In the months I’ve spent putting together my upcoming book chronicling the Biden Administration’s COVID-19 response from 2021-2024, I’ve found a staggering disconnect between what is being written by opinion editorial pundits and what is being published by journalists and in leading medical journals. At one point, you’re reading excepts from a horrifically uninformed opinion editorial writer who clearly doesn’t bother to verify the claims they first read in the gutters of Twitter - and often times, they’re almost immediately debunked by a heartbreaking news article or an alarming medical research study - if they haven’t been already. No corrections or apologies are ever offered.
These unqualified pundits making up the faux-intellectual class held an undue influence over policymakers, overshadowing experienced doctors and scientists expressing serious concern over poor policy choices. These pundits presented themselves as authoritative voices and when their obvious errors were called out, they either doubled down or quietly refused to ever admit fault, simply moving on to mislead the public about another topic. These blowhards were simply not interested in open debate; they set out to tell the public what they were allowed to believe on all things COVID-19. Needless to say, reality contradicted their claims.
How many examples do you need? Economist Emily Oster, with a record of 0-3 on Hep B, HIV/AIDS, and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, insisting in 2020 that COVID-19 doesn’t spread in schools? Former President Biden’s favorite pundit, economics reporter David Leonhardt, repeatedly committing data crimes in The New York Times in 2021? Or think-tanker Leana Wen in the Washington Post legitimizing conspiracy theories originally birthed on anti-vaccine Twitter? When is enough finally enough?
So should another pandemic-level crisis emerge in our lifetimes, can we all collectively agree to vocally remind these faux-intellectual fraudsters of how they often got basic facts wrong the last time, or worse, repeatedly posted morally depraved dreck in a public forum? Can we demand the nation’s leading newspaper editors that they have an obligation to share facts instead of fictions during a crisis? Can we remind our politicians that they need to be listening to concerned doctors and scientists - not economists or other laptop-class fraudsters such as political scientists who don’t consider dead kids to be a policy failure, as reported by Dr. Jonathan Howard of Science Based Medicine - instead of dipping into a fantasy realm helmed by the willfully ignorant?
Maybe we need to pass some sort of government regulation that these sorts of editorials need to come with a massive disclaimer at the top; that this is not medical advice and is very likely dead wrong. These are not serious thinkers. These are overpaid brats whose biggest grievance was that they felt personally inconvenienced by COVID-19 mitigations. Needless to say, the mountain of radioactive garbage these pundits have produced since 2020 all turned out to be completely worthless.
Newspaper editors need to take a hard look at the junk that has spilled out of their opinion-editorial sections. The woman on the right in the video above, silent as host Megyn Kelly defends Jeffrey Epstein’s pedophilia, is the Newsweek editor who greenlit the publication of failed medical student Kevin Bass’ revolting COVID-19 disinformation before making an appearance on a program hosted by a beastiality fetishist. The public should treat it as revolting trash until serious quality standards - including a major revival of factchecking departments - are made. The public wants accurate and reliable medical and scientific information; not petulant ragebaiting and narcissistic calm-mongering.
A great place to start? Immediately firing any pundit who tried to peddle whatever unscientific garbage they read about COVID-19 on Twitter as important, meaningful insights - such as the “Immunity Debt” mythology. Why should anyone support journalism if it’s just going to reprint such revolting filth for free? Cut the crap!
Too right Nate. There's a dearth of good science journalism out there, and it's not because there aren't good science journalists. They're just not being handed the megaphone often enough. The people who do get platformed are often attached to universities, which confuses the public (and not a few news outlets) into thinking that they're legitimate commenters on medical topics. People have been dazzled into thinking that having a PhD makes someone an expert on everything.