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Media madness

Posted: June 16, 2020 by chrisharper in media

By Christopher Harper

The protests over the death of George Floyd may have a profound impact on the way the media cover stories.

During the past few days, the editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer was pushed out because of a headline.

The head of the editorial page of The New York Times was axed over a column by a conservative senator.

The editor of Bon Appétit was ousted after a Halloween photo surfaced of him masquerading as a black pimp. 

The incoming dean of the School of Journalism at Arizona State University, one of the best-known producers of media talent, lost her job because she tweeted that good cops existed. 

Even the editor of The Los Angeles Times argued that the terms “riot” and “looting” were racist after consultations with African-American members of his staff.

For me, the last one is a real head-scratcher. I’ve been trying to come up with alternatives to the two words. Civil disturbance instead of riot? Redistribution of wealth instead of looting? The Times editor didn’t provide any guidance.

What is clear, however, is a fundamental change in reporting about race in America. Point-of-view analysis and perspective will replace neutrality. 

That’s not necessarily a bad development. I have often written about how bias exists in almost every news story these days. By dropping any guise of objectivity, fairness, and balance, the reporters will demonstrate their bias. That makes it easier for readers and viewers to determine whether they believe the reporter’s “truth.” 

Instead, I submit that accuracy and transparency may be more applicable to guiding journalism. Accuracy becomes an issue of debating facts. That isn’t necessarily easy, but it’s a conversation rather than a shouting match. 

Transparency is much more difficult because it forces journalists to provide more information about their belief systems and bias. While reporter like others to be transparent, that doesn’t necessarily mean that journalists want to tell everything about themselves.

Moreover, transparency means that the media should provide the public with access to the entirety of an interview rather than a short quotation or soundbite. Also, all of the photos and videos should be included in all reports so the readers and viewers can determine what, if anything, was taken out of context. 

Having spent many years choosing quotations and editing video, I know that what’s left out may be just as important or perhaps more important than what’s left in. 

I hope that the complaints will create a better environment for the public to see what goes on behind the closed doors of media outlets. I am, however, skeptical that journalists want to change the way they go about their business, particularly when it comes to allowing the public to look over their shoulders.

The creation of media bias

Posted: June 9, 2020 by chrisharper in Uncomfortable Truths
Tags: ,

By Christopher Harper

While taking an online course created by the University of Texas and the Knight Foundation, I hoped to learn more about reporting on the Covid-19 crisis.

Instead, I got an informative look at the creation and propagation of media bias throughout the world.

Had the class involved only a few students, the result would have been a small group of individuals subjected to an anti-Trump bias. Instead, nearly 10,000 people from countries throughout the world received examples of how NOT to report.

The instructor, science reporter Maryn McKenna, barely cloaked her bias throughout the four-week class.

In the first week, the class got the bias of writer Sonia Shah.

“[W]hat really surprised me about the way this pandemic is unfolding is the huge political failure in the United States. I think that really was not expected. You know, I think we’ve all been kind of confused about the U.S. response and, you know, the political moment we’re in where we have all of these right-wing populist leaders around the world,” she opined.

That would run counter to recent studies that found the U.S. lockdown may have saved 60 million Americans from contracting the disease.

In the second week, the class read one of the instructor’s articles in The New Republic, an avowedly leftist publication, entitled “The Plague Years: How the rise of right-wing nationalism is jeopardizing the world’s health.” 

“Nationalism, xenophobia, the new right-wing populism in Europe and the United States, are raising our risk,” said Ronald Klain, who was the White House Ebola response coordinator for President Barack Obama, told her. 

The article is a classic example of confirmation bias, where she sought out sources to confirm her beliefs.

In the third week, the instructor blamed President Trump and Fox News for saying hydroxychloroquine might help people to recover from Covid-19. Her criticism was based on a study that has been subsequently found to have had numerous errors. See https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/health/coronavirus-hydroxychloroquine.html

McKenna also highlighted an obvious piece of propaganda from a student from China:

“China’s President Xi Jinping…pledged to make any potential vaccine developed by China a ‘global public good’ once it was put into use. This move would be China’s contribution to achieving accessibility and affordability of a vaccine in developing countries as well.”

Moreover, the instructor makes a particular point to forecast that it would take 10 to 15 years to discover a vaccine.

Then the coup de grace in the final week. In rapid succession, the instructor interviewed the head of the CDC under Obama, who criticized the current U.S. policies. But, ahem, she failed to ask him about Obama’s and his failures during the H1N1 pandemic.

Then, you can’t make this stuff up, came fiction writer Annalee Newitz.

“We’re seeing our political institutions become more unstable. We’re seeing environmental problems exacerbated as regulations over environmental waste. We’re seeing more problems around climate change because environmental regulations are being relaxed during these difficult times. … We’re facing starvation in California, even though we have plenty of food, but lots of people are now undernourished and malnourished and aren’t able to eat,” Newitz told the instructor, who didn’t question this nonsense.

Famine?

I repeatedly tried to contact the instructor, who apparently ignored my emails.

One of the organizers, University of Texas professor Rosental Alves, responded to my complaints.  

Alves said: “This is the only complaint I have received from anyone among the nearly 9,000 people registered in this MOOC. It’s also the first time I’ve received a political bias complaint since I started our distance learning program for journalists 17 years ago. I will look into it.” 

I’ve heard nothing more.

I declined my certificate of completion of the class on reporting about Covid-19. Instead, I might ask for a certificate in watching media bias unfold to nearly 10,000 people, who, unlike me, may have limited backgrounds in assessing how the media can suborn the truth and propagate the false. 

Social distancing, masks, and other myths of ‘science’

Posted: June 2, 2020 by chrisharper in Uncomfortable Truths

By Christopher Harper

The world economy is set to undergo a significant and perhaps unnecessary restructuring based on new standards, such as social distancing, that have little or contradictory scientific underpinning.

For example, take the six-foot rule. Because the virus can travel on liquid droplets breathed or coughed out by infected people, health authorities recommend staying away from crowds and maintaining physical separation from others. That’s why restaurants, bars, and other locales where people mingle closely have faced such economically devastating restrictions. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention specifically recommends the six-foot buffer.

But it’s difficult to find where the six-foot rule actually comes from. The basic outline comes from a 1930s study and a more recent one after SARS. But the studies do not specify four feet, six feet, or 20 feet. In fact, the World Health Organization recommended until recently that three feet were enough.

More important, these studies did not look at the use of masks together with social distancing. Therefore, masks might eliminate the need for social distancing for the most part.

Think about all the money being spent and the money lost for restaurants, bars, sporting events, places of worship, and other venues where people gather.

Moreover, there are no specific guidelines for interior versus exterior locations. WHO recently recommended, for example, that masks should ONLY be used INDOORS when helping or being exposed to someone with Covid-19.

Remember that it wasn’t too long ago that nearly all scientists said masks were unnecessary? Remember when the scientists told us that 2.2 million people would die in the United States alone?

It’s been a difficult time, but we know a lot more about who’s in grave danger from Covid-19, and social distancing and masks may do little for these groups.

It is evident from the mounting statistics about the pandemic that older people, minorities, and a few other groups, particularly with underlying conditions, such as diabetes, must be the focus in the coming weeks of the pandemic before a vaccine.

Nursing homes and long-term care facilities became breeding grounds for the virus, amounting to more than half the deaths in my home state of Pennsylvania.

A Wall Street Journal tally of state data from around the U.S. shows more than 42,000 Covid-19-associated deaths in long-term care facilities, including nursing homes and assisted-living sites, along with more than 200,000 cases. This tally probably undercounts the full impact of the outbreak because of incomplete information from some states.

That’s nearly half of all deaths in the United States.

Perhaps it’s time to take a harder look at the economic and social changes being planned as a result of the unverified “science” before creating unnecessary burdens and costs that will transform the way we live and work.

Covid incompetence

Posted: May 26, 2020 by chrisharper in Uncomfortable Truths
Tags: ,

By Christopher Harper

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf is my nominee for the covid incompetence award.

Although other state leaders have gotten more publicity for their ill-conceived plans, Wolf has been playing nanny to millions of Pennsylvanians, including me.

He and his bureaucrats created an amazingly complicated plan for reopening the state based on red, yellow, and green designations. The unscientific basis is that a county can plan to open or go to yellow status if its covid cases remain at 50 per day for two weeks. If the county still has less than 50 cases, it can reopen. If a country has more than 50 cases, it is red and cannot open.

Wolf couldn’t even remember where the plan came from.

The governor also condemned local officials and businesses as “cowardly” if they move to reopen businesses without state authorization and threatened to withhold federal relief for counties that violate his stay-at-home order.

Moreover, Wolf has told Pennsylvania residents to remain in their shelters and not go to the open beaches in nearby New Jersey. “There are people there who aren’t wearing masks, and you’re putting yourself at risk. I wouldn’t do that, I haven’t done that, and I’m not sure why the governors of Maryland and New Jersey have opened their beaches, but they have,” he said.

But there’s more. Statewide, 3,234 coronavirus deaths have occurred in long-term care facilities, according to the health department. Those deaths represent 66 percent of the state’s coronavirus fatalities.

That means that Wolf has locked down all of Pennsylvania when he needed to do a better job of keeping the older population of the state safe.

Wolf and Health Secretary Rachel Levine, a transsexual pediatrician, decided to get to the bottom of the issue. They forced all such institutions to provide data on what happened. The state got the data all messed up, including naming one evildoer with more than 100 cases. The facility had only seven patients.

Moreover, Levine wasn’t taking any chances with her mother, moving her to a hotel rather than staying in a long-term care facility. Republicans have called for Levine’s resignation.

The GOP has made Wolf the center of its campaign strategy to battle Democrats in the upcoming national election. Even some Democrats—as President Trump did—have called for Wolf to open up the state more quickly. One Democratic lawmaker from suburban Philadelphia wrote a letter saying residents in her district “have not yet seen evidence that your administration recognizes and sympathizes with the added physical, emotional, and financial suffering they are facing as a result of our prolonged stay-at-home conditions.”

I realize that others may find their governor thoroughly lacking in the ability to run a state. But my guy, Tom Wolf, has got to be near the bottom of the class in the country.

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