‘MEDIA BIAS/FACT CHECK’ Site Fails Fact Check
Discredited self-styled ‘fact checker’ website is served with a ‘cease and desist’ legal notice today for publishing unsubstantiated and defamatory claims against Principia Scientific International (PSI).
MEDIA BIAS FACT CHECK site owner admits he is unqualified and misrepresented himself as a seasoned journalist.
According to MEDIA BIAS FACT CHECK Principia Scientific International CIC is:
“CONSPIRACY-PSEUDOSCIENCE Sources in the Conspiracy-Pseudoscience category may publish unverifiable information that is not always supported by evidence. These […]”
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/?s=principia+scientific+international
So, who is fact-checking the ‘fact checkers’?
Today, PSI has issued Media Bias/Fact Check (MB/FC) site owner, Dave Van Zandt with a pre-action legal notice to take down the defamatory and false smear.
Ironically, the self-styled ‘MEDIA BIAS/ FACT CHECK‘ (MB/FC) which negatively fact-checked PSI admits it relies on subjective bias to decide how biased others are. In other words MB/FC is a pseudoscientific fact checker!
Apart from unlawfully smearing PSI Mr Van Zandt has smeared other websites that publish scientific articles critical of man-made global warming claims. Among the unfairly smeared are:
Below we help readers to fact check the pseudo fact checker. We put Dave Van Zandt the faceless fact checker under the microscope and discovered the following:
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Van Zandt cites no scientific qualifications at all
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Van Zandt was exposed by WND as a fraud and a liar
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Van Zandt’s website (MB/FC) does not apply any objective scientific method
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Van Zandt relies on unverifiable subjectivity (own bias) to make judgments
In a 2017 WND Exclusive ‘Phony baloney: The 9 fakest fake-news checkers’ Chelsea Schilling uncovered that Van Zandt was a seasoned systemic faker. She wrote:
“WND was unable to locate a single article with Van Zandt’s byline. Ironically, the “fact checker” fails to establish his own credibility by disclosing his qualifications and training in evaluating news sources.
Asked for information concerning his expertise in the field of journalism and evaluating news sources, Van Zandt told WND: “I am not a journalist and just a person who is interested in how media bias impacts politics. You will find zero claims of expertise on the website.”
Concerning his purported “25+ years” of experience writing for print and web media, he said: “I am not sure why the 25+ years is still on the website.”
With the increasing scourge of fake news reports, especially on matters of wider scientific interest, Principia Scientific International (PSI) has become a recognised source of highly-qualified scientific opinion. That scoundrels like Mr Van Zandt get such traction with his bogus ‘fact checking’ website is testimony for the need for more diligence and push back from honest scientists and citizens sickened by endless scientific fraud and misinformation.
Below we share with readers the take down letter issued today to Mr Van Zandt:
Mr Dave Van Zandt
Media Bias/Fact Check
Greensboro, NC
Dear Mr Dave Van Zandt,
Re: Notice to Cease & Desist Libelous Conduct
Please accept this communication as a Cease and Desist Notice prior to legal action under 28 U.S. Code § 4101(1).
It has been drawn to our attention that your business, MEDIA BIAS FACT CHECK is libeling our business, Principia Scientific International(PSI) by posting the following (recorded on March 13, 2020)
On your site at: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/methodology/ you state:
“Conspiracy/Pseudoscience
The Conspiracy/Pseudoscience designation is reserved for sources that publish unverifiable information that relates to known conspiracies such as the New World Order, Illuminati, False Flags, Aliens, etc. Pseudoscience is determined by publishing unverified health and scientific claims. In order to be classified in this group the central theme of the source must revolve around conspiracies or pseudoscience.”
On the same webpage you add the following disclaimer:
“Disclaimer: The methodology used by Media Bias Fact Check is our own. It is not a tested scientific method. It is meant as a simple guide for people to get an idea of a source’s bias. Media Bias Fact Check will always review and change any factual errors when brought to our attention. We make every effort to be as factual as possible. Our goal is to have MBFC rated as least biased by our own criteria.”
According to Merriam-Webster online dictionary the term ‘pseudoscience’ is defined as: “a system of theories, assumptions, and methods erroneously regarded as scientific.”
You thus taint our scientific organisation as unscientific – a palpable lie provable in a court of law.
It is our belief you have made the above published statement with intention of causing damage to the reputation of our legally regulated UK non-profit scientific association which is scrupulously regulated under law as a community interest company (CiC).
By law a CIC is prohibited from political bias i.e. it cannot advocate for any political point of view. To engage in such action would render us likely to be struck off the register or be prosecuted.
Contrary to the false impression you give your readers, we are an international body of 5,500+ members, many of whom are credentialed science professionals, engineers and STEM academics, including award-winning scientists, government experts, etc.
Our published work is not pseudoscience but premised on established scientific methods. A select list of some of our distinguished member is here: A Selection Of Member Biographies. [1]
In conclusion, not only do you admit your own methodology is unscientific, but because you also fail to cite which specific PSI posts are pseudoscience, you condemn all our members, which compounds your own bias.
As per 28 U.S. Code § 4101(1) we regard the words below civilly actionable and demand removal of them within 28 days:
“CONSPIRACY-PSEUDOSCIENCE Sources in the Conspiracy-Pseudoscience category may publish unverifiable information that is not always supported by evidence. These […]”
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/?s=principia+scientific+international
If you persist in maintaining this false assertion against us to jeopardize our legal standing, I hereby require you to provide substantiation of your accusation. You may do so by providing us a selection of hyperlinks from published material on our website(s) which you claim are ‘conspiracy-pseudoscience.’
Such evidence may then be considered for submission to a court of law for adjudication of the veracity of your claims.
If you are unwilling/unable to provide us the evidence you rely on to make your claims then you are hereby required to remove your false statement.
[1] https://principia-scientific.com/why-psi-is-proposed-as-a-cic/
I await your reply.
Sincerely,
John O’Sullivan CEO
Principia Scientific International CIC (No: 10824140) Fully incorporated in the UK for charitable purposes. http://principia-scientific.org/
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PRINCIPIA SCIENTIFIC INTERNATIONAL, legally registered in the UK as a company
incorporated for charitable purposes. Head Office: 27 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX.
Please DONATE TODAY To Help Our Non-Profit Mission To Defend The Scientific Method.
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Makena James
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I have been waiting a year for someone to prove the fact checkers as false and left-biased machines.
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Andy Rowlands
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Nice one John!! There are two others that need the same treatment, both used by Faceache; climatefeedback and factcheck.org. Both run by self-confessed alarmists.
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John O'Sullivan
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Cheers, Andy. If you have the time to do some digging on these other offenders I will work with you in taking them to task..
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Andy Rowlands
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I’ll email you with the info I have acquired about them.
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Rosie Langridge
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Hi John
My Norton protection won’t let me into PSI. I can only get in via the email you send out. It has a huge red message saying ‘malicious site’ and blocks me when I try to go in, putting up an error message.
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Andy Rowlands
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If you are trying to read the article on Facebook, it is suspected they are (again) trying to prevent people seeing PSI articles. If you try to access the article several times, you usually get through on the second or third attempt.
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John O'Sullivan
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Hi Rosie, , looks like your security settings in Norton need tweaking. Try this: https://support.norton.com/sp/en/us/home/current/solutions/kb20090602135812EN
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Rosie Langridge
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Thanks both of you. This is new, though, the “malicious site” message – I had no problems with it a week ago.
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Andy Rowlands
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No worries Rosie 🙂 Other people have been reporting the same thing for the last couple weeks, so it’s not just you 🙂
Chris
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Good job.
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T L Winslow
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I think it’s time you clearly thought out your blog’s place in the publishing food chain. Is it just another academic journal that peer-reviews articles and stands behind them even in court, making your afraid to publish more than 1% of submissions, or is it an aggregator of scientific articles where the author alone is responsible for content, and you publish anything you think open-minded free-thinking amateur and professional scientists would find interesting? I think it should be the latter since at this time in history virtually all the academic journals are controlled by the U.N. IPCC and shut out all boat-rockers, and you aren’t getting the big bucks to pay for an expert review staff like they are, especially when the fox is guarding the hen house with the IPCC octopus and truth is no longer welcome if it interferes with their big push to foist global Marxism.
There’s nothing wrong with being the go-to outlet for everybody blocked by the IPCC octopus, relying on your comments section for the truth to be thrashed out on an article by article basis. Free comments sections are what establish your reputation as the crucible of living science, and if leftist “fact checkers” want to dismiss it as pseudoscience, that stamps the word DUMB— on their own foreheads. It’s the IPCC cage hens who will always be afraid to publish on P-S or even comment because they have a chain to pull and have a paycheck to worry about. Take my word for it. History will judge you far more kindly than them, so go for it and more power to you.
P-S is my favorite scientific blog, and I read them all. If I were you I’d fix up your policy page with a legal disclaimer that authors are responsible for their own articles and their views don’t necessarily represent P-S. If you want to stake your claim on articles, you can also do it in editorials.
Are you an afternoon multitasker snacker, or a midnight movie attacker watcher snacker?
Speaking of aggregator of STEM articles, try my blog, which consists of links to the articles I read on a day by day basis, and has a wider coverage than anybody else’s because I’m a super-generalist pansophist freak and read more articles than anybody. Subscribe to the free daily email and you will receive up to 500-1000 article links a month as they develop on all subjects.
http://historyscoper.com/scitechblog/
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Joseph Olson
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Thanks for you kind, thoughtful comment. Principia Scientific International was founded with the purest of intentions, to apply traditional scientific method to all evolving research, in particular, the controlled Alarmists/Lukewarmist fake debate. We endeavor to provide a wide range of sound science, as much original content as possible, and a forum for reasoned discussion. Reviewing our daily content, we seem to be on target. “We hold these Truths to be self evident” should applied to all human activity.
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John O'Sullivan
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TL, Thanks for your words of support and suggestions. More power to you for the sterling work you do, too! We strive to stay flexible as we continue to grow exponentially as an international resource for all writers and researchers who defend the traditional scientific method.
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4TimesAYear
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FB “factcheckers” call what is a difference of opinion “fake news” or the like – such as the vaccination and climate change issues where there actually is science to back up what we’re saying. Of course, then they limit post views. We’re not allowed to have different opinions any more. They’re supposed to be monitoring the obvious disinformation like some wild and crazy stories that I get friends sharing all the time that virtually anyone can tell are fake. It’s very frustrating to say the least. Glad you are taking steps to put an end to this kind of thing. I’d personally like to go after facebook’s “factcheckers”. It’s not about fake news or disinformation. It’s a matter of whose science has more validity in the poster’s eyes.
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