10 ms·

> They didn't realize there was any danger in making false predictions. Is there any danger for them? PG seems to have very idealistic view of politics. As f

> They didn't realize there was any danger in making false predictions. Is there any danger for them? PG seems to have very idealistic view of politics. As far as I know, any amount of fact checking in politics don't change political views. Will Fox News lose any viewers over this? Politicians may lose jobs because bad economy, but will they lose votes because they were wrong and ignorant? H. L. Mencken wrote: > No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby. The mistake that is made always runs the other way. Because the plain people are able to speak and understand, and even, in many cases, to read and write, it is assumed that they have ideas in their heads, and an appetite for more. This assumption is a folly. I think there is great Mencken experiment going on. Always underestimate public and see how far you can go.

dillonmckay 7y ago
Votes will be lost, because people are unnecessarily putting themselves and others at risk, and some will die.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- tertius 7y ago
  What you're saying is that votes should be lost. Claiming that they will be is a stretch.
  - a1369209993 7y ago
    Actually, I think what they're saying is that voters will die, and therefore reduce the number of available votes. Edit: and, of course, that this effect will dispropotionately affect political tribes whose propagandists under-, rather than over-, estimated the dangers of covid-19.
    - dillonmckay 7y ago
      Exactly this.
natmaka 7y ago
Isn't tied to the size of the 'public' (crowd)? Too few members in the crowd, and the probability for one to understand and explain to others remains too low. Too many of them and the Big Chiefs control the media, and also live so high in the Sky nobody seems credible when it comes to criticize, moreover all non-official messages are diluted into other ones to the point of many being not even emitted because the ones understanding the situation know that they will not be heard.
basch 7y ago
>any amount of fact checking in politics don't change political views. That is what I was thinking. Paul is writing as if credibility stems from reality. When in reality, the reverse its true. Fox news is credible, its viewers believe that, and whatever those credible people say, is reality. As long as people keep tuned in only to Fox News, that reality wont shatter. Their credibility exists because of their reach, its strength in numbers, its entertainment factor. Calling Fox News news and not entertainment is quite a leap. Most of what they have to say exists to keep people hooked, not to educate them into being more capable of performing civic duties. Fox News wants people to vote in a way that benefits Fox News, not the voter, and the same principal applies to all their coverage of everything. Coronavirus skeptic was a contrarian position to take, it divided their people from other people. Now that they are divided, they can switch sides and still maintain the artificial divide, and keep their viewers isolated from "alternate" realities. This was a really good article by Kara Swisher of ReCode, who at the end finally convinces her mom to heed medical warnings about being out and about, cant convince her to turn off Fox. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/31/opinion/coronavirus-fox-news.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/31/opinion/coronavirus-fox-n... They can flip a 180 overnight, and the viewers will see it as people with "updated information" and continue to cheer them on. https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-stars-sean-hannity-and-jesse-watters-now-pretend-they-never-said-what-they-said-about-the-coronavirus https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-stars-sean-hannity-an... There is the sad irony too, that the demographic who watches Fox news is already the most likely to be at risk (age, faith over evidence, distrusting of established medicine and government) denial not withstanding. Add denial to the mix, and youve got a real bad stew.
- ryandrake 7y ago
  This is a deliberately built political philosophy, one of the results of Karl Rove's "reality-based community" [1] idea, from over 15 years ago. Whether or not the label was actually coined by Rove is debated, but essentially this idea is that some people lived in a world that was "reality-based" and that others were not limited by reality and thus were better/stronger politicians. In practice, what this means is the Bush administration did not have to believe in and be bound by this thing called reality, they created reality when they acted. President Trump is just continuing this idea through today. Unlike GWB and cronies, Trump and team don't even have to act to "create reality", they merely talk and reality instantly changes for their followers. It's a powerful tool and like him or hate him, his administration is using it skillfully. 1: https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/faith-certainty-and-the-presidency-of-george-w-bush.html https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/faith-certainty-...
endorphone 7y ago
"Is there any danger for them?" Fox news dumped Laura Ingraham and Trish Regan. Both were at the forefront of claiming it was all a hoax. Dr. Drew has gone on a reputation rehabilitation tour apologizing for his prior claims. But those dismissals are a canary in a coal mine. They demonstrate that even Fox News has limits. It is outrageous that anyone -- outside of scam prosperity preachers -- advertise on Fox News.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- xkapastel 7y ago
  Did Fox News actually dump Laura Ingraham? I've never heard about this. She still seems to be on TV.
- at_a_remove 7y ago
  Dr. Drew has apparently also gone on a copyright claim kick trying to remove the evidence [1]. He has a now-deleted Tweet [2] about people infringing on copyright. So, I am thinking his rehabilitation tour is perhaps not as forthright as it could be. 1: https://reclaimthenet.org/dr-drew-apologizes-coronavirus-dmca/ https://reclaimthenet.org/dr-drew-apologizes-coronavirus-dmc... 2: https://i.imgur.com/R8wxtot.jpg https://i.imgur.com/R8wxtot.jpg
meragrin_ 7y ago
Why are you picking on Fox News? CNN, MSNBC, and others were chastising Trump over the China travel ban. They were saying he was creating hysteria over nothing. They were dismissing the virus at that point.
- endorphone 7y ago
  This is the sort of false equivalency that leads to claims that they all lie, so it's okay if Fox egregiously lies. We see this on HN all the time where someone stomps their feet and cries about a news headline that they think doesn't convey just the right slant that they want, ergo it's the same as the guy inventing bullshit conspiracy theories on his blog. No, they weren't "chastising" Trump over the China travel ban because there was no China travel ban. There was a Wuhan restriction only applicable to foreigners. Thousands of Americans were going and coming with no restrictions whatsoever. Fly into Wuhan, lick the toilet seats, fly back home. Do it the next day. There was zero screening. Zero containment. Zero listening to the pandemic experts. No, they aren't the same. This revisionist "they were dismissing the virus" nonsense is utter horseshit of the worst kind. It is a lie of profound ignorance and gullibility, or an intentional lie, and both are just as obnoxious.
  - AndrewBissell 7y ago
    The equivalency being drawn by the parent may be wrong, but mainstream sources outside Fox News absolutely downplayed the seriousness of the virus and helped push the "it's not a big deal" perception that we are all now rowing against.
    - endorphone 7y ago
      but mainstream sources outside Fox News absolutely downplayed the seriousness of the virus and helped push the "it's not a big deal" perception that we are all now rowing against. Yet many, including right here on HN, were claiming exactly the opposite: That they were fear mongering, inciting panic, etc. It can't be both. Here's the NYT from February 2nd - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/02/health/coronavirus-pandemic-china.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/02/health/coronavirus-pandem... Feb 9th - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/09/world/asia/china-coronavirus-sars.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/09/world/asia/china-coronavi... Zero "downplaying". I recall being quite concerned, seeing the argument that is was overblown and just a flu, etc, and discounting that as nonsense. Can you find an article on the NYTimes, MSNBC or something that compares it to the flu or the like? Absolutely. Those mediums have varied voices with different perspectives, quite unlike Fox where the entire organization is given marching orders and a narrative they must push. The overall perspective among the non-Fox mainstream media was very concerned. When the sea level rises and floods lower Manhattan, I'm sure there'll be people saying "Why didn't the media warn us? They downplayed the risk!"
zJayv 7y ago
From what Mencken book/essay is this quote?
- x509fan 7y ago
  'Notes on Journalism' in the Chicago Tribune (19.09.1926) https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/MenckenNotes.pdf https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/MenckenNotes.pdf
AndrewBissell 7y ago
Bear in mind it's not just Fox News which got this pandemic wrong. "It's no worse than the flu," "this won't be a global pandemic," "you don't need to wear a mask unless you are symptomatic or caring for someone who is," and other 100% wrong takes were also pushed by Vox, NYT, WaPo, and even WHO & CDC long past when they should have been.
- abnry 7y ago
  Which is one of the reasons why I wish we, collectively as a society, would stop blaming the blame game in this crisis. Almost everyone got this wrong.
  - notahacker 7y ago
    When and why people got things wrong is also important. People who underestimated COVID-19 in January because evidence of its lethality and r0 were scant are somewhat different from people who downplayed the virus in March because it aligned them with a particular political figure. Similarly, it's a lot easier to sympathise with the epidemiologists who will turn out to have massively overestimated casualties because we took unprecedented action to shut down society to avoid them than the people still organising mass events or the people who have concluded that the disease is best stopped by attacking 5G masts.
  - AndrewBissell 7y ago
    I look at it a bit differently. If someone's pushing the line "just listen to the experts," then it should be acknowledged that experts do get it wrong and have massively dropped the ball on COVID-19. The signs of how lethal and contagious the virus is were there in China for anyone to read by early January. Of course, "experts (in particular our experts) don't know what they're doing" is different from "... and therefore you should listen to any yahoo who says it's 5G."
    - gamblor956 7y ago
      In hindsight, it is obvious that COVID19 was worse than SARS or MERS. But at the time, especially given China's clampdown on information outflow, it didn't appear to be significantly different from SARS, which didn't effect the West much, or MERS, which had almost no impact outside of the Middle East. But as another commenter noted, the timing matters a lot. Everyone except Fox News thought back in January that COVID19 was going to be big, but based on prior coronaviruses not something that would significantly impact the West. They've all done 180s and are pulling out the stops to fix their earlier error. Fox News is still saying that today (i.e., April 6). One of their talking heads just said that COVID19 is overblown just a few minutes ago.
arkades 7y ago
I think you misread the passage that you quote as supporting idealism. The full passage is: "The answer, I realized, is that they didn't think they could get caught. They didn't realize there was any danger in making false predictions. These people constantly make false predictions, and get away with it, because the things they make predictions about either have mushy enough outcomes that they can bluster their way out of trouble, or happen so far in the future that few remember what they said." Making a false prediction on the premise that you can bluster your way out of it doesn't indicate that they think the false prediction doesn't have consequences - it indicates that they think the false prediction doesn't have consequences for them. That they can get away with it. It's "I can say what I want, because nothing bad will happen to me personally for lying." I wouldn't call that idealism.

dillonmckay 7y ago

Votes will be lost, because people are unnecessarily putting themselves and others at risk, and some will die.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
tertius 7y ago
What you're saying is that votes should be lost. Claiming that they will be is a stretch.
- a1369209993 7y ago
  Actually, I think what they're saying is that voters will die, and therefore reduce the number of available votes. Edit: and, of course, that this effect will dispropotionately affect political tribes whose propagandists under-, rather than over-, estimated the dangers of covid-19.
  - dillonmckay 7y ago
    Exactly this.

natmaka 7y ago

Isn't tied to the size of the 'public' (crowd)? Too few members in the crowd, and the probability for one to understand and explain to others remains too low. Too many of them and the Big Chiefs control the media, and also live so high in the Sky nobody seems credible when it comes to criticize, moreover all non-official messages are diluted into other ones to the point of many being not even emitted because the ones understanding the situation know that they will not be heard.

basch 7y ago

>any amount of fact checking in politics don't change political views. That is what I was thinking. Paul is writing as if credibility stems from reality. When in reality, the reverse its true. Fox news is credible, its viewers believe that, and whatever those credible people say, is reality. As long as people keep tuned in only to Fox News, that reality wont shatter. Their credibility exists because of their reach, its strength in numbers, its entertainment factor. Calling Fox News news and not entertainment is quite a leap. Most of what they have to say exists to keep people hooked, not to educate them into being more capable of performing civic duties. Fox News wants people to vote in a way that benefits Fox News, not the voter, and the same principal applies to all their coverage of everything. Coronavirus skeptic was a contrarian position to take, it divided their people from other people. Now that they are divided, they can switch sides and still maintain the artificial divide, and keep their viewers isolated from "alternate" realities. This was a really good article by Kara Swisher of ReCode, who at the end finally convinces her mom to heed medical warnings about being out and about, cant convince her to turn off Fox. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/31/opinion/coronavirus-fox-news.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/31/opinion/coronavirus-fox-n... They can flip a 180 overnight, and the viewers will see it as people with "updated information" and continue to cheer them on. https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-stars-sean-hannity-and-jesse-watters-now-pretend-they-never-said-what-they-said-about-the-coronavirus https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-stars-sean-hannity-an... There is the sad irony too, that the demographic who watches Fox news is already the most likely to be at risk (age, faith over evidence, distrusting of established medicine and government) denial not withstanding. Add denial to the mix, and youve got a real bad stew.

ryandrake 7y ago
This is a deliberately built political philosophy, one of the results of Karl Rove's "reality-based community" [1] idea, from over 15 years ago. Whether or not the label was actually coined by Rove is debated, but essentially this idea is that some people lived in a world that was "reality-based" and that others were not limited by reality and thus were better/stronger politicians. In practice, what this means is the Bush administration did not have to believe in and be bound by this thing called reality, they created reality when they acted. President Trump is just continuing this idea through today. Unlike GWB and cronies, Trump and team don't even have to act to "create reality", they merely talk and reality instantly changes for their followers. It's a powerful tool and like him or hate him, his administration is using it skillfully. 1: https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/faith-certainty-and-the-presidency-of-george-w-bush.html https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/faith-certainty-...

endorphone 7y ago

"Is there any danger for them?" Fox news dumped Laura Ingraham and Trish Regan. Both were at the forefront of claiming it was all a hoax. Dr. Drew has gone on a reputation rehabilitation tour apologizing for his prior claims. But those dismissals are a canary in a coal mine. They demonstrate that even Fox News has limits. It is outrageous that anyone -- outside of scam prosperity preachers -- advertise on Fox News.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
xkapastel 7y ago
Did Fox News actually dump Laura Ingraham? I've never heard about this. She still seems to be on TV.
at_a_remove 7y ago
Dr. Drew has apparently also gone on a copyright claim kick trying to remove the evidence [1]. He has a now-deleted Tweet [2] about people infringing on copyright. So, I am thinking his rehabilitation tour is perhaps not as forthright as it could be. 1: https://reclaimthenet.org/dr-drew-apologizes-coronavirus-dmca/ https://reclaimthenet.org/dr-drew-apologizes-coronavirus-dmc... 2: https://i.imgur.com/R8wxtot.jpg https://i.imgur.com/R8wxtot.jpg

meragrin_ 7y ago

Why are you picking on Fox News? CNN, MSNBC, and others were chastising Trump over the China travel ban. They were saying he was creating hysteria over nothing. They were dismissing the virus at that point.

endorphone 7y ago
This is the sort of false equivalency that leads to claims that they all lie, so it's okay if Fox egregiously lies. We see this on HN all the time where someone stomps their feet and cries about a news headline that they think doesn't convey just the right slant that they want, ergo it's the same as the guy inventing bullshit conspiracy theories on his blog. No, they weren't "chastising" Trump over the China travel ban because there was no China travel ban. There was a Wuhan restriction only applicable to foreigners. Thousands of Americans were going and coming with no restrictions whatsoever. Fly into Wuhan, lick the toilet seats, fly back home. Do it the next day. There was zero screening. Zero containment. Zero listening to the pandemic experts. No, they aren't the same. This revisionist "they were dismissing the virus" nonsense is utter horseshit of the worst kind. It is a lie of profound ignorance and gullibility, or an intentional lie, and both are just as obnoxious.
- AndrewBissell 7y ago
  The equivalency being drawn by the parent may be wrong, but mainstream sources outside Fox News absolutely downplayed the seriousness of the virus and helped push the "it's not a big deal" perception that we are all now rowing against.
  - endorphone 7y ago
    but mainstream sources outside Fox News absolutely downplayed the seriousness of the virus and helped push the "it's not a big deal" perception that we are all now rowing against. Yet many, including right here on HN, were claiming exactly the opposite: That they were fear mongering, inciting panic, etc. It can't be both. Here's the NYT from February 2nd - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/02/health/coronavirus-pandemic-china.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/02/health/coronavirus-pandem... Feb 9th - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/09/world/asia/china-coronavirus-sars.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/09/world/asia/china-coronavi... Zero "downplaying". I recall being quite concerned, seeing the argument that is was overblown and just a flu, etc, and discounting that as nonsense. Can you find an article on the NYTimes, MSNBC or something that compares it to the flu or the like? Absolutely. Those mediums have varied voices with different perspectives, quite unlike Fox where the entire organization is given marching orders and a narrative they must push. The overall perspective among the non-Fox mainstream media was very concerned. When the sea level rises and floods lower Manhattan, I'm sure there'll be people saying "Why didn't the media warn us? They downplayed the risk!"

zJayv 7y ago

From what Mencken book/essay is this quote?

x509fan 7y ago
'Notes on Journalism' in the Chicago Tribune (19.09.1926) https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/MenckenNotes.pdf https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/MenckenNotes.pdf

AndrewBissell 7y ago

Bear in mind it's not just Fox News which got this pandemic wrong. "It's no worse than the flu," "this won't be a global pandemic," "you don't need to wear a mask unless you are symptomatic or caring for someone who is," and other 100% wrong takes were also pushed by Vox, NYT, WaPo, and even WHO & CDC long past when they should have been.

abnry 7y ago
Which is one of the reasons why I wish we, collectively as a society, would stop blaming the blame game in this crisis. Almost everyone got this wrong.
- notahacker 7y ago
  When and why people got things wrong is also important. People who underestimated COVID-19 in January because evidence of its lethality and r0 were scant are somewhat different from people who downplayed the virus in March because it aligned them with a particular political figure. Similarly, it's a lot easier to sympathise with the epidemiologists who will turn out to have massively overestimated casualties because we took unprecedented action to shut down society to avoid them than the people still organising mass events or the people who have concluded that the disease is best stopped by attacking 5G masts.
- AndrewBissell 7y ago
  I look at it a bit differently. If someone's pushing the line "just listen to the experts," then it should be acknowledged that experts do get it wrong and have massively dropped the ball on COVID-19. The signs of how lethal and contagious the virus is were there in China for anyone to read by early January. Of course, "experts (in particular our experts) don't know what they're doing" is different from "... and therefore you should listen to any yahoo who says it's 5G."
  - gamblor956 7y ago
    In hindsight, it is obvious that COVID19 was worse than SARS or MERS. But at the time, especially given China's clampdown on information outflow, it didn't appear to be significantly different from SARS, which didn't effect the West much, or MERS, which had almost no impact outside of the Middle East. But as another commenter noted, the timing matters a lot. Everyone except Fox News thought back in January that COVID19 was going to be big, but based on prior coronaviruses not something that would significantly impact the West. They've all done 180s and are pulling out the stops to fix their earlier error. Fox News is still saying that today (i.e., April 6). One of their talking heads just said that COVID19 is overblown just a few minutes ago.

arkades 7y ago

I think you misread the passage that you quote as supporting idealism. The full passage is: "The answer, I realized, is that they didn't think they could get caught. They didn't realize there was any danger in making false predictions. These people constantly make false predictions, and get away with it, because the things they make predictions about either have mushy enough outcomes that they can bluster their way out of trouble, or happen so far in the future that few remember what they said." Making a false prediction on the premise that you can bluster your way out of it doesn't indicate that they think the false prediction doesn't have consequences - it indicates that they think the false prediction doesn't have consequences for them. That they can get away with it. It's "I can say what I want, because nothing bad will happen to me personally for lying." I wouldn't call that idealism.