Thank you for your analysis. I have thought about this but don't have the reach you do to analyze the situation. Here in SK, it is not just the pandemic...coverage is mostly vehicle accidents, criminal incidents & racial incidents. And, of course, the WEATHER. What used to be a spring blizzard is now a disaster. Coverage is of the sensational only & rarely of significant achievements in medicine, social justice and within the Indigenous community. Someone once called in to CBC Radio noting that if there was a cure for cancer, the headline would be "Thousands of cancer health care workers thrown out of work".
I also avoided American media from the last few months of the Trump presidency. I think this all needs to be viewed through the polarized lens of the United States during Trump, and not necessarily as being inherent of liberal media. It’s only fair to also discuss whether conservative American media downplayed the pandemic because the effectiveness of the American response was being used as a proxy measure of the effectiveness of the Trump government. For the same reason I think American Liberal media may have played it up a bit. FWIW I did find that NPR was not hyperbolic.
The Liberal Media may have? They were outrageous to the point of outright lying and they don’t care. May have? Twitter and Facebook pulled the story on Hunter Biden that was written by the New York Post which was fact. It was due to their own personal bias and not wanting Trump to win that it was removed. Had it been a story from the Times they would have allowed it as the Times is openly bias and antisemitic. Mark Zuckerberg and his wife threw millions upon millions at the Democrats for the election. I remember the taxpayers funded CBC, paying for massive posters denouncing Trump. The news here constantly is bias just like in the US, with CBC being worse. When have you heard anything good about a Conservative candidate in the news, ever! It is so blatant it makes me ill and I no longer watch mainstream news, nor do I have any subscriptions to the newspapers. If you want to know how biased, just go look at the owners of the news papers and the magazines like MacLean’s. They are as bad or worse than the American media and they don’t care.
Important observation that, I suggest, we need to be reminded of routinely. "The fixation on disaster porn" is, alas, standard journalism fare and has been since the "press" became ostensibly "free." As in so many cultural things, to better understand them, it's often useful to "follow the money." There's more money in "disaster porn" than "good, fact-based journalism." Always has been, always (it seems) will be.
It is not just the media outlets but the politicians that are using the virus to frighten the citizens. Remember that a frightened public will be obedient and that's the whole premises behind scaring the bejeepers out of the citizens. People will agree to anything if they believe their life is endanger. From the moment the Liberals were elected it has been one emergency after another. It appears that it is the method they use to get all there policies pushed forward and if that does not work they prorogue parliament. Its the sign of the times and the only viable and intelligent course for citizens is to tune them and the hysterical media out, completely. From the climate emergency to the virus we live in dire, dire, times with the end upon us all. Then they say there is a mental health crisis, especially in youth, who through the education system are pumped full of all the same rhetoric. They can not get away from it, as death and destruction surround them daily. I hope parents have the sense to inform them that it is but a motivational tool that the government uses to get people to conform. So here we are all conformed and waiting for the next shoe to drop. It will be an never ending scenario as in order to keep conformity they must keep the masses in a heightened and traumatic state. So far, so good.
I gave up on legacy media sometime last summer. I've replaced them with a selection of independent publishers and commentators (on this site and others).
e.g. for Covid and health in general, I like Dr. Zubin Damania (https://zdoggmd.com/), and I follow our local health officer's Twitter feed.
Of course, everything you have written also applies to MSM doomsday scenarios of climate change, 30 to 80 years out from the present, based on models they don't really understand.
The best thing you can do for your mental health is find balanced coverage and refer to it sparingly and NEVER before bed. Think positive thoughts and about what you can do personally to make tomorrow a better day. Disaster porn is a horrible thing.
I remain unconvinced that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks for healthy, working age-adults. I therefore disagree with part of Kareem’s piece in that the press’ take on the vaccines seems to be naively optimistic. Andrea, I thought I’d engage with you about it as you’re someone who works with health information and is pro-vaccine.
“[T]he incidence of anaphylaxis associated with the Pfizer SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine appears to be approximately 10 times as high as the incidence reported with all previous vaccines at a rate 10x higher than other vaccines”*, and like almost every medication granted Emergency Use Authorization, there is very likely going to be more information come out about side effects from these vaccines*. (Information absent from mainstream press, perhaps also in an effort to increase vaccination rates.)
I am more interested in their efficacy. The recent paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine regarding the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine in Israel is a great example**.
The finding of the study are presented in the best light possible (which is typical of medical science — what’s unusual in this case is the militant credulousness of the MSM about the awesomeness of the findings.) There are major gaps in this study that make it really challenging to know how effective this thing is. Look at the study numbers. The abstract explains that there are over 1,000,000 participants, which sounds great, except that the study is taking place in the middle of a mass, national-wide vaccination campaign, and by the end of the study — only 6 weeks later — there were fewer than 9,000 people still enrolled^! Actually getting COVID was very rare and happened to less than 0.5% of the original study population combined^. Because of this the absolute risk reduction in the vaccine arm is tiny: 364 people need to get the vaccine to prevent one case, and 25,940 people need to get the vaccine to prevent one death from COVID. That means that according to this paper for every three deaths that you prevent with the vaccine you are sending one person into life-threatening anaphylactic shock*. I would hardly call this a miracle.
Look, perhaps this is a really great fix. Perhaps the researchers behind this study can put aside all of the research grants they have received from Pfizer over the years^^ and are recommending what is truly best for humanity. I certainly hope and pray it works out that way. However, my read of the data at this point is that it’s far too early to tell, especially for the young. And equivocating about getting poked is not just something for MAGA wearers and yahoo’s — it’s a totally rational, scientific posture.
Thank you for your analysis. I have thought about this but don't have the reach you do to analyze the situation. Here in SK, it is not just the pandemic...coverage is mostly vehicle accidents, criminal incidents & racial incidents. And, of course, the WEATHER. What used to be a spring blizzard is now a disaster. Coverage is of the sensational only & rarely of significant achievements in medicine, social justice and within the Indigenous community. Someone once called in to CBC Radio noting that if there was a cure for cancer, the headline would be "Thousands of cancer health care workers thrown out of work".
I also avoided American media from the last few months of the Trump presidency. I think this all needs to be viewed through the polarized lens of the United States during Trump, and not necessarily as being inherent of liberal media. It’s only fair to also discuss whether conservative American media downplayed the pandemic because the effectiveness of the American response was being used as a proxy measure of the effectiveness of the Trump government. For the same reason I think American Liberal media may have played it up a bit. FWIW I did find that NPR was not hyperbolic.
How did Canadian media do in those bias rankings?
The Liberal Media may have? They were outrageous to the point of outright lying and they don’t care. May have? Twitter and Facebook pulled the story on Hunter Biden that was written by the New York Post which was fact. It was due to their own personal bias and not wanting Trump to win that it was removed. Had it been a story from the Times they would have allowed it as the Times is openly bias and antisemitic. Mark Zuckerberg and his wife threw millions upon millions at the Democrats for the election. I remember the taxpayers funded CBC, paying for massive posters denouncing Trump. The news here constantly is bias just like in the US, with CBC being worse. When have you heard anything good about a Conservative candidate in the news, ever! It is so blatant it makes me ill and I no longer watch mainstream news, nor do I have any subscriptions to the newspapers. If you want to know how biased, just go look at the owners of the news papers and the magazines like MacLean’s. They are as bad or worse than the American media and they don’t care.
Important observation that, I suggest, we need to be reminded of routinely. "The fixation on disaster porn" is, alas, standard journalism fare and has been since the "press" became ostensibly "free." As in so many cultural things, to better understand them, it's often useful to "follow the money." There's more money in "disaster porn" than "good, fact-based journalism." Always has been, always (it seems) will be.
It is not just the media outlets but the politicians that are using the virus to frighten the citizens. Remember that a frightened public will be obedient and that's the whole premises behind scaring the bejeepers out of the citizens. People will agree to anything if they believe their life is endanger. From the moment the Liberals were elected it has been one emergency after another. It appears that it is the method they use to get all there policies pushed forward and if that does not work they prorogue parliament. Its the sign of the times and the only viable and intelligent course for citizens is to tune them and the hysterical media out, completely. From the climate emergency to the virus we live in dire, dire, times with the end upon us all. Then they say there is a mental health crisis, especially in youth, who through the education system are pumped full of all the same rhetoric. They can not get away from it, as death and destruction surround them daily. I hope parents have the sense to inform them that it is but a motivational tool that the government uses to get people to conform. So here we are all conformed and waiting for the next shoe to drop. It will be an never ending scenario as in order to keep conformity they must keep the masses in a heightened and traumatic state. So far, so good.
I gave up on legacy media sometime last summer. I've replaced them with a selection of independent publishers and commentators (on this site and others).
e.g. for Covid and health in general, I like Dr. Zubin Damania (https://zdoggmd.com/), and I follow our local health officer's Twitter feed.
Sleeping much better now.
Of course, everything you have written also applies to MSM doomsday scenarios of climate change, 30 to 80 years out from the present, based on models they don't really understand.
The best thing you can do for your mental health is find balanced coverage and refer to it sparingly and NEVER before bed. Think positive thoughts and about what you can do personally to make tomorrow a better day. Disaster porn is a horrible thing.
I remain unconvinced that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks for healthy, working age-adults. I therefore disagree with part of Kareem’s piece in that the press’ take on the vaccines seems to be naively optimistic. Andrea, I thought I’d engage with you about it as you’re someone who works with health information and is pro-vaccine.
“[T]he incidence of anaphylaxis associated with the Pfizer SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine appears to be approximately 10 times as high as the incidence reported with all previous vaccines at a rate 10x higher than other vaccines”*, and like almost every medication granted Emergency Use Authorization, there is very likely going to be more information come out about side effects from these vaccines*. (Information absent from mainstream press, perhaps also in an effort to increase vaccination rates.)
I am more interested in their efficacy. The recent paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine regarding the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine in Israel is a great example**.
The finding of the study are presented in the best light possible (which is typical of medical science — what’s unusual in this case is the militant credulousness of the MSM about the awesomeness of the findings.) There are major gaps in this study that make it really challenging to know how effective this thing is. Look at the study numbers. The abstract explains that there are over 1,000,000 participants, which sounds great, except that the study is taking place in the middle of a mass, national-wide vaccination campaign, and by the end of the study — only 6 weeks later — there were fewer than 9,000 people still enrolled^! Actually getting COVID was very rare and happened to less than 0.5% of the original study population combined^. Because of this the absolute risk reduction in the vaccine arm is tiny: 364 people need to get the vaccine to prevent one case, and 25,940 people need to get the vaccine to prevent one death from COVID. That means that according to this paper for every three deaths that you prevent with the vaccine you are sending one person into life-threatening anaphylactic shock*. I would hardly call this a miracle.
Look, perhaps this is a really great fix. Perhaps the researchers behind this study can put aside all of the research grants they have received from Pfizer over the years^^ and are recommending what is truly best for humanity. I certainly hope and pray it works out that way. However, my read of the data at this point is that it’s far too early to tell, especially for the young. And equivocating about getting poked is not just something for MAGA wearers and yahoo’s — it’s a totally rational, scientific posture.
What’s your take, Andrea?
*https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra2035343
**https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2101765
^ https://www.nejm.org/doi/suppl/10.1056/NEJMoa2101765/suppl_file/nejmoa2101765_appendix.pdf (page 15)
^^https://www.nejm.org/doi/suppl/10.1056/NEJMoa2101765/suppl_file/nejmoa2101765_disclosures.pdf