The P&R Plague Thread (Covid-19)

[Enhance]

11 minutes ago, knapplc said:

This represents an abject failure on the part of the media to accurately reflect what's going on right now.

 

 

President Trump's entire presidency is perhaps one of the world's greatest historical examples of what happens when people outright ignore facts and choose to believe what they want to believe.

 

What's the media supposed to do? They report the facts and get criticized. They write editorials and get criticized. And then, at the end of the day, people are going to believe what they're conditioned to believe.

[knapplc]

Just now, Enhance said:

What's the media supposed to do? They report the facts and get criticized. They write editorials and get criticized. And then, at the end of the day, people are going to believe what they're conditioned to believe.

 

I think they focus on him too much. We know who/what he is. We know he lies as a matter of course. So not putting his words front and center all the time, at the expense of local mayors and governors who are doing a markedly better job fighting this thing, would be a major step forward.

 

News has not adapted to Trump. They still act as if the Oval Office is occupied by an honorable man, even though we know that's not the case. Newspapers & TV have the choice of how much to project Trump. They consistently choose to do it at about the same rate as they would a person better suited for the job.

[Landlord]

22 minutes ago, knapplc said:

This represents an abject failure on the part of the media to accurately reflect what's going on right now.

 

 

 

 

 

I guess I agree with actualcornhusker - the media are making it 100x worse

[Mavric]

21 minutes ago, RedDenver said:

@Mavric here's a medical article that supports your hypothesis that covid-19 may be affected by climate:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.12.20034728v1

 

Thanks for the info.

 

Just to be clear, I don't necessarily think that will really happen.  Most experts don't think it will matter or won't have a large effect.  I have no reason not to believe them.  I just think it shouldn't be ruled out as a possibility.  Even those experts will say they don't really know yet.

[FrantzHardySwag]

24 minutes ago, knapplc said:

This represents an abject failure on the part of the media to accurately reflect what's going on right now.

 

 

Didn’t bush get like a 40% bump after 9/11? Fairly terrible crisis bump. 

[deedsker]

1 hour ago, DevoHusker said:

 

WAY more than half the cases are mild, and have been since the jump... 80-90%

 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

But some of the cases that are being caught from adjacent family members are the mild cases. They are just harder to track down.

 

Once again, though, relatively conservative values gives ideas, but if we are missing that many more percentage of cases, we are in that much more trouble.

[Enhance]

1 minute ago, knapplc said:

I think they focus on him too much. We know who/what he is. We know he lies as a matter of course. So not putting his words front and center all the time, at the expense of local mayors and governors who are doing a markedly better job fighting this thing, would be a major step forward.

 

News has not adapted to Trump. They still act as if the Oval Office is occupied by an honorable man, even though we know that's not the case. Newspapers & TV have the choice of how much to project Trump. They consistently choose to do it at about the same rate as they would a person better suited for the job.

Interesting. To be honest, I agree and disagree. I see what you're saying, but another part of me thinks that as deplorable as the president has been, and can be, he is still the president. Ignoring or limiting his voice during this time would (in my opinion) be received more negatively than positively.

 

He is 'the' face of the country whether we like it or not. His administration is controlling the message on the national level; or, should I say, trying to control the message.

 

Admittedly, I tend to be a media apologist, but I like to think I'm open to criticizing them when its warranted. Calling this an abject failure on their behalf when people have been blatantly ignoring honest reporting since before he was president puts too much blame on the media and not enough responsibility on people as citizens.

[knapplc]

2 minutes ago, Enhance said:

Interesting. To be honest, I agree and disagree. I see what you're saying, but another part of me thinks that as deplorable as the president has been, and can be, he is still the president. Ignoring or limiting his voice during this time would (in my opinion) be received more negatively than positively.

 

He is 'the' face of the country whether we like it or not. His administration is controlling the message on the national level; or, should I say, trying to control the message.

 

Admittedly, I tend to be a media apologist, but I like to think I'm open to criticizing them when its warranted. Calling this an abject failure on their behalf when people have been blatantly ignoring honest reporting since before he was president puts too much blame on the media and not enough responsibility on people as citizens.

 

I feel like Daniel Dale has done a wonderful job of fact-checking Trump on the fly and is a model more media outlets should adopt. Rather than presenting the lie up front, uncontested, he often provides the fact in the same breath, which mitigates the lie while still conveying the intent of the liar. It's fair, it's honest, and it's truth-forward. 

[RedDenver]

50 minutes ago, RedDenver said:

And his follow-on article:

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56

That article makes a strong case that we should lockdown (the hammer) and then loosen up but with strong testing and contact tracing with small lockdowns as needed locally (the dance). From the conclusion:

 

Quote

For the countries where the coronavirus is already here, the options are clear.

On one side, countries can go the mitigation route: create a massive epidemic, overwhelm the healthcare system, drive the death of millions of people, and release new mutations of this virus in the wild.

On the other, countries can fight. They can lock down for a few weeks to buy us time, create an educated action plan, and control this virus until we have a vaccine.

Governments around the world today, including some such as the US, the UK or Switzerland have so far chosen the mitigation path.
That means they’re giving up without a fight. They see other countries having successfully fought this, but they say: “We can’t do that!”

What if Churchill had said the same thing? “Nazis are already everywhere in Europe. We can’t fight them. Let’s just give up.” This is what many governments around the world are doing today. They’re not giving you a chance to fight this. You have to demand it.

 

[teachercd]

50 minutes ago, Danny Bateman said:

The amount of people triggered by this tweet is about what you'd expect and I'm here for it.

 

 

This is funny!

 

Also, +1 if you did the quick glance up at the eclipse too!

[Enhance]

16 minutes ago, knapplc said:

I feel like Daniel Dale has done a wonderful job of fact-checking Trump on the fly and is a model more media outlets should adopt. Rather than presenting the lie up front, uncontested, he often provides the fact in the same breath, which mitigates the lie while still conveying the intent of the liar. It's fair, it's honest, and it's truth-forward. 

Thanks for the tip on Daniel. I've heard his name before but admittedly don't know much about him.

 

To that point, though, I think people like Daniel can only do so much. If he is as you say he is (again, me not knowing anything about him) then we could certainly use more people like him, but there are thousands of talented journalists out there who I think are doing more than an acceptable enough job for their respective audiences. Journalists should absolutely be held to high standards but I think there are far too many people in this world that, frankly, don't give a damn what they have to report or say. I don't think the media is failing those people, but those people are definitely the ones going out there and casting positive approval votes for Trump.

[Landlord]

5 minutes ago, Enhance said:

Thanks for the tip on Daniel. I've heard his name before but admittedly don't know much about him.

 

To that point, though, I think people like Daniel can only do so much. If he is as you say he is (again, me not knowing anything about him) then we could certainly use more people like him, but there are thousands of talented journalists out there who I think are doing more than an acceptable enough job for their respective audiences. Journalists should absolutely be held to high standards but I think there are far too many people in this world that, frankly, don't give a damn what they have to report or say. I don't think the media is failing those people, but those people are definitely the ones going out there and casting positive approval votes for Trump.

 

 

 

One thing that bugs the hell out of me is media not being willing to clearly and bluntly state the truth to/with/about Trump in person.

 

They'll write a headline, "Trump lies about _______", but when they ask Trump a question, they leave it open-ended for him to squeeze out  of and improvise and shift. Why can't the question be, "Mr. President, why did you lie to the American people when you said ______?" Hell, don't even phrase it like a question. 

[RedDenver]

 

[teachercd]

6 minutes ago, Landlord said:

 

 

 

One thing that bugs the hell out of me is media not being willing to clearly and bluntly state the truth to/with/about Trump in person.

 

They'll write a headline, "Trump lies about _______", but when they ask Trump a question, they leave it open-ended for him to squeeze out  of and improvise and shift. Why can't the question be, "Mr. President, why did you lie to the American people when you said ______?" Hell, don't even phrase it like a question. 

That is on purpose, they are playing the game too.  It is smart on their end.  

[Enhance]

3 minutes ago, Landlord said:

One thing that bugs the hell out of me is media not being willing to clearly and bluntly state the truth to/with/about Trump in person.

 

They'll write a headline, "Trump lies about _______", but when they ask Trump a question, they leave it open-ended for him to squeeze out  of and improvise and shift. Why can't the question be, "Mr. President, why did you lie to the American people when you said ______?" Hell, don't even phrase it like a question. 

I can't speak to your perspective during the last 4-5 years, but I've seen this done to his face. I've seen reporters directly contradict him in person and not ask open-ended questions. It even happened during the debates. The moderators directly called him out on his BS in front of millions of people.

 

It didn't seem to matter that much then.