4 ms·

Most news from whatever source seems to be more about pandering to the partisan loyalties of the majority of their readers to make them feel warm and fuzzy. Hon

by harry8 6y ago

Most news from whatever source seems to be more about pandering to the partisan loyalties of the majority of their readers to make them feel warm and fuzzy. Honest evaluation tends to be used as ammunition by the "side" not being evaluated. "They hate us but even they say their guys were terrible here!" The NYT has gone down this path far further than I would have thought possible. The WSJ is now owned by Murdoch so its less surprising that their news reporting has also slipped. Those are the two best. By a margin. There's a massive problem that isn't being talked about because "Them! They're evil! Just look at what they say about..." edit: I did something similar stocking up based on the Guardian (yeah, not an ideal source) reporting that a woman from Wuhan crossed the country with no symptoms for Chinese New Year and gave the virus to her whole family. She never had symptoms. I thought at that point, this is on, there's a non-negligible chance this will not be contained, so get prepared.

robomartin 6y ago
The state of the "news" media is truly sad to behold. They lie, sensationalize and have become political activists for one side or the other. I do not believe the rights they are afforded in the US Constitution were intended to be used in this manner at all. In that sense I agree with the statement that they have become the enemy of the people. They don't provide information, they publish ideology and lies. And, yes, we have to be fair and clearly state that Trump was a complete moron in the way he handled some aspects of this. As an example, I cannot understand why he had such a problem with masks. I can't even imagine the reasons other than to look at it from my background in manufacturing. This is what I think could have happened: The administration quickly understood we don't even make the cloth necessary to make masks. The US and Europe could not manufacture ANY of the safety equipment we needed for this pandemic at scale back in January of last year. We didn't even make the machines that make the masks. Telling the public to go get masks would have resulted in a mess and panic. I get that possibility. Here's what they should have done: Figure out how people could DIY some level of protection and widely publish this. Trump should have gone on TV and told people the truth: We can't make enough masks. They are important. This is what you have to do while we sort this out. Instead he engaged in stupid battles with the media. That was dumb, unnecessary, and, yes, it likely cost lives too. All that said, we are vaccinating at a rate of over a million people per day today because of what the Trump administration set in motion a year ago. They pushed for and succeeded at having multiple vaccines developed in the span of eight months. Something never before done in the history of humanity. And yet he/they were vilified for the stupid shit he did in front of the cameras and, to some extent, rightly so in my opinion. This was a year in which both our politicians and our news media failed us in monumental ways. Both of these groups lied to us. And the consequences were deadly. I hope historians get this one right.
- b1daly 6y ago
  When have ‘the media’ ever not published lies and ideology? Serious question...
  - robomartin 6y ago
    Very true. Not sure why we tolerate it, regardless of political side or alignment.
- sofixa 6y ago
  > All that said, we are vaccinating at a rate of over a million people per day today because of what the Trump administration set in motion a year ago. They pushed for and succeeded at having multiple vaccines developed in the span of eight months Say what now? If i'm not mistaken, none of the first vaccines ( Sputnik V, Chinese one, Pfizer/Biontech, AstraZeneca/Oxford) have anything to do with the US. Moderna and J&J are the only ones developed with US funding. So saying that the plethora of vaccines we got was due to the Trump administration is... wrong. Any even remotely sane administration ( which i know isn't a given for the Trump one) would have financed vaccine development, and many did ( UK with Oxford, France with Sanofi and Institut Pasteur ( both failures, Russia with theirs, etc. etc.)
  - Godel_unicode 6y ago
    Warp Speed tried to fund Pfizer, Pfizer declined. That's hardly the administrations fault. Also not including Moderna in your list of first vaccines is pretty self-serving considering it was approved (fine, EUA'd) one week after Pfizer. Even the claim that Pfizer wasn't funded by the US is disingenuous; the US placed an order for 100 million doses of it in July for almost $2 billion. https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-and-biontech-announce-agreement-us-government-600 https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-deta...
    - sofixa 6y ago
      > Warp Speed tried to fund Pfizer, Pfizer declined. That's hardly the administrations fault. Indeed, it's not their fault, but it's also wrong to say they have anything to do with it. > Also not including Moderna in your list of first vaccines is pretty self-serving considering it was approved (fine, EUA'd) one week after Pfizer. Indeed i fucked up, i wanted to say none of the initial ones bar Moderna, and then say only Moderna and the J&J one were funded by the US, but changed the structure to avoid repetition and it came out wrong. > Even the claim that Pfizer wasn't funded by the US is disingenuous; the US placed an order for 100 million doses of it in July for almost $2 billion. Ordering something with payment on delivery doesn't fund its development: quote from the press release: > The U.S. government will pay the companies $1.95 billion upon the receipt of the first 100 million doses, following FDA authorization or approval. The U.S. government also can acquire up to an additional 500 million doses.

by harry8 6y ago

robomartin 6y ago

The state of the "news" media is truly sad to behold. They lie, sensationalize and have become political activists for one side or the other. I do not believe the rights they are afforded in the US Constitution were intended to be used in this manner at all. In that sense I agree with the statement that they have become the enemy of the people. They don't provide information, they publish ideology and lies. And, yes, we have to be fair and clearly state that Trump was a complete moron in the way he handled some aspects of this. As an example, I cannot understand why he had such a problem with masks. I can't even imagine the reasons other than to look at it from my background in manufacturing. This is what I think could have happened: The administration quickly understood we don't even make the cloth necessary to make masks. The US and Europe could not manufacture ANY of the safety equipment we needed for this pandemic at scale back in January of last year. We didn't even make the machines that make the masks. Telling the public to go get masks would have resulted in a mess and panic. I get that possibility. Here's what they should have done: Figure out how people could DIY some level of protection and widely publish this. Trump should have gone on TV and told people the truth: We can't make enough masks. They are important. This is what you have to do while we sort this out. Instead he engaged in stupid battles with the media. That was dumb, unnecessary, and, yes, it likely cost lives too. All that said, we are vaccinating at a rate of over a million people per day today because of what the Trump administration set in motion a year ago. They pushed for and succeeded at having multiple vaccines developed in the span of eight months. Something never before done in the history of humanity. And yet he/they were vilified for the stupid shit he did in front of the cameras and, to some extent, rightly so in my opinion. This was a year in which both our politicians and our news media failed us in monumental ways. Both of these groups lied to us. And the consequences were deadly. I hope historians get this one right.

b1daly 6y ago
When have ‘the media’ ever not published lies and ideology? Serious question...
- robomartin 6y ago
  Very true. Not sure why we tolerate it, regardless of political side or alignment.
sofixa 6y ago
> All that said, we are vaccinating at a rate of over a million people per day today because of what the Trump administration set in motion a year ago. They pushed for and succeeded at having multiple vaccines developed in the span of eight months Say what now? If i'm not mistaken, none of the first vaccines ( Sputnik V, Chinese one, Pfizer/Biontech, AstraZeneca/Oxford) have anything to do with the US. Moderna and J&J are the only ones developed with US funding. So saying that the plethora of vaccines we got was due to the Trump administration is... wrong. Any even remotely sane administration ( which i know isn't a given for the Trump one) would have financed vaccine development, and many did ( UK with Oxford, France with Sanofi and Institut Pasteur ( both failures, Russia with theirs, etc. etc.)
- Godel_unicode 6y ago
  Warp Speed tried to fund Pfizer, Pfizer declined. That's hardly the administrations fault. Also not including Moderna in your list of first vaccines is pretty self-serving considering it was approved (fine, EUA'd) one week after Pfizer. Even the claim that Pfizer wasn't funded by the US is disingenuous; the US placed an order for 100 million doses of it in July for almost $2 billion. https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-and-biontech-announce-agreement-us-government-600 https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-deta...
  - sofixa 6y ago
    > Warp Speed tried to fund Pfizer, Pfizer declined. That's hardly the administrations fault. Indeed, it's not their fault, but it's also wrong to say they have anything to do with it. > Also not including Moderna in your list of first vaccines is pretty self-serving considering it was approved (fine, EUA'd) one week after Pfizer. Indeed i fucked up, i wanted to say none of the initial ones bar Moderna, and then say only Moderna and the J&J one were funded by the US, but changed the structure to avoid repetition and it came out wrong. > Even the claim that Pfizer wasn't funded by the US is disingenuous; the US placed an order for 100 million doses of it in July for almost $2 billion. Ordering something with payment on delivery doesn't fund its development: quote from the press release: > The U.S. government will pay the companies $1.95 billion upon the receipt of the first 100 million doses, following FDA authorization or approval. The U.S. government also can acquire up to an additional 500 million doses.