiple blinded studies, they did no better than random chance when asked to identify whether equipment that broadcasts on WiFi or cellular frequencies is active.
None of the articles provide a source for the two percent figure, but the scientific studies clearly indicate that, at a minimum, the number of people who claim electrosensitivity is much larger than the number of people who possibly could suffer from it. Based on that alone, it appears that the two percent figure is essentially made up, indicating that none of the newspapers that ran with the story performed even minimal fact checking on it.

There is no WiFi allergy: newspapers misreport PR as science – Ars Technica

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As a guy who occasionally curates art shows and wrangles artists together, I often have to edit and post artist bios, profile pictures, and artwork images. This can be a problem, since many artists and writers aren’t used to selling themselves. Artists rarely know how to present their art for display in a brochure, and writers aren’t used to writing about themselves.

Writers often treat the bio like it’s an interview or something. Maybe like they’re having a conversation with you, the reader. While it may work sometimes, the most common way to write a bio is to write in the 3rd person.

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Like blogs of old, this one is a personal document of the comings and goings of me. Articles I’ve written, links I’ve posted, videos I liked, etc. Here, a first-person perspective is the way to go, at least for now. So, this is my site. I’m D. H. McKee, a sometimes artist, sometimes writer. Mostly just a guy on the internet.