Culture: News: Underreported
Tabloid for Skeptics   (+1)  [vote for, against]
Package and present skeptical news in a crowd-pleasing format

Instead of yet another tabloid with headlines about "new miracle cures", how about a tabloid that instead posts critical news of various phenomena, and debunks myths and pseudoscience, but still does it in an easy to read and exciting way.

There are of course skeptical magazines (such as Skeptical Inquirer), but they tend to be rather high-brow and tough to digest. The challenge is to create a format that is as easily readable - and selling - as any tabloid, but that is actually based on critical review and judgement, and promotes critical thinking in the viewer.

There should be an accompanying website to the tabloid where one can get more details on the subjects, get references and all the important scientific rigor etc.

It should be possible, although not easy, to make this kind of paper, where the articles unfold like detective stories etc. One would probably still need to give some room for creative freedom on scientific expense, but not in any big way (and the more complex facts would be available on the web site)

Not a very good example, but the closest I can think of would be the CSI series on TV, although that is more of a detective story with some scientific bits thrown in, but it still shows that "science could be fun"
-- Brummo, Sep 21 2003

Skeptical Inquirer http://www.csicop.org/si/
Great, but not a mass-market magazine [Brummo, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]

(?) People Who Hate People http://www.network5...m/Hide/Forum/148537
[lubbit, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]

Best thing ever http://www.straightdope.com
Got a question? Search the archives. Probably there. [GutPunchLullabies, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]

Fortean Times http://www.forteantimes.com/
Magazine for skeptics, contains lots of weirdness [simonj, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]

What are you going to call your new publication?
-- lubbit, Sep 21 2003


The Washington Post
-- DeathNinja, Sep 21 2003


Is this distortion of reality worth the fact that it might provoke interest in forensic science, or science in general, where it may otherwise have been missed?

This is the sort of dilemna I think [Brummo] hints at - maybe it's worth excersising creative license to make science more appealing to people who might otherwise not pay any attention.
-- Detly, Sep 21 2003


Tabloid for skeptics? They'll never believe it. +
-- sartep, Sep 22 2003


Sponsered by The People Who Hate People Society.
-- lubbit, Sep 22 2003


I would buy a copy. I would even write for a magazine like that.
-- roland3c, Aug 02 2004


Bat-boy not born in Maryland! Delivery room doctors not stunned!
-- GutPunchLullabies, Aug 02 2004


"12 Senators may or may not be aliens! Details possibly inside!"

Perhaps it could be called "The Weekly Messwithyourheader"
-- shapu, Aug 02 2004


"Exclusive Abduction Investation! We find 150 million people who don't claim to have been abducted by aliens!"
-- Detly, Aug 03 2004



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