Operation Confirmation Bias

Today on the podcast, a story that seemed like a perfect fit Outside/In that wound up going places that we didn’t expect to go. When workers at the American embassy Cuba claimed to have been attacked by a mysterious weapon that left no trace, it led to a major shift in American diplomacy towards the Caribbean socialist state. But the story has also led to a split in journalism, stemming from the sources different kinds of journalists rely on.

This story forces us to ask: how do we decide what we know? What kinds of information we trust?

Our contribution on this issue is just one among many. For those who are interested here’s an extra-reading list.

For starters, here are the stories we mention by name in the episode:

• The New York Times reporting on the study identifying the sound in the AP recording.

• Doug Fields’ opinion piece in Undark.

• The Vanity Fair story claiming that the most plausible explanation is sociogenic illness.

• Here is the NPR piece.

• Here is the 60-Minutes story that led me to Mark Lenzi.

• Here the Washington Post poo-poos the microwave hypothesis.

If you’re interested in the Associated Press reporting, which broke much of the news, here’s a sampling:

• Here’s where the much-discussed recording was released.

• Here’s where UPenn doctors talked about damage to white matter.

• Here it’s reported that the FBI doubts the sonic attack hypothesis.

If you’re looking for one, great-big long-read about the whole affair, I’ve got two of those:

• One by the New Yorker.

• The other by ProPublica.

If you’re interested in getting your hands on some peer-reviewed science, here are three papers:

• The JAMA paper laying out symptoms.

• Michael Hoffer’s paper about damage to the inner ear.

• Beatrice Golomb lays out the evidence for microwaves.

And the rest is what I’ll call “pot pourri”

• Here Doug Fields lays out the evidence against the State Department’s narrative.

• Here is Time Magazine’s reporting into Michael Hoffer’s questionable past.

• Here is one of the two Senate hearings convened on the subject.

• Here’s a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who was also on the junk science train.

• Here the New York Times reports on the microwave hypothesis.

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Outside/In was produced this week by:

Sam Evans-Brown, Jimmy Gutierrez, and Taylor Quimby with help from Justine Paradis.

Erika Janik is our Executive Producer. Maureen McMurray is the director of UFOs are totally real.  

Music from this week’s episode came from Blue Dot Sessions.

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.