This Is a Good Time to Stop Getting Your Information from Ideological Zealots
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All humans are political and ideological. We’re political in the sense that we have beliefs about the groups we’re part of—what those groups ought to have done in the past, ought to do now, ought to do in the future, and what sort of people should lead them. And we certainly have strong views about the groups we’re not part of.
We’re also ideological. Even the most down-to-earth among us hold to some big ideas, reject some big ideas, and look at the world through an ideological set of lenses. People’s worldviews range from highly rational, systematic, and coherent to highly random, chaotic, and contradictory, but we all have them.
And we’ve all got narratives we believe in that both flow out of, and sustain, our political and ideological commitments.
But something’s wrong if we let group identities, dogmas, and stories dominate our thinking to the point that we’re no longer able to recognize bunk (as in balderdash, hooey, flimflam) when it’s being sold to us by those we see as “our own.”
From where I sit, this seems to be a growing problem on “the right” these days. It’s probably an equal or greater problem on “the left,” but we’re primarily responsible for ourselves, and we’re supposed to be better than that.
Zealots and COVID-19
The latest example is the assortment of ill-informed attitudes and claims about COVID-19 I’m seeing echoed by fundamentalists, conservative evangelicals, and not-at-all-Christian folks on the right. I say “echoed,” because they seem to originate from two often-overlapping flavors of political-right media: partisan-right media and conspiracy-right media. I don’t want to get into a tiff about what sources belong under which heading, but the partisan-right media are the ones who are in lock-step with the GOP talking points—which means in lockstep with President Trump’s talking points.
These are the media personalities who were sure COVID-19 was a big politically motivated hoax … until they were sure it wasn’t … until they were sure it was “just overhyped, and we should all get back to work by Easter” … until they were sure that “nothing would be worse than declaring victory before the victory is won.” Their messaging is perfectly synchronous with the White House.
By conspiracy-right sources I mean media personalities who occasionally or constantly trot out a range of anti-mainstream suggestions and claims, usually with bad data and sloppy reasoning for support—if there’s any effort to support it at all. Sometimes its theories of sinister secret machinations, sometimes just dumb (and misleading) comparisons of supposed death rates (COVID-19 vs. flu, COVID-19 vs. lightning, etc.), and the like.
In both cases, what we’re getting is not very good information. One is just GOP propaganda—thoughtless cheerleading for the administration. The other is a weird mix of paranoia, reflexive nonconformity, and cynicism.
Either way, what you get from these sources is advocacy for a group, a leader, a movement, or a mood—not advocacy for truth and solutions to problems. Zealots are loyal to their agenda and truth is only one tool in the box to use, or abuse, in service of that agenda.
Toward Better Sources
It may come as a shock to some, but the majority view isn’t always wrong. There’s a really strong consensus that sunshine is warm, that birds are generally poor swimmers, and that horses don’t have feathers. Contrarianism has gotten so mindless on the right lately, I wonder if I could start a movement and get famous on the claim that horses really do have feathers, because “the left and the mainstream media say they don’t … and it’s all a plot to make Trump look bad.”
Here’s the point: for many matters in life, political and ideological zealots are the worst sources of information. COVID-19 is one of them.
It’s true that nobody is really “objective.” It doesn’t follow, though, that nobody is rational, rigorous, and committed to good information. Thankfully, some are much more interested in being accurate than they are in advancing a party, ideology, or conspiracy theory!
At the top of many organizations, you’re going to find some very political people. Because these leaders interface with national figures, some of whom are elected officials, that’s to be expected. But the CDC and WHO and countless other public and private organizations working on COVID-19 are full of professionals in biochemistry, virology, epidemiology, and related fields, who really aren’t very interested in what political party is dominant at the moment or what the current U.S. President’s popularity numbers are—or even who wins the next election.
We can get COVID-19 information straight from these sources as well as other more local ones.
We can also get information from media sources that aren’t dominated by political or ideological zealots. Although MSNBC on the left and Fox News on the right aren’t always delivering heavily spun information (or outright misinformation), there’s little need to go there—or turn on the TV at all—when you can read National Review, or better yet, The Dispatch. Though fallen humans like the rest of us, these folks are willing to look critically at the political “us,” and not just the political “them”—a key characteristic of any source’s commitment to truth. The Dispatch has even been known to argue that, as a nation and culture, we need to stop this madness of trying to politicize everything.
A small fact salad
These links are a bit old now, since I was gathering them mostly last weekend, but they may be of some use in countering a tiny bit of the misinformation bouncing around in the zealot-fandom echo chamber. There are also some good sources here for more up to date information.
- Testing lag: due to the shortage of tests in the U.S., we don’t have reliable numbers on the infection rate or how many are infected now. (We’re catching up now, though.)
- Probability of death by COVID-19: many misleading comparisons are going around fueled by confusion on the difference between case fatality rate and infection fatality rate or by simple innumeracy.
- Probability of hospitalization: the focus on relatively low death rates often results in overlooking the larger problem of high hospitalization rates. Overwhelming the medical system with a surge of hospitalizations is a serious problem as well—one that could unnecessarily increase death rates (more on this here).
- Data on what’s happening: The interactive data map from Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering is a great source of visualized data, close to “real time.”
- Canada: Probably the best COVID-19 information in Canada.
- Scams: Keep an eye out as well for Coronavirus Scams. See also Coronavirus Rumor Control, and info on Coronavirus stimulus scams.
What if they’re wrong?
Maybe the people I trust are giving me bad info. Maybe the thousands of medical professionals at CDC and NIAID, the state health departments, the private and university researchers, and the many national health departments all over the world will somehow turn out to all be wrong about the severity of the disease and the need to flatten the curve. The economic analysts I’ve been reading have me convinced that COVID-19 was going to tank the economy with or without all the state and local efforts to flatten the curve, so crushing it on purpose to save lives was the right strategy. Maybe they’ll turn out to have been wrong, too.
But if my sources turn out to be wrong, it won’t be because they put their passion for a political agenda, or party, or leader ahead of their commitment to reason, research, and helping people. If they’re wrong, it will be because they did their best to get the facts right and the response right, but failed. I’ll take that over the distortions of ideological zealots any day.
Aaron Blumer 2016 Bio
Aaron Blumer is a Michigan native and graduate of Bob Jones University and Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). He and his family live in small-town western Wisconsin, not far from where he pastored for thirteen years. In his full time job, he is content manager for a law-enforcement digital library service. (Views expressed are the author's own and not his employer's, church's, etc.)
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The following are key takeaways that reveal your friend is naive.
[Joel Shaffer]… that serious journalists care more about getting the story right than putting a spin on it. [Yes, there are some truly great journalists, perhaps even a majority. But the ones who make the most money on TV and in the largest media venues (hence the Main Stream Media) are the ones who tell the stories that sell, not necessarily the ones who are intellectually honest/unbiased.]
Sure, he’s not likely to work for NPR long, because they wouldn’t tolerate someone who doesn’t care about facts. [You should read about Kevin D. Williamson and how The Atlantic fired him. He is one example of what happens when a good journalist stands up for truth.]
People used to trust scientists because we trusted that they were smarter than us. [Actually, many scientists aren’t trusted because a significant majority of them are ultra-secularist who believe the same anti-God lies that they are required to believe or they are expelled from the cult of Main Stream Science (MSS? ;)).]
But the profession of journalism was trusted because they played an important role. [Operative word being “was.” There was a time when this was true, but those times are long gone once the public started recognizing when journalists began pandering to politicians.]
Ashamed of Jesus! of that Friend On whom for heaven my hopes depend! It must not be! be this my shame, That I no more revere His name. -Joseph Grigg (1720-1768)
The New York Times is an outstanding newspaper. I’ve been a subscriber for two years. Their editorial board and opinion columnists are quite different than their news reporters. They do excellent work. I also subscribe to and read the Wall Street Journal, to balance things out a bit.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
There are some great sources of journalism on both sides, for sure. Most of the content of the above are honest presentations that fairly show their left and right leaning bias. They don’t generally make arguments based on lies or hype. But, sadly, the Main Stream Public don’t take the time to read - they only view, and the majority of what is avaialable for viewing (i.e. the Main Stream Media) is twaddle - on both sides.
Ashamed of Jesus! of that Friend On whom for heaven my hopes depend! It must not be! be this my shame, That I no more revere His name. -Joseph Grigg (1720-1768)
Definition: Main Stream Media as I use it is not your friend at a small newspaper.
He was actually at a very large local/regional radio station whose format was talk radio. His position allowed him to meet a lot of famous people, including media figures. I think it’s important to make the distinction between the opinion writers and their actual news reporters. Whether its Trump stating that the Mainstream Media is the enemy of the state or both conservatives and progressives complaining about CNN, Fox, WaPO, WSJ, there is a lack of nuance where the baby is thrown out with the bathwater because they assume its all bad, which leads to certain people looking to Fake News social media sites as their primary source of news.
For my own personal choices of trying to find the most unbiased news sources, I’ve turned to this source as a checker for Media Bias. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/center/fbclid=IwAR0Nvun9n1tA1lGusssSUHiY3XhjQYTgz70A89TZiPnYwMk9Ktvr6lrQu6E
From the Media Bias Fact Check webpage: “Funding for Media Bias Fact Check comes from donations and third-party advertising. We use third-party advertising to prevent influence and bias as we do not select the ads you see displayed. Ads are generated based on your search history, cookies and the content of the current web page you are viewing. This sometimes leads to politically biased ads as well as promotion of pseudoscience products that we do not endorse.” Here is their list of the LEAST biased news sources. “These sources have minimal bias and use very few loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes). The reporting is factual and usually sourced. These are the most credible media sources.”
One thing I love about that list is that there are oh.so.many MSM sources that are NOT on that list. The only ones people probably recognize are AP, Reuters, and Politico. And my guess is that those three barely made the cut.
Ashamed of Jesus! of that Friend On whom for heaven my hopes depend! It must not be! be this my shame, That I no more revere His name. -Joseph Grigg (1720-1768)
From Wikipedia, FWIW:
Mainstream media is a term and abbreviation used to refer collectively to the various large mass news media that influence many people, and both reflect and shape prevailing currents of thought. The term is used to contrast with alternative media which may contain content with more dissenting thought at variance with the prevailing views of mainstream sources.
The term refers to traditional media: newspapers, TV, radio, etc. Fox News is mainstream media, as are all the other traditional sources.
Alternative to mainstream media are the social media sources: Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc.
Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
You surprise me, Aaron.
Sun Tzu, in The Art of War, said “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
True enough, but there is so little to know.
I mean Rush Limbaugh pretty much beat that dead horse into its constituent molecules in the 1990s.
It’s all same song different verse.
(Love a good mixed metaphor… Some of my best friends are singing dead-horse beaters… Or singing dead horses, in some cases.)
I should clarify that by “mainstream media” I meant what right wing singing dead horse beaters usually mean by the term… Media generally reflecting a left leaning perspective.
As several pointed out, it’s not the correct definition.
I could use Trump’s “lamestream media” instead, but that term has a very special definition: “any media not lavishing enough praise on me at the moment.”
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
I just watched today’s press conference from the White House. While there are a few honest reporters, the rest are just trying to score gotcha points. It’s plain as day.
And also the definition of “main stream media” is irrelevant. The point is media bias.
I just watched today’s press conference from the White House. While there are a few honest reporters, the rest are just trying to score gotcha points. It’s plain as day.
And also the definition of “main stream media” is irrelevant. The point is media bias.
[Mark_Smith]And also the definition of “main stream media” is irrelevant. The point is media bias.
My comment was more a response to Joel’s implication that his friend was outside MSM. At least, that is the impression I got. By definition, his friend is very much a part of it.
The reason MSM is disdained is that it will not address issues the people want to or need to know about. There was a big open area that the Main outlets either wouldn’t or couldn’t cover. Talk radio tended to fill that gap first, then the blogs, then the explosion of social media. The genie is out of the bottle now. The MSM continues to be convinced of its objectivity and relevance, but plunging ratings show they have lost some of their prestige and influence, at least.
Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
It baffles me that anyone could question the strong leftward bias of the MSM. A recent example is the enormous difference between the reports of those who accused Brett Kavenaugh of sexual assault, and those who accused Joe Biden. In the first instance, the reports must be repeated endlessly and never doubted. In the second, the reports should be considered questionable and ignored. Really? Another is the hastily altered headlines that first accurately reported the Democrats blocking the small business relief bill, and then re-writing them to eliminate Democrat responsibility. There are usually multiple new examples every week. Any pretense of objective reporting by CNN, MSNBC, ABC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Boston Globe, etc., are long gone. Even NPR, which is a bit more balanced, tilts leftward in most reports, or so it seems to one who listens to them nearly every day.
A MSM reporter declaring his own and his colleagues objectivity, is hardly convincing. It’s like Rush Limbaugh and Shawn Hanity declaring their impartiality. I don’t doubt that all of them think this to be true. I am not questioning their integrity, but all of us have blind spots. Believing something to be true doesn’t make it true. The evidence is overwhelming. Most of the MSM have become promoters of the Left, whether they recognize it or not.
G. N. Barkman
[G. N. Barkman]It baffles me that anyone could question the strong leftward bias of the MSM. A recent example is the enormous difference between the reports of those who accused Brett Kavenaugh of sexual assault, and those who accused Joe Biden. In the first instance, the reports must be repeated endlessly and never doubted. In the second, the reports should be considered questionable and ignored. Really? Another is the hastily altered headlines that first accurately reported the Democrats blocking the small business relief bill, and then re-writing them to eliminate Democrat responsibility. There are usually multiple new examples every week. Any pretense of objective reporting by CNN, MSNBC, ABC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Boston Globe, etc., are long gone. Even NPR, which is a bit more balanced, tilts leftward in most reports, or so it seems to one who listens to them nearly every day.
A MSM reporter declaring his own and his colleagues objectivity, is hardly convincing. It’s like Rush Limbaugh and Shawn Hanity declaring their impartiality. I don’t doubt that all of them think this to be true. I am not questioning their integrity, but all of us have blind spots. Believing something to be true doesn’t make it true. The evidence is overwhelming. Most of the MSM have become promoters of the Left, whether they recognize it or not.
Here is the difference. Rush and Sean Hannity openly proclaim their partisanship. They never claimed to be independent journalists. Wolf Blitzer, Chuck Todd, Brian Williams, Chris Matthews, NYT, LA Times, etc. all claim to be “objective” while being openly and willfully partisan. That is the rub.
As for the bias in the MSM, I think people like Aaron here on SI, and a few others here, acknowledge the bias. They simply IGNORE the MSM and focus on the bias in the conservative media that “supports” Trump. That bothers them because Trump is not a conservative thinker. And he has moral issues. But, what shocks me is they ignore the huge influence the MSM has over millions who think the MSM is unbiased. Worse, millions of younger millennial voters get their info not from MSM but from left-wing news outlets on the internet that are even more biased than the MSM.
Wolf, Brian Williams, Chris Matthews aren’t journalists. They’re anchors. Their job is to talk to a camera.
Regarding newspapers, you need to distinguish between opinion columnists and journalists. They co-exist at the same newspapers and have very different jobs.
Everyone has biases. A journalist is someone who takes those into account and doesn’t let it influence his reporting. There are true journalists at every institution. The NYT is an excellent newspaper; even though it’s editorial board and opinion columnists trend left. Their news reporting is excellent.
This broad-brushing is silly. For example, people sometimes claim government civil servants are stupid, inept, incompetent. They broad-brush them. They think “government is evil.” That’s a lie, at least at the level of the individuals. As a humble civil service bureaucrat myself, I work with some very nice, very intelligent, very dedicated people. They are not stupid, inept or incompetent. They’re normal people. They try hard. They’re nice people. They don’t foam at the mouth at Christians. They’re respectful people.
The Christian florist case from Richland WA comes to mind. The standard talking point is that a leftist WA Supreme Court hates the florist. This, too, is a lie. I watched the oral arguments. The justices had very difficult questions for the WA Attorney General, who argued the case for the State in person. He struggled to answer them. His worldview wouldn’t allow him to answer coherently.
We must look beyond the externals when considering ideological divides. Some people are true believers and hate Christianity (Acts 13:6-12). Others are just unwitting captives to a worldview that’s destructive. They aren’t willing actors; they’re passive players who’re caught in a web they don’t even see, operating from the only playbook they know. Should we smear them as “libtards” or share conspiracy videos on FaceBook or “gotcha” talking points from our favorite television pundits? Or, should we have some grace and realize that the Gospel needs to shine a light into their lives?
Let’s not have a cartoonish view of reality.
If the cable news is always on inside your home, whether it’s Brian Williams or Tucker, then your home is a very unhealthy place to be. Most of the elderly people in my congregation watch Fox News incessantly. It’s not a healthy thing. It’s toxic.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
Tyler, I think you are being naive. Nobody, but nobody, but nobody is capable of not letting their biases influence their reporting. Your biases color the way you analyze situations. Your biases color the way you think. Could you analyze anything without being influenced by your Christian “biases”? I can’t, not do I intend to try. What’s dangerous is the perception that this is possible, and too many reporters think that their biases do not influence their reporting. It can’t be done. The best course is to recognize this, and endeavor to balance the ideological foundations of reporters by deliberately selecting people with competing ideologies. The problem with most of the MSM, including the venerable NYT, is that the vast majority of their reporters have a leftist orientation. How about something close to a fifty-fifty balance?
G. N. Barkman
Tyler, I wrote the last post before you completed your last one. With the entire post on display, I realize that your understanding is not terribly different from mine. I no longer think you are being naive. :)
G. N. Barkman
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