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Religious misinformation, disinformation,
lies, darn lies, statistics, etc. on the Internet

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Since the startup of this website in 1995, we have been continually amazed at the level of bias, misinformation, confusing reporting, and disinformation being spread by some religious news sources. This seems to have reached very high levels in late 2009 with the introduction of the federal hate-crimes legislation -- the first of many LGBT civil rights bills to be introduced.

The good news is that these news sources rarely lie.

However, some sources can be seen to:

	Provide only their own assessment of the topic while remaining silent about alternate views.
	Ignore contradictory evidence that shows their opinions to be false, or at least suspect.
	Emphasize part of the news, while simply not reporting other parts.
	Explain the news in a way that often leads a reader to assume that something happened other than what really occurred.
	Report information from other news source's without prior fact checking.

It is our hope that people visiting this site will become more skeptical after reading some of the ways in which religious media inject bias into their coverage. If many people Email complaints to these news sources, those companies may realize that they are losing credibility -- their most precious asset.

We also hope that teachers can make use of this material to help students develop analytical techniques -- "bologna detectors" -- to separate real information from disinformation and misinformation.

Topics covered in this section:

	What convinced us to start reporting on religious misinformation on the Internet
	A more detailed explanation of the triggering event
	Some examples of biased reporting: Misrepresenting an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" sitcom   An unsuccessful attempt to correct an error on a young-earth creationist web site   Are there 3 or 30 or more different sexual orientations? Are prostitution, bestiality, necrophilia really orientations?   Christian web sites that describe Wicca with varying degrees of accuracy

Footnotes:

1. LGBT is an anacronym of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered persons/Transsexuals. So is other variations like GLBT, GLBTQ, GLBTI, etc. where "Q" refers to queer or questioning, and I refers to intersexual.
    

Copyright © 2009 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Originally written: 2009-NOV-03
Latest update: 2009-NOV-08
Author: B.A. Robinson

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