Economics

Wired’s Scicomm Writer Emily Mullin Attacks Independent Research, Because Of Course

Authored by Paul D. Thacker via The Disinformation Chronicle,

Shortly after I broke news last week about the new science journal born out of pandemic censorship, Wired Magazine’s scicomm writer Emily Mullin dashed out an attack piece to bash the “Journal of the Academy of Public Health.” Mullin’s hit piece contains factual errors and several misleading claims, but her article serves as an interesting case study in science writing, a journalism adjacent media profession.

Because Trump is now President and science writers have gone full TDS, I’m going to walk you through the details of how Mullin constructs her scicomm narrative to help you spot future examples. You will definitely run across some.

I’m going to ignore much of the rhetoric that infuses her piece—because Mullin says so, the journal is “controversial” and might “politicize science”—and jump to something that might not be obvious at first: Wired Magazine is in the business of servicing liberal pieties, not informing readers. How do we know this?

Mullin’s Wired piece is getting little traction on X, where users span the ideological spectrum, but it’s being gobbled up on Bluesky the social media app for liberal activists. Liberals love to complain that X is “right-wing” but that’s simply nonsense—Fact check wrong! After Trump won the election with Musk’s support, millions of liberals fled X in protest to join Bluesky. CNN reported weeks later that X was finally ideologically balanced.

According to CNN, when Musk bought X in 2022 it was very partisan, 65% of users were Democrats and only 31% were Republicans. By late 2024, X had become more ideologically diverse with 48% Democrats and 47% Republicans. Here’s CNN’s report.

BREAKING- CNN: Musk’s X Now Represents U.S. Voters ‘Far Better’ Than Ever Before |
“Look at this. The party ID among those who regularly use X/Twitter for news——Back in 2022, 65% of those who regularly used Twitter/X for news were Democrats. Just 31% were Republicans.”
“Look at… pic.twitter.com/lttDGI6bWf
— الاحداث العالمية 🌍 (@World_News8888) November 26, 2024
Right after Mullin published her hit piece, she posted it simultaneously on X and BlueSky. After a few hours, hardly anybody read it on X, but it took off on Bluesky with dozens of shares and likes.

Around 18 hours later, very little had changed on X for Mullin’s article. A few more people shared and a few more liked it, but on Bluesky, over 100 liberal activists promoted the article to their followers.

What excites liberals is news they find at places like Wired that confirms their own priors. That’s why they left X after Musk stopped the censoring and joined Bluesky. What they don’t care about is journalism, and they are not bothered by obvious errors in Mullin’s piece that tickle them in their political privates.

Mullin constructs a fake allegation to make the “Journal of the Academy of Public Health” appear “controversial” by claiming Oxford’s Sunetra Gupta published a paper that concluded 50% of Brits were infected by the COVID virus in early 2020. Mullin also claims Gupta’s…

First Photo Of USS Truman Carrier Shows Extensive Damage After Collision With Tanker

How is that two massive ships, one a US Navy Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, crash into each other on the open waters of the Mediterranean? That’s what Pentagon investigators will be looking at in the wake of Wednesday’s incident off Egypt.

The USS Harry S. Truman and the Panamanian-flagged merchant vessel Besiktas-M collided at around noon local time on Wednesday. On Friday the first photo emerged of damage to the US carrier, and it looks extensive.

Update: Damage to the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier involved in a collision with a merchant ship off the coast of Egypt less than two weeks after launching airstrikes against ISIS in Somalia https://t.co/hlvoJ1DKn2 pic.twitter.com/ZiR219Zek6
— Lucas Tomlinson (@LucasFoxNews) February 14, 2025
The vessels collided near Port Said, but there were no injuries reported on either ship. No injuries or flooding on the aircraft carrier were reported, and its propulsion plants “are unaffected and in a safe and stable condition,” the Navy’s 6th Fleet said.

However, the Truman did clearly sustain severe damage, statements indicated:

The Truman was approaching the Suez Canal to go from the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea, a Navy official told CBS News. There’s no assessment at this time which vessel was at fault, the official said.

The Truman sustained some damage above the waterline, the official said. It wasn’t clear if it will be going in for repairs. The ship remained in the Mediterranean.

Naval News provides some new details Friday as follows, based also on analysis of the photograph:

The incident occurred at 11:46 p.m. local time on February 12th near Port Said, Egypt, at the northern end of the Suez Canal. The bulk of visible damage occurred on the starboard side aft of elevator 3, damaging the underside of a sponson with a .50 caliber machine gun.

The aircraft elevator adjacent to the damaged portion appears undamaged. According to the U.S. Navy, the incident did not cause any flooding or injuries onboard the Truman.

Location of the damage:

The carrier deployed to the Mediterranean and Mideast region starting in September and has reportedly been conducting ‘counter-ISIS’ missions, including Trump-ordered strikes on Somalia on Feb.1st. As of late last week it was in a Greek port.

By all accounts this is pretty embarrassing for the US Navy, also given that the merchant bulk carrier is a huge ship. Again, how does this happen?

Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/14/2025 – 18:00…