VOX - How should journalists cover quacks like Dr. Oz or the Food Babe?
How should the media treat cranks like Dr. OZ or the “food babe?” Well they need to do a lot better job than they’re doing. Julia Belluz tells us what she thinks, and gives them some good advice, and what she says doesn’t just apply to those two either. In fact the American media needs to do a much better job cover pseudoscience in general, from everything to climate change denial to the anti vaccination movement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40uh5WGamv4
When a new book by blogger Vani Hari, who calls herself the “Food Babe,” arrived on my desk a few months ago, I looked at the cover, thumbed through a few pages, and tossed it away.
“Break free from the hidden toxins in your food,” The Food Babe Way boasted. “Lose weight, look years younger, and get healthy in just 21 days.”
Everything about this reeked of pseudoscience: the suggestion that people can reinvent their bodies with quick fixes. The notion that we’re being attacked by chemicals and in need of a thorough detox. I didn’t want to dedicate any reporting energy to addressing Hari’s nonsense.
A couple months later, I wondered if I’d made a mistake. Profiles of the Food Babe were turning up in the New York Times and the Atlantic. Her audience now numbered in the millions, and her mostly insane tirades against the toxins in our environment seemed to be catching on. Some were even calling her the next Dr. Oz.
Read more at VOX*
Note: I used the youtube version of the video since I was unable to embed the version VOX used for some reason, but its the same video, just a different format.