The New York TImes reports
Researchers looked at thousands of spider news stories to study how sensationalized information spreads. Their findings could be broadly applicable.
It turns out that these fears and misunderstandings of our eight-legged friends are reflected in the news. Recently, more than 60 researchers from around the world, including Dr. Scott, collected 5,348 news stories about spider bites, published online from 2010 through 2020 from 81 countries in 40 languages. They read through each story, noting whether any had factual errors or emotionally fraught language. The percentage of articles they rated sensationalistic: 43 percent. The percentage of articles that had factual errors: 47 percent.
Read more at Spiders Are Caught in a Global Web of Misinformation – The New York Times
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