Archive for 2020
March 21, 2020
AND JUST LIKE THAT, THE MEDIA HATES BOLTON AGAIN: John Bolton declares China ‘responsible’ for coronavirus outbreak, says world must hold them ‘accountable.’
OCEANIA HAS NEVER BEEN AT WAR WITH THE WUHAN PROVINCE: Wikipedia Debates Changing ‘Spanish Flu’ Name with PC Naming Fight.
WELL, THAT’S NOT GOOD: Coronavirus cases doubling faster in the U.S. than any other country, report says. “The report was written by the infectious disease analytics team from MITRE, a Bedford-based nonprofit. Cases have been rising sharply across the country and the report shows they double every 1.75 days — very quickly in comparison to South Korea’s 23 days, which has been widely hailed for its competent coronavirus response.”
UPDATE: On the other hand, this is right, I think:
AT AMAZON, Deal of the Day, AeroGarden Harvest Elite 360 – Stainless Steel.
WORLD ENDS; WOMEN AND TRANSGENDERED HARDEST HIT:
● The Coronavirus Is a Disaster for Feminism.
—The Atlantic, Thursday.
● As Hospitals Prepare for COVID-19, Life-Saving Trans Surgeries Are Delayed.
—Vice.com, Thursday.
AMERICANS NEED A DATE CERTAIN: “The federal government needs to make a decision about when we are going to free up the economy, and it needs to have done it yesterday.”
HOW THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA SWEEP THEIR MISTAKES UNDER THE RUG:
The online news outlet Axios on Wednesday published a bombshell news story: Bernie Sanders, reporter Alexi McCammond wrote, was suspending his presidential campaign.
“It’s an end to the campaign of the leading progressive in the race—and the candidate who seemed to be the clear front-runner for the Democratic nomination less than a month ago,” the report stated.
The only problem: It wasn’t true. And this wasn’t a run-of-the mill error, but a miscue on arguably the most anticipated (and inevitable) political story in the country.
* * * * * * * *
One imagines that an error of the same magnitude from a conservative reportorial outlet would not be treated with the same level of understanding with which it was received by Axios’s mainstream media counterparts. Media reporters at the country’s top newspapers didn’t muster a tweet about the incident. Mediaite, an online publication devoted to covering print, digital, and television media, covered the story this way: “Bernie Sanders Swats Down ‘Absolutely False’ Report Claiming End of Campaign After Twitter Frenzy.”
The incident reveals the insidious way in which the mainstream media, which have spent the past three years obsessing about the spread of fake news, operate like a cartel, ruthlessly enforcing standards on outsiders but refusing to police themselves.
Flashback: Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw Defend Dan Rather Who Sees Effort to “Smear” Him.
Related: HBO’s After Truth Perfectly Captures Why Journalism is Dying.
WELL SAID, AS USUAL:
March 20, 2020
A SITE THAT ALLOWS YOU TO DEEP DIVE INTO THE JOHNS HOPKINS STATISTICS: Covid19Stats.Global.
UPDATE (Charlie): COVID Tracking is a good site for US data. And don’t forget the Johns Hopkins dashboard that the Covid19Stats data comes from.
IT’S SATIRE, BUT IS IT REALLY? Trump Hits Back At China By Announcing U.S. Will Also Expel American Journalists.
FINALLY, SOME GOOD SENSE: PA Turnpike to reopen all 17 closed service plazas to support truckers amid COVID-19 crisis.
OPEN THREAD: Well, that was a week.
HOW’S THAT SPACE PROGRAM COMING ALONG? Giant ‘potentially hazardous’ asteroid will fly safely by Earth in April.
