Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

oz?

 

No, what you appear to want is helping your emotional state. 3-4 months ago, you were betting people that we would never hit 67% of our current daily case count. You just want a reframing of 100s of thousands of deaths as good news for some reason.

 

The information we want is the information that we consume. Again, you are trying to blame the company when the group that you really have an issue with is the consumer (i.e., the people).

 

Are we talking strictly newspapers and TV? Instagram has become a source of news and the vast majority of local stuff is feel good pieces. Twitter has quite a bit too. I don't frequent Facebook but I would venture tons of happy stories get traction too .

 

And you said schools should be closed to in person learning.

 

I am blaming journalism as a whole for selling out.
When you worry about your consumers desire you no longer provide pure journalism.

 

I am using MSM sources as I think that is still where most people tune over coffee or while relaxing on the couch after the kids go to bed etc.
Lots of good stuff is available on social platforms, but even they are just giving you what you want based on algorithms.

 

So your issue is with capitalism? Because expecting any capitalist entity to randomly choose products without regard to an audience certainly isn't something that literally any capitalist entity does in any industry.

BTW, who are they selling out to?

 

You may be right for a portion of the population over a certain age. I would be willing to bet that people my age and lower gather their info in a much different way (I'm 39). Either way as others say there is no ulterior motive. These news organizations are businesses and they sell products people will buy. Saying they sold out is the same as getting upset at a grocery store for being full of junk food.

 

Geez man. I have no problem with capitalism. But journalism used to be about integrity. Fact checking.
When I was a kid editorials were the exception, hidden on page 6 or at the end of the CBS Evening News. Almost all of primetime news programming is editorialized opinion shows.

Almost all headlines are negative.

One can both be a capitalist and also try to maintain the historic integrity of a profession.

But NONE of that changes the point. The news is almost 100% negative in mainstream outlets because it sells. Stating that fact does not make me anti capitalist, it just solidifies the point I have been making lately.

Negativity sells and THAT is why we wont see much good news.

 

I have never said otherwise. I have maintained the motive is straight cash homie.
As for news gathering. I agree. I never watch MSM primetime shows unless there is a news event (hurricane etc).
I do glance at the headlines at CNN/Fox once a day on my phone, but get most of my headlines from Twitter or...well Too Hot in all honesty.

 

People complained about liberal bias back then. Groups started popping up in the 1960s complaining about how liberal Walter Cronkite was. And newspapers were capitalist entities back into the mid-1800s (before that, they were basically propaganda pieces to sell party ideas). One set of papers essentially started a war to sell papers in the late 1800s. This notion that the old days had less capitalist media (or less opinionated media) is a complete myth. If anything, media was more opinionated and just as capitalist back then. People just didn't resent it as much. Again, the problem isn't the product: it is the consumer and their resentments.

But it is the fault of the people supplying the news and not the people demanding the news because...why exactly? You prefer that? If the consumer demanded positive news, would it exist?

 

I don't remember the 60's, but I can remember Cronkite a bit, mostly remember Rather/Brokaw/Williams etc.
I am fine with blaming the general consumer metrics. I get that.

 

And Dan Rather was fired for what exactly?

The notion that there was some time period where capitalist entities didn't care about the customer or was so detached from profit motives that the customer had no influence is a bit absurd.

Also, why would you blame "the metrics" but not the people that those metrics measure? The metrics are just numbers. Describing people. And what they want.

 

just saw that covid19 tracking will stop posting numbers on march 7, too bad, really good site for daily and historical numbers.

 

In my career, I look at metrics. I was using that to describe the will of the people. I was agreeing with you about that aspect.
I wasn't mentioning Rather as a symbol. I was just using him to narrow down my time period.

 

I'm pretty sure if ChickFilA were handling the vaccine distribution, we'd all now be saying "remember when we all had to wear masks....?"

 

of course no vacinations on sundays

 

going to be interesting when the weather lets up around the country what the daily new cases go to, less than 125,000 the past 3 days.

 

There is a period of time after the second vaccine before it is fully effective. 2 weeks. And some question as to how effective the vaccines are against variants. Let’s hope they Are OK and we learn from this.