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Even worse, the article's source appears to be six individuals affiliated with six different companies representing 0.0001% of the US workforce. None of their c

Even worse, the article's source appears to be six individuals affiliated with six different companies representing 0.0001% of the US workforce. None of their claims are verified or even investigated for accuracy. Not to say that people aren't getting sick or that they aren't calling out but it's clear that the author has no authoritative basis to make any claim on the subject.

micromacrofoot 5y ago
Which leads you to wonder why the article was published at all.
boringg 5y ago
Not going to say they are the authoritative source or that their data point is sufficient enough. I would say that ever person I have talked to who runs a business or is a worker at a business has many people who are sick currently. I think the author probably used this example to paint a broader picture that resonates with probably most people who are connected to society at this point. The reason they used "worker" is because its the largest class of individuals and it IS having real supply chain issues. It ISN'T because people aren't getting paid enough but because people are sick and shouldn't work so as not to infect other people.
- jimbob45 5y ago
  Isn't that the main credibility problem facing journalism today though? It's these publications asking for credibility because "just look around, bro" or "look at these six examples, it's everywhere". You can't establish a pattern based off of emotions and expect to be respected as a serious news agency. You could argue that it's the reason that FOX News lost so much respect around ~2010 from FOX and Friends. It's the BLM activists asking you to "look at the racism happening everywhere" and the election truthers telling you that "you just know fraud is happening - nobody I know voted for Biden". I can't draw conclusions based on your feelings, no matter how strong they are. It's telling that 13/52 and 13/90 have stuck around so well because those are real, factual numbers. Perhaps they're entirely misleading but, at the very least, newsreaders appear to be far more interested in those real numbers than "feelings-based" articles like the one above. Part of the magic of FiveThirtyEight early on was their deep commitment to showing the statistical analysis behind every single article. You didn't have to just trust their reporters because they had the MiniTab or MATLab printout on every article that you could read for yourself. They fully describe their methodology behind their pollster ratings and election forecasts, even if you don't agree with them. 538 has since gotten away from their statistical analyses a bit and their viewership and credibility has suffered accordingly.
  - nradov 5y ago
    Modern journalism consists of looking at today's trending topics on Twitter, then finding a few related anecdotes about it to turn into a "news" story that pushes the publication's preferred narrative. Those articles aren't false per se, but they do nothing to help readers understand what's really happening.
- fallingknife 5y ago
  Given that the cdc reported 1.4 million cases in a day last week, and that only includes people who got tested, it's probably more like 3 million. That's 1% of the population getting infected per day. So yeah this checks out.
gruez 5y ago
> Even worse, the article's source appears to be six individuals affiliated with six different companies representing 0.0001% of the US workforce. None of their claims are verified or even investigated for accuracy. They're not the BLS. If you're expecting that level of coverage then there's virtually no news stories aside from whatever government stats came out that day.
dahart 5y ago
> six different companies representing 0.0001% of the US workforce. Just to check the accuracy, how did you arrive at this number? AFAICT, United Airlines has 93k employees, so alone represents approximately 0.028% of the US workforce, roughly 300x your guess, right?
zuminator 5y ago
0.0001% of the US workforce is 156 people. United Airlines alone had 3000 out with COVID simultaneously. That's not just some random worker lamenting; it was stated in an official memo by their CEO, linked to in the story.
gamblor956 5y ago
"At United Airlines, CEO Scott Kirby said nearly a third of the workforce called out sick on one day alone at Newark Liberty International Airport. At MOM's Organic Market, some of its East Coast stores have had to deal with 15 out of 50 workers out on a single day. And at the community health center Mary's Center in Washington, D.C., half of the COVID-19 Response Team tested positive for the virus over the past few weeks." The article literally starts with the CEO of a public company that employs several tens of thousands of people saying that 1/3 of their workers at one of their busiest facilities called out sick. The MOM's source is...their Chief of HR. The sources for the hospital were its CEO and chief nurse. Whatever ideological point about journalism you thought you were trying to make, you did not make it.

micromacrofoot 5y ago

Which leads you to wonder why the article was published at all.

boringg 5y ago

Not going to say they are the authoritative source or that their data point is sufficient enough. I would say that ever person I have talked to who runs a business or is a worker at a business has many people who are sick currently. I think the author probably used this example to paint a broader picture that resonates with probably most people who are connected to society at this point. The reason they used "worker" is because its the largest class of individuals and it IS having real supply chain issues. It ISN'T because people aren't getting paid enough but because people are sick and shouldn't work so as not to infect other people.

jimbob45 5y ago
Isn't that the main credibility problem facing journalism today though? It's these publications asking for credibility because "just look around, bro" or "look at these six examples, it's everywhere". You can't establish a pattern based off of emotions and expect to be respected as a serious news agency. You could argue that it's the reason that FOX News lost so much respect around ~2010 from FOX and Friends. It's the BLM activists asking you to "look at the racism happening everywhere" and the election truthers telling you that "you just know fraud is happening - nobody I know voted for Biden". I can't draw conclusions based on your feelings, no matter how strong they are. It's telling that 13/52 and 13/90 have stuck around so well because those are real, factual numbers. Perhaps they're entirely misleading but, at the very least, newsreaders appear to be far more interested in those real numbers than "feelings-based" articles like the one above. Part of the magic of FiveThirtyEight early on was their deep commitment to showing the statistical analysis behind every single article. You didn't have to just trust their reporters because they had the MiniTab or MATLab printout on every article that you could read for yourself. They fully describe their methodology behind their pollster ratings and election forecasts, even if you don't agree with them. 538 has since gotten away from their statistical analyses a bit and their viewership and credibility has suffered accordingly.
- nradov 5y ago
  Modern journalism consists of looking at today's trending topics on Twitter, then finding a few related anecdotes about it to turn into a "news" story that pushes the publication's preferred narrative. Those articles aren't false per se, but they do nothing to help readers understand what's really happening.
fallingknife 5y ago
Given that the cdc reported 1.4 million cases in a day last week, and that only includes people who got tested, it's probably more like 3 million. That's 1% of the population getting infected per day. So yeah this checks out.

gruez 5y ago

> Even worse, the article's source appears to be six individuals affiliated with six different companies representing 0.0001% of the US workforce. None of their claims are verified or even investigated for accuracy. They're not the BLS. If you're expecting that level of coverage then there's virtually no news stories aside from whatever government stats came out that day.

dahart 5y ago

> six different companies representing 0.0001% of the US workforce. Just to check the accuracy, how did you arrive at this number? AFAICT, United Airlines has 93k employees, so alone represents approximately 0.028% of the US workforce, roughly 300x your guess, right?

zuminator 5y ago

0.0001% of the US workforce is 156 people. United Airlines alone had 3000 out with COVID simultaneously. That's not just some random worker lamenting; it was stated in an official memo by their CEO, linked to in the story.

gamblor956 5y ago

"At United Airlines, CEO Scott Kirby said nearly a third of the workforce called out sick on one day alone at Newark Liberty International Airport. At MOM's Organic Market, some of its East Coast stores have had to deal with 15 out of 50 workers out on a single day. And at the community health center Mary's Center in Washington, D.C., half of the COVID-19 Response Team tested positive for the virus over the past few weeks." The article literally starts with the CEO of a public company that employs several tens of thousands of people saying that 1/3 of their workers at one of their busiest facilities called out sick. The MOM's source is...their Chief of HR. The sources for the hospital were its CEO and chief nurse. Whatever ideological point about journalism you thought you were trying to make, you did not make it.