Frankly, I am tempted to be thankful that our technocratic fascisti among corporate journalists overplay their hands, since what they are dealing is decadence. Nicely, Jacob Sullum is a journalist working outside the bindings of the fasces:
Based on an analysis of news stories about COVID-19 that appeared from January 1 through July 31, Dartmouth economist Bruce Sacerdote and two other researchers found that 91 percent of the coverage by major U.S. media outlets was “negative in tone.” The rate was substantially lower in leading scientific journals (65 percent) and foreign news sources (54 percent).
Sacerdote and his co-authors, who report their results in a working paperrecently published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, found that stories about increases in newly identified infections far outnumbered stories about decreases, “even when caseloads were falling nationally.” Coverage of school reopenings likewise was “overwhelmingly negative, while the scientific literature tells a more optimistic story,” indicating that “schools have not become the super-spreaders many feared.”
This unrelenting, indiscriminate negativity fosters suspicion and resistance. Journalists and politicians who repeatedly cry wolf should not be surprised at the lack of cooperation when the beast actually appears.
Last May, The New York Times warned that lifting state lockdowns could raise nationwide COVID-19 deaths above 3,000 a day by June 1. The actual number was about 700.
Since mid-October, the seven-day average of daily deaths has more than tripled, exceeding the record set in April. But that reality still falls short of the false prophecy embraced by the Times.
Jacob Sullum, “Are Americans Insufficiently Alarmed by COVID-19?,” Reason, December 19, 2020.
Sullum concludes by opining for “the honesty that Americans deserve,” but I hesitate to endorse this. I wish better for Americans than what they deserve. It is quite possible that Americans do deserve what they are getting.
twv
Wirkman Comment 