media bias – Author Sarah Angleton

We are approaching the anniversary of a very big week for the United States and for the world because between July 19th and July 27th of 1952 was the peak of intense UFO sightings in a year that had been filled with them. Over the course of the previous four years the US Air Force had recorded observations of 615 UFOs. In 1952 alone, that number jumped to 717.

USA National Archives and Records Administration, Public Domain, via Wimikedia Commons.

The media noticed, particularly in that one week in July when many of the reported UFOs were spotted in the air over Washington DC. Headlines across the nation proclaimed the news. The Cedar Rapids Gazette announced: “SAUCERS SWARM OVER CAPITAL.” The front page of the Standard-Sentinal out of Hazelton, Pennsylvania declared: “RADAR SPOTS MORE ‘FLYING WHATSITS’ OVER WASHINGTON, and in Monroe, Louisiana, the front page of the Monroe News-Star featured the headline: “RADAR SPOTS ‘FLYING SAUCERS’ IN BACKYARD OF NATIONAL CAPITAL.”

Of course most of the articles do acknowledge various versions of the official government response, provided in the largest Pentagon press conference since World War II, that there was no national security concern at all, and that the sightings could be attributed to natural phenomenon like air temperature inversions and meteorite activity.

The UFO media frenzy seems to have been touched off by an April article in Look magazine that asked the question, “HAVE WE VISITORS FROM SPACE?” Then it steadily built because the eyewitnesses to UFOs weren’t just the usual crazies, but also included more credible people like both military and civilian pilots as well as air traffic controllers, some of whom were insistent that their observations didn’t perfectly fit the explanations.

I did see a series of UFOs earlier this spring over my house. That is until my husband identified them as a Space X satellite launch. Still a pretty cool thing to get to see.

Of course the most likely truth rarely gets in the way of a good sensational headline, or even a slanted story, of the variety that will sell a lot of news to the hysterical people who most want to consume it. That was certainly true in 1952, just as it was during the Summer of the Shark in 2001, when everyone became so afraid to go into the water that the number of shark attacks was down a little bit, and just as it has been every single year, before or since, that there has been nationwide media coverage.

Yes, that includes now. But before you get mad at me, it also includes every year the other political flavor held more power, too. Because media is a business designed, like all businesses, to make a grab for our attention and resources. It’s most successful when we’re scared and angry and maybe a little irrational, which is why it works very hard to keep us that way.

Am I suggesting that there isn’t any truth to the sensational, terrible, nation-ending, world altering stories we are consuming in the media every day? Well, not exactly, but often with a little distance and the slight change in perspective it might offer, we can start to see things a bit more clearly.

I suppose I can’t really say for certain that DC wasn’t visited by flying saucers in July of 1952, but I have read that when digital filters were added to radar equipment in the 1970s, there was a sharp reduction in reported UFO sightings. And that really can only mean one thing. Clearly, flying saucer cloaking technology also saw vast improvement at that time.

On October 16, 1869, on William Newell’s farm near Cardiff, New York, two men digging a well, hit something surprising with their shovels. What they eventually uncovered was a ten foot tall, 3,000 pound petrified man.

cardiff_giant_2 — Someone clearly had an unfortunate run-in with geode water. Excavation of the Cardiff Giant, Public Domain, via Wikimedia.

For years, newspapers had been featuring reports of petrified men, believed to have come into contact with water from the inside of geodes. So no one had any doubt such a thing could happen. The good people of Cardiff flocked to see the giant, took selfies to post on Instagram and tweeted out the Syracuse Daily Standard article that dubbed the giant “a new wonder.”

Of course there were a few skeptics. Among them was Dr. Boynton, a local science lecturer who assumed the find was actually a large statue of historical significance. Noteworthy geologist and paleontologist James Hall liked this theory, calling the find, “the most remarkable object yet brought to light in our country,” a quote that once added to a picture of the respected scientist became a meme netting more than 120,000 likes and 15,000 shares on Facebook.

Many theologians got excited, too, pointing to the very large man as evidence supporting the literal interpretation of Genesis 6:4, which claims there were once giants on the earth. The news commentators and bloggers had a lot to work with.

But notably absent from most “media” coverage was the assessment of Yale paleontologist Othniel Marsh who stated upon seeing the Cardiff giant, “It is of very recent origin, and a most decided humbug…” Marsh wasn’t the only one to voice such outrageous ideas, but he might as well have not said anything, for all the good it did.

Most visitors adamantly claimed there was no way they would ever believe the giant had not once been a living, breathing creature. Because once a person’s decided to believe something, it’s hard to convince them not to.

Eventually, the man behind the humbuggery did confess. Cigar manufacturer, dedicated atheist, and cousin to Mr. Newell, George Hull admitted to having the statue commissioned and buried after engaging in a debate with a Methodist preacher over the literal interpretation of Genesis 6:4. He really just wanted to say, “Gotcha!”

As a bonus, he also made a pretty penny off his share in the scheme eventually selling his interest for nearly a half million adjusted 2017 dollars. He definitely fooled a lot of people and certainly supported the point that those who set out to make a point by fooling a lot of people, are kind of big jerkfaces.

Seriously, it was ALL OVER social media. #HumbugHull #CardiffCon #GiantJerkface.

barnum — P.T. Barnum, America’s favorite son of humbuggery, offered to buy the Cardiff Giant. When his offer was refused, he commissioned his own gypsum giant and claimed the first was a forgery. Like a boss. Public Domain, via Wikimedia

But I do think, unwittingly, Hull made another point, too. Because his giant was the fakest fake news of the day. That’s right, folks. We’ve ALWAYS had fake news. Just like we’ve ALWAYS had biased news. Because none of us, members of the media included, lives in a vacuum. Our experiences, our intentions, and our personalities, whether individual or institutional, all serve to inform our biases.

The media attention given to the Cardiff Giant rarely included expert voices that contradicted the sensational because sensational sells and improves SEO as its shared widely across platforms evidently designed to make otherwise reasonable and more or less kind-hearted people seem completely insane. So media outlets use (among other tactics) carefully worded headlines, precisely cut-off quotes, and selective expert interviews to make that happen.

So how do we combat this? First, I think we would all benefit from a deep breath. Then, the next time you think about clicking “share,” take a minute to analyze three things:

The bias of the source (and, yes, there is one, see the previous paragraph)
Your goal in sharing the piece (if it’s either to taunt or to yell, “Gotcha!” it’s possible you should reconsider)
Whether or not the piece will further civil discourse (or whether you’re just behaving like kind of a jerkface).

I don’t mean to sound like I’m coming off heavy-handed here, though I admit that’s exactly what I’m doing. I don’t deny that I have an agenda. I want my social media feeds to be kinder, more civil places today than they were yesterday. I want to have informed conversations with informed adults who don’t always agree with me, but whose opinions are interesting and worth giving some serious consideration. And I want the media to stop reporting about how biased the media is, because, frankly, that’s super old news.

So I hope you’ll remember George Hull and the Cardiff Giant and give some thought to my terribly biased interpretation of the way we should view his story. I hope, too, that at some point you will begin to question the authority of a history blogger who insists that #GiantJerkface was trending on Twitter in 1869. And, last but not least, I hope you are careful to avoid contact with geode water (which I think sells for $7 a bottle at Whole Foods), because I’d hate to see you get petrified, and I read somewhere that can happen.