Foxnews.com promoting woo as a career path

[Alareth]

While browsing the news sites I came across this article on how the fortune telling business is booming during these tough times: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,572246,00.html

The article is written in a completely creulous style and finishes by implying that people should look into taking up the profession.

[MrQhuest]

Is old Sylvia still knocking back $800 an hour?
The money ain't bad if you have no problem lying to people, or yourself.

MrQ

[dropzone]

For $800 per, why would you need to lie to yourself? You are way past the point of pretending you have any ethics.

[gtc]

I'd be prepared to lie to you guys for only $700 an hour.

[kittynh]

That's sad, as what kind of person preys on the misfortunes of others.

And it's fairly easy to learn how to be good enough to make money.

Ian Rowland has a great book on cold reading and since reading it I've played the gypsy fortune teller at a few school events. I was TOO good. People were "well you are so accurate you must have had information" (no I just was cold reading). People are so used to really bad fortune tellers that they expect them to be vague and inaccurate.

Very sad.

[bickerer]

There's a good article on just this at
http://www.examiner.com/x-26261-LA-Freethinking-Examiner~y2009m10d20-How-I-faked-being-psychic-An-embarrassing-story
Apparently it's difficult to have both psychic abilities AND ethics.

[Earthborn]

Is old Sylvia still knocking back $800 an hour?Sylvia Browne only asked $750...
... per half hour...
... for a phone reading.

[Sherlock]

Psychic detective, medium, and TV paranormal investigator Noreen Renier has appeared for more than 30 years on television. But the last 10 years or so those appearances increasingly are on the FOX network and FOX affiliates. A coincidence or is this their effort at fair and balanced news? Note the key appearances of Renier:

Noreen Renier has appeared on a dozen episodes of the Court TV/truTV series Psychic Detectives and on several of the Biography channel series Psychic Investigators. Her older media presence includes appearances including on the CNN Larry King Show, ABC-TV’s Good Morning America, the Nancy Grace show on CNN Headline News, CBS-TV’s Inside Edition, and the cable syndicated Sightings.

But more recent appearances include the Geraldo Rivera on the FOX network, America's Most Wanted on FOX, Greta Van Susteren on FOX, the Joan Rivers Show on FOX, Catherine Crier Reports on FOX, and on several recent Rupert Murdoch European and Asian networks.