It's possible to be a responsible news consumer
According to a new Reuters Institute poll, an encouraging amount of people already are.
This edition was produced with Zach Peterson (@zachprague), who took this picture in Copenhagen in 2019.
Scroll down for Welcome Distractions, Watch Something, Listen to Something, and my Sunday NYT Readalong w/ Judge Rosemarie Aquilina.
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I talk and tweet a lot about misinformation and the broad, consistent erosion of trust in the news media - and those directly responsible for it. There’s a cycle of outrage so entrenched in our news environment - TV, Twitter, and the web - that it’s become a daily feature of any reasonably-informed person’s day.
Wake up to some enraging Twitter headlines. Watch TV while scrolling through Twitter and reading. See headlines about yet another absurd claim or media clip - probably from Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity or Laura Ingraham. Go to Facebook. See people sharing these same talking points via meme from TrumpEagle dot Net 2020 or something similar. The hot take machine begins. Then Tucker Carlson comes on, and it starts again.
But, as I’ve written before - most of the actual news is pretty responsibly reported and presented, and it’s sitting there waiting to make you more informed. It seems that, in our days of lockdown and quarantine, much of the typical noise from whatever we’re calling “the right” these days is being held at bay by responsible, expert voices.
According to a new study from the Reuters Institute, “Navigating the ‘Infodemic’: how people in six countries access and rate news and information about coronavirus”, a lot of people really get it. We may be seeing the return of the expert (experts never left for me!).
Across the political spectrum, the vast majority of Americans trust scientists, doctors, and health experts on issues related to Covid19.
It may not be surprising to a lot of people, but it’s really something to see that just 35% of people who label themselves as on the political right trust news organizations for information on the Covid19. This is a depressingly sad number, and the fact that 57% of people in the political center trust news organizations for Covid19 information doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence either. It’s a firm majority, but this isn’t an election and that number should be - needs to be - higher.
This chart puts forth another interesting conundrum: People on the right trust experts, and they also trust the government…which…makes one scratch one’s chin (wait, no hands on face!). As anyone who’s seen one of President Trump’s Covid19 press conferences can attest, you need to make a choice when watching: Are you going to listen to Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx, or are you going to listen to the president and his Fox News Extended Universe (FNEU) of supplicants? There is no middle ground.
The Reuters Institute study was conducted in six countries - the US, the UK, Spain, Argentina, South Korea, and Germany. I’ve included just the top part of the graphic below, but one thing that really stands out to me is that people in the US were the only people who said that they trusted Covid19 information from people they knew equally as much as they trusted the government (44% to 45%).
Four of the other five countries surveyed had a double-digit spread between trust in these two sources in favor of the government. And the fifth, South Korea, had an 8 percentage point gap, but both numbers - 66% trust the government, and 58% trust people they know - were quite high. It’s also worth noting that Americans tend to be more willing to entertain information from people they don’t know.
The effects of these attitudes are now very much matters of life and death. 40,000 Americans have been reported dead so far, and it’s very likely that the official number is on the lower-end of the real total. In the middle of this tragedy, right wing memes calling for the president to fire Dr. Fauci, protest the quarantine (amplified by Trump and the FNEU), and the “liberation” of states under lockdown, run rampant online and get significant air time on Fox News in prime time.
The good news is that partisan political/news websites are not seeing the spikes in traffic happening for local news outlets like The San Francisco Chronicle (+150% traffic in March) and The Seattle Times (+125%), and at national outlets like CNBC (+100%). As of March 24, The Daily Caller had seen a drop in traffic during the Covid19 epidemic, and The Free Beacon was up 25%.
My call to action to everyone here - especially my friends who consider themselves Republicans - is to keep these trends moving in the right direction: When you see something, say something. If friends or family members are sharing misinformation (or worse), get in those comments and defend the facts. Or, write them a direct message, or a text, or give them a call. It may be exhausting and you may feel like you’re preaching to the converted, but maybe this is that time when you can be a trusted source of information.
There’s too much great reporting out there to link to, but both The New York Times and Washington Post have their Covid19 coverage out from behind the paywall. But, also share local reporting, retweet local journalists, and subscribe if you can. Thousands of media employees have been laid off, furloughed, or otherwise let go over the last month, and that will only continue. Support their work, as it’s clearly a lifeline for millions.
This timeline from Just Security - dating to 2017(!) - is probably the most comprehensive one-stop shop I’ve seen for reliable Covid19 news and information, so feel free start there and give them credit when you do.
Meanwhile, Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) reflects on what I’m sure are all-too-familiar moments of mental and physical exhaustion for all of us.
Stay safe, stay healthy, and stay informed.
- Sree
We have a new sponsor this week! Order Marco Greenberg’s (@marcogreenberg) new book "Primitive: Tapping the Primal Drive That Powers the World's Most Successful People"! Marco is a great friend, and his book is an especially fascinating read now, as society seeks leadership, innovation, and people who will rise to the moment.
Welcome Distractions
💪🏽 Turns out that welcome distractions are indeed just that, especially in times of crisis (and quarantine). “Good News” is back as people look for a bit of respite - or a good cry, as it were, and I was very happy to see long-time Friend of The Note™️ David Beard (@dabeard) quoted at length here, as he’s been onto this trend for a while. Read Taylor Lorenz (@TaylorLorenz) in the The New York Times.
🌎 If you need Covid19-free content to take your mind of things, look no further than the Your Weekly Escape newsletter from National Geographic. Nature’s wonder combined with stories of perseverance and dedication, this is just the perfect break from a stream of truly awful news. Read it and subscribe here.
🌱 No one writes like CJ Chivers (IG: @cjchivers; I got to know him when he came to Columbia Journalism School out of the Marine Corps). If you know his work, it’s likely via his years as a foreign correspondent - many of them as a war correspondent - and his empathetic, heartfelt, Pulitzer Prize-winning writing about war and the toll it takes on the people charged with fighting it. This piece is not about that. It’s about community in times of crisis. It’s about neighbors being neighbors. And it’s just beautiful. “When life gives you quarantine, you plant potatoes” indeed.
Watch Something
Last week, Prof. Hitendra Wadhwa (@hitendraw) from Columbia Business School joined me on my daily Covid19 Show to discuss what he’s taught to 10,000+ MBAs and execs: The things that make for great leadership in the middle of a crisis. He has so much to share, and I encourage you to follow him, read him, and learn from him as so many others have. Our discussion is long, but I feel like these seven words capture perfectly what I’ve spent about 2,500 words on over the last few weeks here:
“Recognize the limits of your own knowledge.”
Listen to Something
As the discussion - a charitable use of the term - around the re-opening of the US picks up steam, you are no doubt hearing a lot about contact tracing. It’s a great idea, and it helped stem the Covid19 outbreak in South Korea, Singapore, and other places. But, as Sharon Begley (@sxbegle) explains on the latest Reset pod with Arielle Duhaime-Ross (@adrs), the US is very poorly-positioned to even talk about contact tracing, let alone enact it in any meaningful way. Listen here or on all major podcast platforms.
🗞 Neil Parekh (@neilparekh), Executive Producer of my #NYTReadalong, will be guest hosting this week. Our guest is Rosemarie Aquilina (@aquirosemarie), the judge who presided over the USA Gymnastics sex abuse trial. They’ll talk about how she handles court proceedings in this era of social distancing, the trial and the impact of stay-at-home orders on people in abusive relationships. April is also National Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Please note that this will be a very sensitive, and potentially-triggering, conversation.
Watch Live at 8:30am ET / 12:30pm GMT / 6pm IST or Later:
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SAVE THE DATE (April 26): Our guest will be Claudia Dreifus. She has written the "Conversation with..." feature in the NYT Science section for 20 years, soliciting answers from Nobel prize winners and breakthrough figures. She is known internationally for her unusual interviews with scientists, policymakers, and international figures and currently writes for numerous publications.
The Sunday #NYTReadalong is sponsored by Strategy Focused Group, Muck Rack, and Tweepsmap.
🎧 NEW! Every Saturday, I host a call-in show on WBAI 99.5FM (@wbai) - "Coping with Covid19" - focused on being helpful, hopeful, and focusing on the pandemic's effects on society’s most vulnerable - workers, the poor, the marginalized - and talk to ordinary citizens & experts on how we can emerge stronger.
Listen live Saturdays from 12-2pm EST, or later. And, of course, call in or tweet questions for us using the #wbaisree hashtag! Listen to an early episode here!
👀 Did we miss anything? Make a mistake? Do you have an idea for anything we’re up to? Let us know!
Sree please join the NY Times as an opinion writer. You will have a much bigger audience.