The Daily Mail does death by thousands of misinformation cuts
how I made millions and did you hear I'm banning gas stoves
Look, you might deem it not a big deal. But that’s kind of the point.
You see, last week The Daily Mail took it upon themselves to do a story on my I Quit Gas campaign. They didn’t interview me or contact me for comment. They didn’t bother with research. Or facts. Instead they ripped off grabs from a News Ltd interview I had done and padded the rest out with a bunch of non-facts, banner ads and clickbaity videos. The overall result was a vomiting of non-sensical activity and salacious distraction.
As so often is the case with such media outlets, and with all bad faith operators, the devil was in the lack of detail. And, friends, this is a tactic.
First up (and I won’t be doing links to the article, just screen grabs; nary a “view” I will send the DM’s way), the article suggests I get rich from the quitting protocols that I subject the world to. Apparently I made millions.
Nothing new here. It’s the line a lot of media takes.
Further down, buried under layers of frothing promotions and flashing videos they qualify: after selling the I Quit Sugar “empire”, Sarah Wilson gave the profits to charity. But, oops, too late for the majority of readers who don’t read past the first fold.
(This is also not new, BTW. Most media really don’t like this giving away of money hoo-ha. Indeed it went unreported at the time (not that publicity was my modus operandi for doing it). Two weeks ago I was out with a friend who raised the charity stuff in front of the editor of a well known (surprisingly extant) women’s magazine who said, “Oh, that’s right. I heard about it at the time but didn’t believe it, so we didn’t cover it.” If you don’t like something because, I’m assuming, it threatens your world order in some way, you bury it.)
But let’s move on.
In the original News Ltd interview I repeatedly tell the journalist no one is suggesting we ban gas stoves and heaters (the journalist, in good faith, accurately represents this message in his article). The Daily Mail, however, claims I’m telling people to banish gas stoves and then references calls to ban gas stoves, implying that’s the argument I’m taking:
But who mentioned banning gas stoves? Not me. No one has.
But. Oops. Too late, again. The seed is planted. Someone Out There in The Woke-verse said gas stoves should be banned!!! I mean, I can’t be bothered to read back over the article because all that salacious vomiting hurts my eyes, but that’s what that woke Sarah Wilson Lady is saying, no? First they come for our utes!1 Now they’re coming for our cooktops! We are being cancelled by the elites...IN OUR OWN KITCHENS!
It’s a clever technique. The Right-wing media in the US adore it. By setting up a counter argument that argues against a falsehood (the classic straw man fallacy), you plant the existence of the falsehood (and straight into the laps of those trying to make the sensible, progressive point).
And just to ice cakes, a bunch of non-facts are tacked onto the final paragraph of the story:
Yep, coal indeed produces more CO2 than gas, which produces methane. But methane is 80 times more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2 (in a twenty-year period, which is the crucial timeframe we’re concerned with).
More devil in lack of detail.
Sure, chucking out stoves is a landfill issue. But who mentioned chucking anything that’s not broken and must be replaced anyway? Not me. Another straw man tactic. As most of you here know, everyone in this space has a clear message: If your stove dies and you have to replace it, or if you’re building, don’t go for gas, choose electric (and then we provide tips for coping with gas in the meantime).
As I said at the outset, you could say it’s all trifle and innocuous stuff in the scheme of things. And it’s a line The Daily Mail et al would take if I were to ark up more publicly. But this is my point - this is all a tactic in itself. It’s not innocuous. It’s a form of gaslighting. It’s not mere (oops!) sloppiness, or (eye roll) sensationalism. The machinery that this The Daily Mail knows what it’s doing with its multiple cuts of non-truths and straw-manning.
And so here’s a claim I’m staking: This style of doing media gaslights truth tellers. Like you and me.
Going forward I’ll be covering more mis-information issues like this.
Which brings me to this week’s guest on Wild.
Bo Seo is a two-time world debating champion and author of Good Argument, which covers tactics for combatting bad faith arguments and information dissemination. In our chat Bo shares how to combat bullshitters, neg’ers and bullies, when to walk away, plus how to argue with your partner and not lose your shit.
But he makes this point halfway through our recording: The best way to deal with bullshitters and gaslighters is not to respond to all the lies, but to choose a representative example, then show it doesn’t align with reality and then to point out it’s typical of an approach they’re taking. In short, to call out the technique. Name it. And reference it when the lies keeping coming up. Interestingly, Bo says liers tend to lie repeatedly.
Another contemporary example of this, of course, is Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s bad faith demands for “more detail” about the The Voice referendum, which I cover in a previous post but figure it’s good to drive home the point. This tactic is a straw man job. We don’t put detail into referendums. Referendums are only meant to have us vote on broad principles (ie that Indigenous Australians should be recognised in the constitution and should be able to advise on issues affecting them). Dutton also claims The Voice does not represent regional First Nations peoples. This is a falsehood lie. Regional First Nations people are more than represented in the current proposal plus, Pete!, Parliament - which includes you and all your LNP colleagues - will be deciding such things anyway. So, settle!
Bo calls Dutton’s behaviour “wrangling”. It’s when you negate everything, without putting an argument of your own on the table. He suggests dealing with wranglers by getting them to make a positive claim. For example, if your partner is negating every holiday suggestion you put to them, force them to acknowledge their positive argument, namely that they are essentially arguing to not go anywhere. In Dutton’s case, we need to have him state his argument, or do it for him.
Twitter at war with Substack!
Before I wrap here, just one little bit of news apropos the notion of burying stuff you don’t like, as per above. On Thursday Twitter started blocking links to Substack. A few hours later it blocked people who use Substack from embedding tweets into their stories. Then, later it started blocking engagement on tweets containing links to Substack. Finally, on Friday morning, Twitter applied those same restrictions to tweets from the official Substack account.
Substack, I suggest, is threatening Elon’s world view, a world view that doesn’t like the idea of a free press where creators can be in control of their work, are held to account and are rewarded fairly.
I just ate a packet of Pringles someone left at my house. I’m off to walk them off.
Sarah xx
Which is actually something Australia’s Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said in January when the studies regarding the health effects of gas stoves came out.
Countering misinformation is a skill we need now more than ever. Thanks for adding a few more tactics to my kit!
I'm sorry about the duplicitous bastards but I do appreciate being able to see how your mind unpacks their load of bollocks!
I knew the bar was low with some media outlets, but when you are see the evidence of pernicious disinformation it's very sad. I don't see the upside to bastardising the message. If someone with your background can still have their message distorted to be unrecognisable then the misuse of the fourth estate is nearly complete. Not healthy for society in general. I'm glad you have a forum to rebut the article, I wonder how it is held in check if this is endemic??