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Cost to society of this headline: N = Number of people who read headline & don’t click X = Percent who decide against vaccination based on headline Y = Infection rate Z = Mortality rate Multiply it all together If result > 0, what an abhorrent, morally bankrupt thing to publish

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Austen Allred

@Austen

· Oct 21, 2020

Unbelievable

Jim Baxter

@_JimB

Oct 22, 2020

To be fair, it just says someone who was part of the trial died, not that they died from the trial.

Bobby Goodlatte

@rsg

Oct 22, 2020

That's my point though. It's written in a way to provoke a question in the readers mind. The question: "is the vaccine potentially fatal?" If even one person misconstrues the headline, gets sick & dies: isn't that morally outrageous?

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and

Exactly. There is no story here but one was manufactured for clicks. Headline could just as easily have been “man who drinks water dies”. It can only be a story because people trust the media not to dupe them like this. There would be no story if it was nothing, right? Wrong.

3:08 AM · Oct 23, 2020Twitter for iPhone

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Jim Baxter

@_JimB

Oct 23, 2020

The current business model is the problem. In order to stay alive they need clicks to sell ads. The new online medium has created this conundrum. The problem is complex and may take a very long time to resolve. Ultimately, a new medium has to replace the current one.