Covid seems to have had different effects in different places. Where I live, some 90% of hospitalizations and 93% of ICU admissions are said to be in people not fully vaccinated, and generally unvaccinated. Some people are losing patience with some people who refuse vaccinations. There is scientific evidence they work… for now. Nobody knows what will happen with future variants.
I do not spend much time on social media. One presumes newspapers and such would be more objective. But the number of headlines trumpeting the number of cases in vaccinated people or the purported fact cases are rising in vaccinated people seems to me to raise some ethical concerns since the above facts - most hospital and ICU admissions and deaths are in the unvaccinated - is often not emphasized or mentioned.
Media will play to their audience and say they just are reporting the facts. Do they have an obligation to support positive public health choices? Do you think they are fulfilling this obligation if it exists, or why dorsn’t It?
There is such a thing as reporting the truth in a misleading way.
“Over 600 fully-vaccinated patients were hospitalized with severe Covid last week” - may be true. But it’s lying by omission if the same source doesn’t also emphasize, with equal or greater weight and urgency, that 13,000 unvaccinated patients were also slammed by severe Covid as well. (hypothetical example)
The media has a certain amount of duty to recognize ways in which the audience will misleadingly pounce on certain facts that sound favorable to the (audience’s) bias, and prevent it. Or, in another vein, the media has a duty to accurately report the proportion of things.
The human mind hates non-horse races. We want everything to be a dead hear between two things. If you ask who is better, Batman or Superman? Any arbitrary group of people answering that question will partition out to half for one and half for the other, just because anything else would be boring to us. The dominant side will relax if they’re ahead and the non-dominant will rack their heads to come up with arcane scoring strategies to make the weights balance. People will shift sides, accordingly, and the discussion won’t end until balance has been achieved.
The media is a business and that business derives the majority of its income from generating stories that entice people to click.
“Yep, doctors are good, your wife loves you, and puppies are cute.” Isn’t a headline that will win over headlines like:
“Doctor caught licking sedated patients. You won’t believe the pronouns!”
“Woman caught cheating on husband, 300 times! New record in infidelity?”
“One eyed, scaly horror beast wins World’s Ugliest Dog. How about a cuddle?”
The people who are naturally inclined to come up with the story that challenges your expectations are, by their own interests, going to seek out and write stories of that nature. These stories will get more clicks and views, that person will get promoted for telling the stories that “people want to hear” and gain more editorial influence.
We reward people for making it seem like it’s an even choice between any two options. If vaccinating isn’t just as good as refraining then… Well, is life really worth living in that universe?
Avoiding the debate is probably the only way to not get to this point. As soon as you make anything a point of contention, all the forces of human nature will make it into a horse race. We will reward those who do.
It seems to me you want two different things. Do you want them to be objective, or do you want them to support a particular viewpoint, like “positive public health choices”?
I’m not sure these are always two different things. There are many ways to objectively report a story. Does the media have a duty to promote responsible behaviour?
The media marketplace is fragmented. Every Internet article fails if it doesn’t get you to click on it. Hence we get what is called “clickbait.”
The articles frequently lead with as fearful a headline as possible, to get you to click. Then, when you read the article, everything is couched in “maybe” and “possibly.” But the writer already accomplished his or her goal, to get you to click.
I’d rather get the truth, but that’s not how it works today. I don’t want to feel safe, I want to be safe. I also don’t want to be over scared. I don’t think pay per click, through ad revenue, works well for journalism. But it’s what we’ve got.
So yeah, if someone can think of an angle to stoke fear in you, to get you to click, they’ll do it. Variants are a game changer, something affecting children, behavior of vaccines over time, vaccinated versus unvaccinated, all of these may be the subject of clickbait. And the plural of clickbait isn’t data, it’s clickbait. Reading more of it isn’t going to help you, you need to dig deeper to find the truth.
What exactly are they saying? It is important to report the rise in cases in the vaccinated so that we the vaccinated know to be careful. But each such story should also include information on how the vast majority of serious cases and deaths are in the unvaccinated.
I read the Times, and it has been pretty good, but I’m spoiled by good journalism.
It is simply a fact that newsworthy people, like Jessy Jackson here in Chicago, and the Governor of Texas, have been hospitalized with Covid and, as a part of the story, the fact that they were vaccinated is mentioned. Should the press cover it up? Should they point out that there are other people in the hospital that weren’t vaccinated?
What I find worse is the increasing instances of people like our Chicago mayor who says that anyone who works for the City must get vaccinated or they are fired. It’s so important and gives 99% assurance of safety. Then says, oh yeah, even if you are vaccinated, you still have to wear a mask everywhere, no matter what. Or why.
Let me give you an analog (and no one says vaccines are 99% effective).
You’re having sex and neither has birth control - 5% chance of getting pregnant.
Well let’s add in a condom (90% protection) - now you have a 0.5% chance of getting pregnant
So let’s add on an other layer via IUD (say 90% protection) - now you have a 0.05% chance of becoming pregnant.
The things with viruses is that they propagate far faster than zygotes. So then the goal is to minimize the opportunities of your particular virus to fuck a stranger. So get vaccinated, keep your distance and wear a mask.