Name
XXXXXXXXXXStudent ID
ATS XXXXXXXXXXFACT CHECK
Extinguish the Autumn Rebellion
1. Overview
How reliable is this article? Provide justification for your answer together with your final judgement from those listed below. If you detected any cognitive bias in this report, please give a short explanation. (approx. 400 words)
Judgement Choices
Select one of the following that best describes your judgement:
· Fake news present with misleading information and faulty reasoning
· Fake news present but otherwise contains a high proportion of co
ect information
· No fake news present but misleading information and faulty reasoning
· No fake news present and contains a high proportion of co
ect information
2. List of Sources Consulted (max 14)
List the sources of information, stating the source type and its reference details as per the Harvard or APA format.
Source Type
(e.g. journal article, grey literature, newspaper, social media)
Source (Harvard or APA referencing)
3. Verification and Co
ection of information (max 20)
Provide a list of any instances of fake news, inco
ect/misleading information or faulty reasoning AND provide the co
ect information
easoning (approximately 400 words).
Instance
Problem
(indicate whether it was fake news; inco
ect and/or misleading information; or faulty reasoning)
Co
ect Information
easoning
PAGE
1
Sem XXXXXXXXXXassignment
ATS XXXXXXXXXXFe
uary 2020
EXTINGUISH THE AUTUMN
REBELLION
We get that there was unusual summer weather, but
attacking the city with bees is EXtreme
Note: this article is written for the purpose of the ATS1206 fact checking assignment and may contain deliberate
falsehoods, misleading statements and imprecise content. It is not a genuine news article.
Hardworking Aussies are fed up with extremists. Last October we saw Extinction
Rebellion protesters blocking Melbourne intersections which put on a strain on police
esources (16,000 officers and 111 protestors a
ested), stopped emergency services
(45 demonstrators charged) and cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars (ABC
News 13/10/19). Like police, we are over it with everyday Aussies asking, what’s the
point? This April we can plan for an even greater sting from this radical group. Their plan
is to release hives of bees at every Melbourne CBD intersection to cause panic and
casualties. We should have listened to Ke
i-Anne Kennerley last October when she
said these te
orist morons should be used as speed bumps and deported
(@10NewsFirst, 2019).
So let’s step back a bit and try and logically understand what these radical Extinction
Rebellion protesters are up to.Their website claims that we are “facing an
unprecedented global emergency. We are in a life and death situation of our our making
(2020, The Truth, para.1).” Just a minute, we’ve had massive bushfires in 2009, 2006
and 2003. How is this unprecedented? Natural disasters create emergencies all the
time - they are not our doing at all. They
are called natural for a reason. Even
the State Government of Victoria’s
Climate Ready Victoria report states
that over the last 100 years air
temperatures have risen due to the fuel
from fossils burning in bushfires (2015,
p. 2). And their projection of annual
average temperature changes in 2030
are only up 0.09 degree (2015, p. 6).
This is really not a lot - who wouldn’t
like a slighter warmer temperature
anyway? Even NASA’s blog says that
the earth isn’t cooling and confirms this
is a good thing (2019).
But the really catastrophic claim from these radicals comes in their website’s argument
that, “many cu
ent life forms will be extinct by the end of this century (2020, The
Emergency, para. 1).” This is no doubt where their concern for bees comes in. A loss of
1
Extreme protesters trying to save some bees
Picture: Rick Rycroft/AP
ATS XXXXXXXXXXFe
uary 2020
some bees is really not an issue - many children will be
grateful for not getting a bee sting - unless of course they
are at a Melbourne intersection in April.
The use of science to justify a point of view is a common
tactic for crackpots. As the Senator Jim Moran stated, “my
views on climate change aren’t governed by
evidence” (2020, Twitter ABC News Breakfast #QandA). As
Professor Peter Doherty of ANU reiterates, real climate
scientists have a ba
age of climate denialist information
come across their desks every day. (2020, Twitter @ProfPCDoherty #QandA). This use
of science is used by Extinction Rebellion to provide “warnings” (2020, The Truth, para.
10) including those of the Union of Concerned Scientists XXXXXXXXXXReally? We should
elieve a group of 17 trade unionists that we should curtail environmental destruction?
Then there is the warning from a group of unidentified 184 scientists with the
catastrophising title, “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice (2017)”
They blame material consumption and population growth for an “imperilled biosphere”
ut contradict their view by stating that humans have stabilised the ozone layer (2017,
p XXXXXXXXXXIf we turn to the Climate Change 2014 Synthesis Report : Summary for
Policymakers from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) we can see
some common sense prevailing when they show that CO2 emissions will not be greater
than 1000 until XXXXXXXXXX, p. 9).
The tactics of these radicals are not new to environmental politics. Li
y Lester explains
that activists attempt to spread their message through the media with their “weapons of
choice… symbols, meanings and distu
ing images” (Lester 2006, p. 53). Playing
dress-ups in bee costumes or medieval Venetian outfits and releasing bees is certainly
distu
ing, but its hard to see how they will win fans by doing so. Traditionally, the news
media provides the least expensive and best alternative for environmental causes to
gain access to the mass media and they do
this through protests. (Lester 2006, p. 54)
These radicals want to mimic the success of
the Franklin River blockade back in the
1980s where 4000 protestors blockaded the
wilderness area. That event, explains the
Peace Review, was “characterised not just
y the presence of violence but by
adherence to, and promotion of, principles of
violence.” (Varney 2007, p.386).
The media has a clear role to play in this
issue. These new radicals should be silenced
for as Lester and Hutchins (2009, p. 579)
state, “if the exercise for the green groups is
to win converts, they still have to do the hard
work and get journalists to take pictures and
to tell the story.” So don’t tell their story, don’t
photograph it, and when they release the
ees in April, don’t get stung.
2
Medieval and faceless.The typical image of protestors. Picture:
Emilia Terzon/ ABC News
“My views on
climate change
aren’t governed by
evidence”
Senator Jim Moran
We get that there was unusual summer weather, but attacking the city with bees is EXtreme
“My views on climate change aren’t governed by evidence”
Senator Jim Moran
Name
XXXXXXXXXXStudent ID
ATS XXXXXXXXXXFACT CHECK
Extinguish the Autumn Rebellion
1. Overview
How reliable is this article? Provide justification for your answer together with your final judgement from those listed below. If you detected any cognitive bias in this report, please give a short explanation. (approx. 400 words)
Judgement Choices
Select one of the following that best describes your judgement:
· Fake news present with misleading information and faulty reasoning
· Fake news present but otherwise contains a high proportion of co
ect information
· No fake news present but misleading information and faulty reasoning
· No fake news present and contains a high proportion of co
ect information
2. List of Sources Consulted (max 14)
List the sources of information, stating the source type and its reference details as per the Harvard or APA format.
Source Type
(e.g. journal article, grey literature, newspaper, social media)
Source (Harvard or APA referencing)
3. Verification and Co
ection of information (max 20)
Provide a list of any instances of fake news, inco
ect/misleading information or faulty reasoning AND provide the co
ect information
easoning (approximately 400 words).
Instance
Problem
(indicate whether it was fake news; inco
ect and/or misleading information; or faulty reasoning)
Co
ect Information
easoning