The media coverage on this story has been not without flaws. But pretty good on balance as compared to most other major stories of recent years. Doing journalism in real time is hard. But I guess when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
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Replying to @NateSilver538
This just isn't true. There have been widespread "worry about the flu" articles; focus on travel bans as racist rather than if they were early or severe enough (they weren't), tons of articles telling people not to "overreact"—right up until March. Long, long past uncertainty.
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Replying to @zeynep @NateSilver538
Yes, journalism in real time is hard, that's why it should be done with people who are qualifed and more importantly, learn from their mistakes. People went on with conferences and Disney trips because of those articles. Plus, there is still no "speaking truth to power" on masks.
1 reply 3 retweets 44 likes -
Replying to @zeynep
I don't know. I, as an alert reader of media coverage, have been worried about this for a long time, as my friends/colleagues would be happy to tell you. The coverage has been pretty science-driven. The focus on the political aspect of it has been fairly proportionate.
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Replying to @NateSilver538 @zeynep
Uncertainty amidst something growing at exponential rates is both hard to understand and hard to convey to readers—I get that. I'm just tired of this constant hindsight bias when journalists don't have that luxury.
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Replying to @NateSilver538
It isn't hindsight bias, though. People who had no business reassuring us reassured us falsely and unscientifically. I trace that in my article. In early February, we had everything in place to 1-Recommend stopping travel/cancelling gatherings. 2-Tell people to get ready.
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Replying to @zeynep @NateSilver538
Instead of reporting, we got scripts "travel bans are racist", "panic is bad", "overreaction has downsides" etc that are sometimes appropriate, but weren't to this. That's the whole value of journalism though! Break the script and investigate! Otherwise, it's autopilot punditry.
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Replying to @zeynep
I don't see any attempt from you to evaluate the coverage in a comprehensive way. You're cherry-picking. You're lumping unlike things together. No nuance for which outlets are doing better or worse. No recognition for what journalism is like in real time.
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Replying to @NateSilver538
I certainly agree that there should be a comprehensive study of this, but I'm confident that I am not cherry-picking. I also watched this from ground up locally. But just like 2016; media itself more interested in studying failures of anything but itself.
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Replying to @zeynep @NateSilver538
I think one big sign the media wasn’t taking this as seriously as it should be is that there wasn’t a signal question about how to handle the virus in the presidential debate until late February.
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Among many other indicators, yeah.
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