This report by Scientific American is a hoot for its blatant hypocrisy. With the title of their piece, "Getting Duped: How Media Messes With Your Mind,", it appears that Scientific American is trying to set itself up as the bringers of truth to all those confused by the "surreptitiously" misleading media. Their piece is ostensibly a warning on how the media is misleading us all. Their subtitle even declares how they are about to tell us of the media's misconduct.

Statements made in the media can surreptitiously plant distortions in the minds of millions. Learning to recognize two commonly used fallacies can help you separate fact from fiction

So, with that, what would you expect from the rest of the piece? Perhaps some examples of how the media misleads us? Maybe a few New York Times lies, or gaffs from network news outlets, or even the cable news stations? If you would expect examples of media lies in a story sold as one about the media, you'd be disappointed because all the examples Sci. Amer. gives us are from politicians and commentators, not the media. And guess what else? Nearly all the examples of "lies," "misleading statements," and "straw man arguments" are from Republicans and/or conservatives.

I received an e-mail message from a global warming skeptic yesterday suggesting that Newsweek's disgraceful article about climate change "deniers" could backfire given the facetious headline "Global Warming Is A Hoax*" on the cover.

The thinking was that since far more people would see the magazine at the newsstands than would actually buy it and read the article, a much larger number of people would think Newsweek was indeed claiming global warming was a hoax, and would never understand the sarcasm.

It seems that one of the editors of Scientific American agrees, and posted his concerns at that magazine's editors' blog Wednesday with a headline "Newsweek Denies the Existence of Global Warming" (emphasis added throughout):