[save_ferris]

We’re also dealing with the fallout of living in a “post-truth” era, where we as a society can no longer agree with basic facts.

Yes, it’s exceedingly rare to see a case like this, but what’s not rare is seeing the examples of people not taking this disease seriously, even some public officials.

Getting people to cooperate with drastic disease mitigation efforts won’t happen if there’s a probability embedded in that headline. People are doing that in their heads already when they think “this can’t happen to me, so let’s all go to the beach today.”

[SpicyLemonZest]

But that mindset is exactly why we're in a post-truth era. If a news outlet's primary goal is convincing people to do the right thing rather than accurately communicating information, why should we trust that the information they communicate is accurate?

[lgleason]

Exactly. Many are the same outlets who also are happy to do the bidding of the Chinese government that has a horrible human rights record, be overtly political/partisan, shill for corporate interests over facts and the best interests of the average person and who regularly moralize instead of reporting. Thanks, but no thanks.

[beepboopbeep]

Doing the right thing and accurate information can be one in the same.

[didgeoridoo]

They can, or they cannot. The media lying about the effectiveness of masks for several weeks was “right” in that it probably allowed hospitals to refresh their stockpiles before mass panic buying set in. But it was a lie nonetheless. Same with the “coronavirus is a virus, Purell is useless because it is antibacterial” meme. The media is burning its credibility in favor of noble lies — but at the end, will it be worth it?

[beepboopbeep]

Yes, of course it's worth it. The media's credibility isn't a finite resource. It ebbs and flows like everything else in this world. Nothing is as binary as you see it.

[thu2111]

Over what time span?

If what you say is true we should have seen trust in the media go up and down a lot over time. In fact it's really only gone down, with one exception - in the USA after Trump got elected trust in the media went up amongst Democrats only. Presumably because they realised the media was completely partisan and in their "tribe". Trust amongst Republicans, which like Democrats had been falling for a long time, completely collapsed at that point.

In most parts of the world it's just been one downward slide.

In these events I don't think the media deserve the blame though. They're not helping but they're not pushing a pre-determined agenda, I think. The evidence that we're in the grip of mass hysteria and not a deadly pandemic is growing enormously every day, and much of that evidence actually is being surfaced in newspaper reports. It's just not affecting the overall narrative yet.

[SpicyLemonZest]

But again, you must see the problem here. To consider the media's credibility a resource at all is a post-truth concept. It presumes that the media is targeted towards a bunch of rubes, who've gotta be manipulated towards the goals you and I know are best. The natural result is exactly the trend we're seeing; almost everyone who pays attention says "well, I'm not a rube, so I guess I'd better get my real information elsewhere".

[ajna91]

The is-ought problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem

[JPKab]

I just want to point out that the public health authorities and the news media in the United States have completely lied about the efficacy of face masks. Their goal was to preserve a dwindling stockpile of N95 masks, and in the process they told the public that face mask of any kind don't help prevent the spread of the disease and this is patently false.

so let's keep this in mind before we get in our high horse about people not listening to the media and the government because of this crap. The R0 of the disease is much lower in countries where everyone is wearing face masks of any kind.

Everyone on reading this should Google the fact that that homemade face mask made out of cloth are actually highly effective in reducing the spread of this illness.

[fortran77]

I started wearing a well-fitting home-made face mask that completely covers my nose and mouth after reading papers I found on nih.gov and who.int that talked about their effectiveness.

I meet doubters all the time who tell me that "home made masks make it worse" when the masks (not the n95 respirators) worn by nurses, that are loose fitting but prevent particles of saliva from entering nose or mouth are generally accepted as helpful.

[tarr11]

When was this “golden age of truth” era that we are now after? There have always been conspiracies, mystics, cults and anti science sentiments.

Do you have any evidence to show it’s worse than it ever was?

[blaser-waffle]

Right? Does no one remember the era of William Randolph Hearst and "yellow journalism"? Or all of the horrible BS surrounding Fatty Arbuckle?

One of the primary causes of the Spanish-American War was Hearst's newspapers putting outrageous headlines on papers to drive sales.

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_Spanish%E2%8...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism

[magduf]

Several decades ago, it wasn't nearly this bad or widespread. Sure, there's always been conspiracies and anti-science sentiments, but the mass adoption made all that crap much more easily accessible to the masses, so it spread like a disease. Instead of everyone getting their news from Walter Cronkite, now they get it from Alex Jones.

[magduf]

Whoops, I left out a phrase. This should read: "...but the mass adoption of the internet made all that crap much more easily accessible to the masses..."

[thu2111]

Do you have any evidence to show it’s worse than it ever was?

I guess you can't measure truth in an absolute sense, but you can measure people's perception of it, and trust in institutions - especially the press - is at all time lows.

[macintux]

At what previous point in time could a conspiracy theory reach 25% of the world’s population within a day? When was the last time the U.S. president was espousing conspiracy theories to a global audience?

[tarr11]

It has always been this way.

“Americans love conspiracy theories. Conspiratorial rhetoric in presidential campaigns and its distracting impact on the body politic have been a fixture in American elections from the beginning, but conspiracies flourished in the 1820s and 1830s, when modern-day American political parties developed, and the expansion of white male suffrage increased the nation’s voting base. “

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/conspiracy-theories-a...

[macintux]

The speed is categorically different, as is the reach.

[Kaiyou]

Before the internet, when it was easily controlled through the media what everyone had to think. It was a golden age where one entity decided on the truth and pretty much nobody disagreed to any noticeable effect.

Now more and more people get exposed to more than one viewpoint of reality and are beginning to not blindly trust the media. This leads to people actually having to discuss points that previously only had to be stated, for everyone to believe them or at least to not have lots of people disagreeing showing up and having the opportunity to talk with other disagreeing people.

So we get amusing situations like holocaust deniers getting told it's illegal to do so, which of course only strengthens their belief. But rarely is there somebody showing up refuting, since that takes effort.

That leaves us in a post-truth world, where nobody simply can state something and have everyone believe it. Instead everything that gets questioned needs to be discussed, like "Do vaccines cause autism?" or "Are there more than two sexes?". Kind of like the difference between having a King and having democracy.

Personally, I blame the media for being verified liars for the loss of trust in them. Everyone can be wrong on occasion, but it takes a liar to stick to their guns after being proven wrong. I mean, did anyone ever actually believe that a "magic" bullet killed Kennedy?

[lgleason]

I completely agree with us being in a "post-truth" era. And both sides are responsible for this. You have everything from people denying basic biological science to everything else in between. To be fair, some people are aware of the risks are are willing to roll the dice. Keep in mind that some of the elderly who are stubborn grew up before we had many of our modern vaccines such as measles etc.. Some of the really old ones even before antibiotics were around.

I know some who are of the opinion that they could die at any point anyways so they would rather just live life. Some also worry that prolonged quarantines could damage the country and decimate small businesses along with the middle class. For them they would rather take the risk and sacrifice for a better future for their kids. Of course there are others who are self centered jerks, but the point is that there are good arguments on both sides.

Also, with post truth... A lot of people who were, up until this pandemic started, denying basic biological facts. Some of that ideology had even begun to makes its way into the major research and medical schools. That doesn't help with credibility when the same individuals start saying that everyone needs to quarantine.

The same people who were censoring people based on ideology, at times over facts, are now claiming that they are censoring "mis-information". Once again, many people are naturally skeptical. In many ways this is one of the natural result of "post truth" fiction and ideology being favored over facts. We reap what we sew.