Funny events in anti-woke world

tstorm823

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Is it your position that the journalists in this case should have unanimously agreed not to report what the head of their state specifically communicated to them at a press conference he called? Should they have presented those comments uncritically, thereby implying that the scientific establishment was (under the orders of the President) investigating the possibility of injecting disinfectant into people?
Not at all, it is my position that they shouldn't lie. If the problem is that Trump expressed a dangerous misunderstanding of disinfectants, then their headline could certainly be President Trump States Dangerous Misunderstanding of Disinfectants. If there is an ongoing trend of people misusing household cleaners and hurting themselves, and you want to report on that context for Trump's statements, that would be completely reasonable, and critical of Trump's statement, and truthful.

Instead we got stories that implied he was recommending people try to disinfect themselves, followed closely by other stories pretending there was a subsequent spike in people trying to do so.
...and explicitly states there is no way to be sure bleach poisonings relate to Trump's comments.
I will post this again:

That article above was published on the 14th of May, and Time published on the 13th. Both that article and the Time article use the data from the National Poison Data System. Time claims it was using the most recent publishing, and on Ars Technica, where the author posts the graphs of daily data from that system, he says that data was published on Tuesday. The Tuesday before was the 12th. Both authors were using literally the same source data. Yet somehow, one managed to post graphs from the source showing the daily breakdown of cases, and the other could only provide monthly aggregates that allowed for statistical ambiguity which could be speculated on.

I suppose you could claim that is a product of genuine incompetence on the part of the person writing, but when the person writing is a prolific science author, and a long-time contributor to Time Magazine (specifically their science coverage), who has taught journalism, it becomes difficult for me to imagine that.
 

Bedinsis

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There's a reason why manufacturers of household cleaning products immediately rushed to issue statements that their products shouldn't be used internally. It's not because they had some nefarious agenda to make the orange man look worse than he supposedly was, it's because they really, really didn't want the PR fallout from people poisoning themselves by drinking or injecting their products.
Alternatively, they just don't want people to be harmed from ingesting their products. There is still some humanity left in companies, provided inhumanity cannot make them money.
 

Ag3ma

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I suppose you could claim that is a product of genuine incompetence on the part of the person writing, but when the person writing is a prolific science author, and a long-time contributor to Time Magazine (specifically their science coverage), who has taught journalism, it becomes difficult for me to imagine that.
They may have got their data from the same source, but that does not necessarily assume they got the same data. Organisations will often produce data in a number of formats, and so a lot may depend on what a journalist accesses. Implicitly, the Time journalist got hold of the monthly data, and the Ars Technica the daily.

You should generally assume limited competence on the part of science journalists, because they generally got there by having degrees in journalism (or other writing-related), not science.
 
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Silvanus

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Not at all, it is my position that they shouldn't lie. If the problem is that Trump expressed a dangerous misunderstanding of disinfectants, then their headline could certainly be President Trump States Dangerous Misunderstanding of Disinfectants. If there is an ongoing trend of people misusing household cleaners and hurting themselves, and you want to report on that context for Trump's statements, that would be completely reasonable, and critical of Trump's statement, and truthful.

Instead we got stories that implied he was recommending people try to disinfect themselves, followed closely by other stories pretending there was a subsequent spike in people trying to do so.
"Implying he was recommending people try to disinfect themselves"-- did we actually? We got stories saying he suggested injecting disinfectant, which is entirely true. You've then shown us a single article making an erroneous-- though quite understandable-- mistake about the trend, and even that article contained a caveat that they couldn't be sure.

The approach of insisting that any error must be a malicious lie is untenable. Apply the same approach to yourself: you said that the 'drinking bleach' thing was a flawless remembering of what the media had told them. Then you couldn't find a single headline or article saying that was what he said. Nada. So am i to assume A) this was a mild exaggeration on your part, or a lapse of memory, an understandable mistake? Or B) Malicious lie to tarnish the reputation of the media?
 
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Absent

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The boring one
"Implying he was recommending people try to disinfect themselves"-- did we actually?
Trump suggested it but of course suggesting something doesn't mean at all telling people to do it.

The problem is : newspapers said that he suggested it and suggesting something totally means telling people to do it. See how dishonest they are ?

In contrast, Tstorm would never misrepresent sexual education and gender studies, and would only suggest that homosexuals are subhumans incapable of love who should be flagged for potential employers and landlords, but he wouldn't say they are or they should, and doesn't suggest it but on the contrary merely suggests it, and most importantly without saying or suggesting it. Or else it would be dishonest and he would shut his face and nobody would engage with him in these boards. So.

Carry on with your productive discussions.
 
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BrawlMan

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I am not shocked in the slightest. Of course assholes like them don't care about babies, children, or teenagers that are not their own. They just care about their freaking money and "investments". I hope he stays in there for a long time.

As for Trump when when he said or "suggested", people shouldn't just disinfect them to get rid of covid: anyone that follows that type of advice or thinks it's a good idea, are a bigger fool than him. I don't have much sympathy nor pity for those that tried it. Desperation is one thing, but when you genuinely know that stuff doesn't work or inhaling or drinking that stuff kills you, yet you still do it, you won't get any tears from me. Especially if it's the same idiots that constantly shout survival the fittest, then do dumb crap like this, and get themselves killed all on their own.
 

tstorm823

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They may have got their data from the same source, but that does not necessarily assume they got the same data. Organisations will often produce data in a number of formats, and so a lot may depend on what a journalist accesses. Implicitly, the Time journalist got hold of the monthly data, and the Ars Technica the daily.

You should generally assume limited competence on the part of science journalists, because they generally got there by having degrees in journalism (or other writing-related), not science.
If the Time author did not have the daily data, it is because he didn't even attempt to. That Poison Data System advertises that their data is kept in almost real time, and anyone can request data from them through a form. Is this how low the standard is? The man who wrote the book they based the movie Apollo 13 publishes in one of the worlds most prominent magazines that we can't really know if accidental poisonings went up after Trump's comments (but it certainly looks like it) without even reaching out to ask if they have the data to distinguish between before and after April 23rd?

That being said, I find it unlikely they had a different form of the data. The article specifically references "the most recent bulletin". This is what that bulletin looks like:

Title: National Poison Data System Bulletin; on the left is the exact limited year over year data that Time used in their chart, on the right is literally the exact graph that Ars Technica posted, they are both published on the same one page pdf. Are you at least skeptical yet?
 

tstorm823

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Apply the same approach to yourself: you said that the 'drinking bleach' thing was a flawless remembering of what the media had told them. Then you couldn't find a single headline or article saying that was what he said. Nada. So am i to assume A) this was a mild exaggeration on your part, or a lapse of memory, an understandable mistake? Or B) Malicious lie to tarnish the reputation of the media?
The media is broader than just the immediate headlines. The initial reporting allowed for the implication, and the rest of the media picked it up from there. There are thousands of moments that contribute to people's understanding of events, and the news opened the door to things like this in entertainment:

Or this in a Biden stump speech:

It's not some random wacky coincidence that people remember "drink bleach".
 

Ag3ma

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Is this how low the standard is?
Broadly, yes, because the demand for 24/7 news cycles, massively increased competition via the internet and reduced advertising/subscription revenues driving heavy cost reductions have led to drastic cutbacks in the time and research that goes into production of news articles. In business news, for instance, some news agencies post the promotional materials from companies with no checking whatsoever. (One of my flatmates in years past resigned from a newspaper post over this practice.)

Society gets the media that it pays for. For the most part it doesn't really want to pay for quality journalism, so it doesn't get it.

Being responsible news consumers requires people to be aware of the limitations of the media. Pointless bitching and conspiracising about it is pretty useless, because it's achieving precisely nothing to fix the problem. In fact, it's often achieving the opposite by furthering distrust in and weakening the audience share of higher quality media, whose ex-customers have little alternative except accessing even lower quality media, thus driving standards even lower.
 
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Silvanus

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The media is broader than just the immediate headlines. The initial reporting allowed for the implication, and the rest of the media picked it up from there.
"Allowed for the implication"? And what's the standard for that vague, vague charge? The only thing you identified as grounds for complaint in the headlines and articles so far is their use of the word "suggestion".

...Which was accurate, because he suggested it.

There are thousands of moments that contribute to people's understanding of events, and the news opened the door to things like this in entertainment:

Or this in a Biden stump speech:

It's not some random wacky coincidence that people remember "drink bleach".
So then we have not the news media, but an entertainer doing a comedy skit and Trump's opponent-- notoriously someone with a poor memory-- making a fuzzy, untrue statement as part of a rambling speech.

Forgive me, but this is kind of pathetic. Countless times you've defended far more egregious falsehoods and exaggerations that Trump has made as part of rambling speeches. You've made arguments about how speeches aren't literal truth, and that we should contextually understand exaggeration, or shift to allow a good faith interpretation time and again. Then the second it's Biden, any error is a malicious lie.
 
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SilentPony

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https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/po...potlight-confronting-obama-dies-49-rcna102182

Oh hey, anyone remember Joe the Plumber? That dude who asked Obama a question on tax for small businesses during the McCain/Obama debates? Yeah well it turns out, like all things conservative, it was a lie. Dude wasn't a plumber, dude didn't own a small business, and dude wasn't named Joe. He was a political plant to make Obama look anti-business.
Well now he dead. And nothing of value was lost.
 

BrawlMan

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"Allowed for the implication"? And what's the standard for that vague, vague charge? The only thing you identified as grounds for complaint in the headlines and articles so far is their use of the word "suggestion".

...Which was accurate, because he suggested it.



So then we have not the news media, but an entertainer doing a comedy skit and Trump's opponent-- notoriously someone with a poor memory-- making a fuzzy, untrue statement as part of a rambling speech.

Forgive me, but this is kind of pathetic. Countless times you've defended far more egregious falsehoods and exaggerations that Trump has made as part of rambling speeches. You've made arguments about how speeches aren't literal truth, and that we should contextually understand exaggeration, or shift to allow a good faith interpretation time and again. Then the second it's Biden, any error is a malicious lie.
tstorm and others like him want to be a pawn of Trump and people like him, and nothing more, because they think they'll be rewarded for it, and think others lesser than will suffer or deserve it. When it's usually the opposite. At some point they will get screwed over, their friends and relatives will get screwed over, or they end up in a worse position than they were beforehand than the people they despise and unjustly try to hurt or attack.
 

Thaluikhain

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https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/po...potlight-confronting-obama-dies-49-rcna102182

Oh hey, anyone remember Joe the Plumber? That dude who asked Obama a question on tax for small businesses during the McCain/Obama debates? Yeah well it turns out, like all things conservative, it was a lie. Dude wasn't a plumber, dude didn't own a small business, and dude wasn't named Joe. He was a political plant to make Obama look anti-business.
Well now he dead. And nothing of value was lost.
" Obama responded that his plan would actually offer Wurzelbacher a tax credit for health care costs "

Huh.

As an aside, the thing about Hitler and gun control. While, yes, he was against the rights for Jews to own guns, given that he was also against them having any rights whatsoever, that's not surprising. For German society at large, gun ownership wasn't just a right, it was mandatory. The Treaty of Versailled limited Germany's military, but not private individuals going to gun clubs (which was a thing before WW1). If you were a man, you had to spend time at your local gun club...initially this wasn't official, but the state would take note of anyone who didn't turn up. Later on, it was mandatory for you to shoot with a 22LR version of a Kar98k, the standard German combat rifle.

The fascist government wasn't taking its citizen's guns away, it was making sure they participated in gun culture.

EDIT: Can't find the source for this, though Forgotten Weapons does talk about the KKW the SA wanted, and how factories were making them until the Allies occupied them.

At some point they will get screwed over, their friends and relatives will get screwed over, or they end up in a worse position than they were beforehand than the people they despise and unjustly try to hurt or attack.
I'd go further, it's many points, but that seems not to matter.
 
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CM156

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Society gets the media that it pays for. For the most part it doesn't really want to pay for quality journalism, so it doesn't get it.
It's hard to get people to pay for something they've gotten used to getting for free.
 
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Ag3ma

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It's hard to get people to pay for something they've gotten used to getting for free.
That is true, although I think only half the problem. It's also the case that many of the public have tasted low-quality, one-sided journalism and preferred it, because it's pleasing to be told what you already believe rather than challenged that you might be wrong.

(Or they just want cat videos.)
 
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Schadrach

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Dude wasn't a plumber, dude didn't own a small business, and dude wasn't named Joe.
No, he did HVAC for a small plumbing business, which he was looking to buy (which is literally the scenario he asked Obama the infamous question about, buying a small plumbing business), and his middle name was Joseph.

Still closer to honest then pretending that Trump is so toxic his bad ideas go backwards in time to cause people to do stupid shit before he has them.