6 ms·

Major Danish newspaper apologises for only covering government Covid narrative

63 points by wsc981 5y ago

oriettaxx 5y ago
[google translate] For ALMOST two years, we - the press and the population - have been almost hypnotically preoccupied with the authorities' daily coronatal. WE HAVE STARED at the oscillations of the number pendulum when it came to infected, hospitalized and died with corona. And we have been given the significance of the pendulum's smallest movements laid out by experts, politicians and authorities, who have constantly warned us about the dormant corona monster under our beds. A monster just waiting for us to fall asleep so it can strike in the gloom and darkness of the night. THE CONSTANT mental alertness has worn off tremendously on all of us. That is why we - the press - must also take stock of our own efforts. And we have failed. WE HAVE NOT been vigilant enough at the garden gate when the authorities were required to answer what it actually meant that people are hospitalized with corona and not because of corona. Because it makes a difference. A big difference. Exactly, the official hospitalization numbers have been shown to be 27 percent higher than the actual figure for how many there are in the hospital, simply because they have corona. We only know that now. OF COURSE , it is first and foremost the authorities who are responsible for informing the population correctly, accurately and honestly. The figures for how many are sick and died of corona should, for obvious reasons, have been published long ago, so we got the clearest picture of the monster under the bed. IN ALL , the messages of the authorities and politicians to the people in this historic crisis leave much to be desired. And therefore they lie as they have ridden when sections of the population lose confidence in them. ANOTHER example: The vaccines are consistently referred to as our 'superweapon'. And our hospitals are called 'superhospitals'. Nevertheless, these super-hospitals are apparently maximally pressured, even though almost the entire population is armed with a super-weapon. Even children have been vaccinated on a huge scale, which has not been done in our neighboring countries. IN OTHER WORDS, there is something here that does not deserve the term 'super'. Whether it's the vaccines, the hospitals, or a mixture of it all, is every man's bid. But at least the authorities' communication to the population in no way deserves the term 'super'. On the contrary.
- msylvest 5y ago
  As a native Dane I can say that this translation is pretty good. What Ekstra Bladet is going to do with its recognition still has to be seen. I think that it has a point - the way vaccines have been used in DK is good but not good enough to control contamination. And this story has not been told by the authorities.
- wodenokoto 5y ago
  Compound words are still difficult for machine learning. Google missed pretty critical one: Coronatal means corona numbers and refers to any corona related figure - death rate, vaccination rate, new infections, etc.
  - msylvest 5y ago
    Right - I must have missed that
- csdvrx 5y ago
  I like to say "I believe in science". However, what I've seen in the last 2 years is only science by name and by fiat. We've been fed wrong information after wrong information "for our own good", which has caused the population to lose confidence as the article perfectly explains. This is terrible, as trust and confidence take a long time to build. Now we have a wonderful new technology (mRNA vaccine) that could be helpful against many ailments, but that the population has learned to fear. The root cause seem to be the government desires to cover their own mistakes (ex: the masks being inefficient: because they didn't have enough at first, how hands washing was so important... for airborne virus (!!!): because air filtration was too expansive, how the old vaccine is so important against omicron: because they haven't adapted the vaccine so hey let's give a 3rd, a 4th shot and so on, sending people known to have covid in retirement homes full of vulnerable people: because they hadn't built adequate facilities...) I believe in science, but I can hardly blame people who now subscribe to weird ideas: in their defense, they have noticed some of the lies so in a Bayesian setting they have adjusted their priors: by default they now distrust every official message, and unfortunately for them they may not have the proper scientific knowledge to better adapt their probability distributions. I seriously hope there will be official inquiries about a level of mismanagement that borders criminal negligence, and that will have cost human lives.
oriettaxx 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekstra_Bladet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekstra_Bladet
dusted 5y ago
Well, it's a major newspaper in that a large portion of the population believe what they write (generally the same segment that get the other half of their "news" from their facebook feed). Their readership consists mostly of nationalist oriented types with more than a healthy skepticism of vaccines, masks and experts. This is an obvious attempt by the newspaper to endear itself to its readers by "picking their side".
- draw_down 5y ago
- mrweasel 5y ago
  I don’t think that completely fair. You have a point, but it’s also the only newspaper right now that will point out holes in policies, and explanation from the government. Ekstra Bladet certainly attracks nutters, but they also hire some really smart journalist.
JPKab 5y ago
"WE HAVE NOT been vigilant enough at the garden gate when the authorities were required to answer what it actually meant that people are hospitalized with corona and not because of corona. Because it makes a difference. A big difference. Exactly, the official hospitalization numbers have been shown to be 27 percent higher than the actual figure for how many there are in the hospital, simply because they have corona. We only know that now." On Saturday morning I went to my barber shop. My barber was talking to me and I relayed to her some of the pain I've been going through lately dealing with my late mother-in-law's bank, insurance, and other accounts. She then told me that she lost her mother 5 months ago to cancer. Her and her family finally got the death certificate, and the death certificate claimed that her mother had died of covid-19. She had terminal cancer and was at the end of a very long battle. The family had to fight the hospital because they were shocked knowing that she died of cancer and happened to test positive for COVID-19 at some point in the hospital weeks before she died. The hospital eventually fixed the "error". I put error in quotes because there's a huge financial incentive for hospital administrators to do this. They get large sums of money from the US federal government for every covid patient or death. This is an anecdote of course. Not real data. But as my barber pointed out, and I personally experience with my mother-in-law's death, most people might not even see this on the death certificate and if they do they don't have the stomach to fight it. They are grieving and simply want to move on from the pain. What is the actual data on this? How many deaths are being incorrectly classified as covid related to maximize revenue for immoral hospital administrators? We don't know. But what I can say is if this is a rare occurrence, It's pretty low probability for me to encounter more than one person who has described this to me. My suspicion is, based purely on economic incentives, this is fairly common place. Really happy to see this Danish newspaper finally doing what the fourth estate is supposed to do: Challenging the powerful and the elite rather than being their lap dogs. I canceled my New York Times in Washington Post prescriptions several months ago. I still really enjoyed much of the content in both publications, but it became a big negative emotion to open them up and see the blatant evidence of how corrupted they have become. They don't challenge power unless the power is run by someone they don't like. If they happen to find the person in charge less objectionable they will happily do their bidding.
- oriettaxx 5y ago
boublepop 5y ago
While this is a “major” newspaper in the sense that it has a large readership, it’s also the Danish equivalent of the Sun. And they are know for chasing whatever they can to get a story and having no morals. Their editor in chief spent a year in jail for buying credit card transaction information about celebrities to stalk to spy on them. This doesn’t mean they don’t have truth in their reporting, only that whatever truth is there is accidental and just seen as a tool to get attention or exact revenge on the governments which he has a personal vendetta against.
- delusional 5y ago
  You're right that they're known as quite sensationalist, blowing even trivial stories up to some huge scoop. I don't think it's fair to say truth is accidental to them though. Their journalists did just win the most prestigious danish award for journalism "Cavlingprisen" for a story written for EkstraBladet. There's value in an antagonistic press.
  - boublepop 5y ago
    Certainly there is value in having an antagonistic press, but the “gotcha” here is a lie. Throughout the pandemic numbers have reported how many people where hospitalized with Covid. Because that is the important number to be concerned about, since this is the number that is pressuring the hospital system. This articles is Henrik Qi’s personal “gotcha” saying “haha, I told you so, actually only 3/4 of those hospitalizations are because of covid!!” And then trying to paint a picture of the media collectively having failed the readers for not “discovering” this earlier. Now this is a lie for two reasons, it implies incorrectly that there was previously a statement that 100% the people in the hospital with covid where there solely because of covid, which was never the case. And secondly it is a lie because the hints that covid is actually 27% less severe is an implicit accusation that someone who has covid and heart failure and is admitted does not stress the system exactly as much as someone admitted only because they have covid. The punkis wasn’t lied to by the government. The media didn’t fail the people. What actually happened was that the most important number was reported accurately and now Henrik Q finally got another number that he thinks is more important. Why does he think that one is more important? Because he doesn’t care about the healthcare system failing, what he cares about is only his personal risk of ending up hospitalized if he gets covid. And that’s fine, it’s not illegal to be selfish, but it’s not a failing of the government for not focusing on metrics you personally align with your own hypothesis. It was quite clearly communicated and makes perfect sense that during covid we where looking at number of hospitalizations with covid compared to the capacity to support hospitalizations with covid, and lockdowns and other actions where planned based on ensuring those didn’t collide. If the hospital system had broken down, it would have helped no one that Henrik could jog along and go “Well actually 27% of the people that can’t get treatment for covid or other illnesses only need that because of the other illness not because of covid” Anyways I appreciate your perspective but I’ll stand by my viewpoint. The truth contained in this reporting is incidental to their agenda, it’s not the focus of it at all.

63 points by wsc981 5y ago

[google translate] For ALMOST two years, we - the press and the population - have been almost hypnotically preoccupied with the authorities' daily coronatal. WE HAVE STARED at the oscillations of the number pendulum when it came to infected, hospitalized and died with corona. And we have been given the significance of the pendulum's smallest movements laid out by experts, politicians and authorities, who have constantly warned us about the dormant corona monster under our beds. A monster just waiting for us to fall asleep so it can strike in the gloom and darkness of the night. THE CONSTANT mental alertness has worn off tremendously on all of us. That is why we - the press - must also take stock of our own efforts. And we have failed. WE HAVE NOT been vigilant enough at the garden gate when the authorities were required to answer what it actually meant that people are hospitalized with corona and not because of corona. Because it makes a difference. A big difference. Exactly, the official hospitalization numbers have been shown to be 27 percent higher than the actual figure for how many there are in the hospital, simply because they have corona. We only know that now. OF COURSE , it is first and foremost the authorities who are responsible for informing the population correctly, accurately and honestly. The figures for how many are sick and died of corona should, for obvious reasons, have been published long ago, so we got the clearest picture of the monster under the bed. IN ALL , the messages of the authorities and politicians to the people in this historic crisis leave much to be desired. And therefore they lie as they have ridden when sections of the population lose confidence in them. ANOTHER example: The vaccines are consistently referred to as our 'superweapon'. And our hospitals are called 'superhospitals'. Nevertheless, these super-hospitals are apparently maximally pressured, even though almost the entire population is armed with a super-weapon. Even children have been vaccinated on a huge scale, which has not been done in our neighboring countries. IN OTHER WORDS, there is something here that does not deserve the term 'super'. Whether it's the vaccines, the hospitals, or a mixture of it all, is every man's bid. But at least the authorities' communication to the population in no way deserves the term 'super'. On the contrary.

msylvest 5y ago
As a native Dane I can say that this translation is pretty good. What Ekstra Bladet is going to do with its recognition still has to be seen. I think that it has a point - the way vaccines have been used in DK is good but not good enough to control contamination. And this story has not been told by the authorities.
wodenokoto 5y ago
Compound words are still difficult for machine learning. Google missed pretty critical one: Coronatal means corona numbers and refers to any corona related figure - death rate, vaccination rate, new infections, etc.
- msylvest 5y ago
  Right - I must have missed that
csdvrx 5y ago
I like to say "I believe in science". However, what I've seen in the last 2 years is only science by name and by fiat. We've been fed wrong information after wrong information "for our own good", which has caused the population to lose confidence as the article perfectly explains. This is terrible, as trust and confidence take a long time to build. Now we have a wonderful new technology (mRNA vaccine) that could be helpful against many ailments, but that the population has learned to fear. The root cause seem to be the government desires to cover their own mistakes (ex: the masks being inefficient: because they didn't have enough at first, how hands washing was so important... for airborne virus (!!!): because air filtration was too expansive, how the old vaccine is so important against omicron: because they haven't adapted the vaccine so hey let's give a 3rd, a 4th shot and so on, sending people known to have covid in retirement homes full of vulnerable people: because they hadn't built adequate facilities...) I believe in science, but I can hardly blame people who now subscribe to weird ideas: in their defense, they have noticed some of the lies so in a Bayesian setting they have adjusted their priors: by default they now distrust every official message, and unfortunately for them they may not have the proper scientific knowledge to better adapt their probability distributions. I seriously hope there will be official inquiries about a level of mismanagement that borders criminal negligence, and that will have cost human lives.

oriettaxx 5y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekstra_Bladet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekstra_Bladet

dusted 5y ago

Well, it's a major newspaper in that a large portion of the population believe what they write (generally the same segment that get the other half of their "news" from their facebook feed). Their readership consists mostly of nationalist oriented types with more than a healthy skepticism of vaccines, masks and experts. This is an obvious attempt by the newspaper to endear itself to its readers by "picking their side".

draw_down 5y ago
mrweasel 5y ago
I don’t think that completely fair. You have a point, but it’s also the only newspaper right now that will point out holes in policies, and explanation from the government. Ekstra Bladet certainly attracks nutters, but they also hire some really smart journalist.

JPKab 5y ago

"WE HAVE NOT been vigilant enough at the garden gate when the authorities were required to answer what it actually meant that people are hospitalized with corona and not because of corona. Because it makes a difference. A big difference. Exactly, the official hospitalization numbers have been shown to be 27 percent higher than the actual figure for how many there are in the hospital, simply because they have corona. We only know that now." On Saturday morning I went to my barber shop. My barber was talking to me and I relayed to her some of the pain I've been going through lately dealing with my late mother-in-law's bank, insurance, and other accounts. She then told me that she lost her mother 5 months ago to cancer. Her and her family finally got the death certificate, and the death certificate claimed that her mother had died of covid-19. She had terminal cancer and was at the end of a very long battle. The family had to fight the hospital because they were shocked knowing that she died of cancer and happened to test positive for COVID-19 at some point in the hospital weeks before she died. The hospital eventually fixed the "error". I put error in quotes because there's a huge financial incentive for hospital administrators to do this. They get large sums of money from the US federal government for every covid patient or death. This is an anecdote of course. Not real data. But as my barber pointed out, and I personally experience with my mother-in-law's death, most people might not even see this on the death certificate and if they do they don't have the stomach to fight it. They are grieving and simply want to move on from the pain. What is the actual data on this? How many deaths are being incorrectly classified as covid related to maximize revenue for immoral hospital administrators? We don't know. But what I can say is if this is a rare occurrence, It's pretty low probability for me to encounter more than one person who has described this to me. My suspicion is, based purely on economic incentives, this is fairly common place. Really happy to see this Danish newspaper finally doing what the fourth estate is supposed to do: Challenging the powerful and the elite rather than being their lap dogs. I canceled my New York Times in Washington Post prescriptions several months ago. I still really enjoyed much of the content in both publications, but it became a big negative emotion to open them up and see the blatant evidence of how corrupted they have become. They don't challenge power unless the power is run by someone they don't like. If they happen to find the person in charge less objectionable they will happily do their bidding.

oriettaxx 5y ago

boublepop 5y ago

While this is a “major” newspaper in the sense that it has a large readership, it’s also the Danish equivalent of the Sun. And they are know for chasing whatever they can to get a story and having no morals. Their editor in chief spent a year in jail for buying credit card transaction information about celebrities to stalk to spy on them. This doesn’t mean they don’t have truth in their reporting, only that whatever truth is there is accidental and just seen as a tool to get attention or exact revenge on the governments which he has a personal vendetta against.

delusional 5y ago
You're right that they're known as quite sensationalist, blowing even trivial stories up to some huge scoop. I don't think it's fair to say truth is accidental to them though. Their journalists did just win the most prestigious danish award for journalism "Cavlingprisen" for a story written for EkstraBladet. There's value in an antagonistic press.
- boublepop 5y ago
  Certainly there is value in having an antagonistic press, but the “gotcha” here is a lie. Throughout the pandemic numbers have reported how many people where hospitalized with Covid. Because that is the important number to be concerned about, since this is the number that is pressuring the hospital system. This articles is Henrik Qi’s personal “gotcha” saying “haha, I told you so, actually only 3/4 of those hospitalizations are because of covid!!” And then trying to paint a picture of the media collectively having failed the readers for not “discovering” this earlier. Now this is a lie for two reasons, it implies incorrectly that there was previously a statement that 100% the people in the hospital with covid where there solely because of covid, which was never the case. And secondly it is a lie because the hints that covid is actually 27% less severe is an implicit accusation that someone who has covid and heart failure and is admitted does not stress the system exactly as much as someone admitted only because they have covid. The punkis wasn’t lied to by the government. The media didn’t fail the people. What actually happened was that the most important number was reported accurately and now Henrik Q finally got another number that he thinks is more important. Why does he think that one is more important? Because he doesn’t care about the healthcare system failing, what he cares about is only his personal risk of ending up hospitalized if he gets covid. And that’s fine, it’s not illegal to be selfish, but it’s not a failing of the government for not focusing on metrics you personally align with your own hypothesis. It was quite clearly communicated and makes perfect sense that during covid we where looking at number of hospitalizations with covid compared to the capacity to support hospitalizations with covid, and lockdowns and other actions where planned based on ensuring those didn’t collide. If the hospital system had broken down, it would have helped no one that Henrik could jog along and go “Well actually 27% of the people that can’t get treatment for covid or other illnesses only need that because of the other illness not because of covid” Anyways I appreciate your perspective but I’ll stand by my viewpoint. The truth contained in this reporting is incidental to their agenda, it’s not the focus of it at all.