Media coverage of the virus

[Jake]

*Note that I write "diagnosed cases". We won't know for months, maybe longer, how many cases are asymptomatic. And the difference in testing levels in different countries is huge - Korea's 0.6% death rate might be the same as the UK's in terms of outcomes, but with much more testing. This might explain the Swiss figures too. Comparisons from country to country based on diagnosed cases are pretty meaningless without data on testing.

The South Korean CFR is no longer 0.6% as it was for a long time. It's now just over 1.5% (144 dead, 9478 confirmed cases).

Speculation (from experts, not me) has been that because of the testing rates they were picking up many cases very early, so the increased lag to hospitalisation and death was contributing to a lower-seeming CFR.

 

[rafezetter]

I must say that I agree wholeheartedly with Andy Kev. And while commenting on this thread, sorry Fatman G but I really don't understand the point you're making in your post.

But back to the subject of media coverage, I've felt for a long time that there is just too much news on both radio and TV. That has been so for years IMO.

Here, while I do see some Swiss newspapers I do not subscribe to any regularly. But we do have about "a hundred million" different radio and TV channels.

Back in "the good old days", e.g. I clearly remember the Suez Crisis (early/mid 1950s, I forget exactly) you KNEW something serious was up because instead of having "A" news bulleting once morning, once lunch time, and once in the evening, we heard the news on an hourly basis. I should perhaps add that in our house in those days, it was radio, not TV - plus of course a newspaper once per day (I forget which).

Now of course, as well as specific channels which have a news-only 24 hours/day service, we even have the daft (IMO) situation where a station like Radio 4 has to have a news bulletin every hour throughout the day. Even dafter, the main R4 evening news programme that I usually listen too is not only an hour-long programme (usually - now 90 minutes), BUT they have to interrupt that 60 minutes of programming with a repeated news summary every 15 minutes. Why? What's changed in those short (hourly - or quarter-hourly) intervals that we MUST be told "the latest"? And if someone's missed the programme start "headline news" then they've only got to wait an hour (or, "horror of horrors" go to a different channel).

IMO nothing, not even the present Corona virus situation, has changed so radically that this is needed - and as already said, for those that MUST have their "news fix" that regularly, there are several channels that provide that service anyway.

So what about the rest of us non-news junkies? And what about the journos?

IMO this is a basic reason why we "get fed up with it" (the constant repetition), and for the journos, it's a primary reason why their output is generally rushed, not properly researched and checked, often sensationalist, usually at least "somewhat" inaccurate (!), and often contains irrelevant "filler drivel" (e.g. my Auntie knows the lady who cleans the house of the man who clips the claws of the poodle belonging to the man whose brother is working on a vaccine and he says ........"). OK, silly exaggeration, but I'm sure you know what I driving at!

And this goes on and on - doesn't matter if it's Brexit (another prime example), or anything else that's "happening", "the media" seem to have got themselves into this situation (or did "we" - the public - ask for it?). I dunno.

But to my mind the only result is a general lowering of standards and an over-sensationalism which results in, amongst other failings, the daft questions so often asked by journos (not to mention the often even dafter replies!); AND a general rush which mostly seems to me to be "I must be firstest with the daftest"!

At least in the days of no internet (and little TV) the newspapers only came out once a day (mainly)!

Yeah, I guess the above rant will result in me being called out as an old-fashioned fuddy-duddy (or something). Maybe I am.

But to me anyway, in the just the same way that I KNOW "the good old days" weren't always so good, neither were they always bad either - as it seems so many of "today's" members of the public seem to believe.

Further to this I personally feel it affects people daily moods. How could it not?

Recently my father and I had a major spat, basically because he's a curmudgeonly old 'tard who seems to have raised that to a level I'm not even sure there is a word for, and I pointed out quite rightly that because pretty much ALL he does is read the news (The Times daily), more news (those 24 hour channels), Newsnight, Newsweek and bascially anything "news" related - he's literally deliberately diving in and WALLOWING in the reservoir of human misery. Every. Single. Day.

Almost every topic of general conversation is off limits because it will set him off on some tirade or other about this or that, how this politician is screwing the country or blah blah - you get the idea.

It's all he does, apart from the occasional lawn mowing in between.

He claims he finds it interesting, and while that may be true to an extent, both I and his wife have noticed a marked downturn in his general demeanour in the few years since he retired and can now devote all his waking hours to it, and I do mean ALL of them. Every. Day.

I suggested a hobby, something to divert the nonstop news of misery, to which I got the reply "this IS my hobby".

I'll bet he's not the only one choosing to feed off of, and thus feed back into, the general misery and depression of human existance.

 

[Andy Kev.]

Would it be worth your while buying him, say, a comic novel, something which he could "wallow in" but would make him grin a bit?