Feeding My Ignorance

I am no expert, but I suspect that those that control the press (these days I guess it should be "the media" to be more inclusive) have always been viewed with a certain amount of suspicion by some elements of the populace - for all sorts of different reasons.  This, of course, has come to a head in a big way in modern day USA where the "fake news media" are regularly blamed for many things.

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It seems to be to be clear that it is almost inevitable that most 'reporting' is biased - that does not in itself mean it is fake of course as "point of view" is supremely important when determining whether something is fake or not.  It is also true that, in some societies, the 'media' is little more than a spokesman for the authorities.  Only those stories that fit will see the light of day.

As I said in the first paragraph, even a brief glance at the news in the USA immediately brings out this issue - and it is undoubtedly true that reporting bias afflicts many of their news outlets to a greater or lesser extent.  However, I don't necessarily want to delve into that snake pit in this post - rather I'd like to bring out a similarity between reporters and politicians that may have some bearing on the tensions between them.

That similarity is the fact that both of those groups have chosen a career that will - in a large part - consist of them having to speak about things that they do not fully understand.  I don't mean to imply that all politicians and reporters are ignorant about everything, but I think it is only to be expected that their own personal expertise is rarely the subject that they need to speak most about.

Many of them do a fairly good job - however all of them have got one rather daunting hurdle to address.  Those who listen to them expect them to know.  Even the slightest hint of uncertainty can ruin their credibility.  They therefore have to skirt round any tripwires that could lead to them uttering those unmentionable words "I don't know".  Unfortunately this can lead them down a path which does not end well.

I have seen many denigrating the UK media for being "unfair" on the politicians and experts with their line of questioning and for focusing on lines of inquiry that were 'easy' targets - 'easy' because it should have been clear to those asking the questions that there were no complete answers to what they were asking and the fact that they could not be answered meant that it was a great stick to beat someone with - at least in the minds of a considerable portion of the population.

This current situation has put just about everyone in the "I don't know much about this" boat since very few are trained in virology and infectious diseases - indeed I am surprised just how many experts they have been able to find!!  That means that in the politician vs media game we have two sides who are, putting it simply, equally clueless.

This is played out most in the press briefings in Washington.  The politicians make pretty vague statements (leaving aside the quite ridiculous ones made by the president himself) tending to paint a very rosy picture of how they are dealing with things and the press ask questions that are clearly designed to put those politicians in a spot so that they can create a 'story'.  The experts then get a chance and have to explain things 'simply' because their audience is simply not capable of processing the full story.  There may be some who are - but I have seen no evidence of 'informed' questions from the media or 'informed' reactions from the politicians.

The fact that so much of what is said by one side and asked by the other is repetitive night after night (or at least that is what I take from it) is a sad reflection of how little anyone is learning as this goes along.  I excuse the 'experts' from this - they are repeating things ad nauseum because it seems clear that even the simplest things are not being completely grasped.

To my mind that is most simply seen in an exchange regarding one of the initial model results (and I paraphrase)

The experts : The model shows that without any restrictions there could be 240000 deaths in the USA.  With maximum restrictions, social distancing and stay at home orders etc., the death toll could be reduced to 100000.

A member of the press : So - if we have 100000 deaths with maximum restrictions, how can we possibly get less than 100000.

A Politician : I don't think it will be as many as that.

Goodness folks - do you know what a model is?  It is an approximation of reality based on a huge number of assumptions and simplifications.  Without knowing the detail I cannot say whether the actual number is more likely to be 10000 or 1000000 - that depends on how 'accurate' the input data is.  (If I were to guess I would suspect that around 80% is based on other models and therefore reasonably sound and the rest may well be largely guesswork - but I don't know).

What really worried me about that particular model was - actually two things - several days later some of the non-experts were still having trouble with those numbers and - even worse - the experts seemed to have chosen to stick with those precise numbers even though it surely was inevitable that the model was being refined and improved daily or hourly - at least I hope it was - in this situation the model must surely be constantly evolving - but I can understand the experts not wanting to confuse "the listeners" by having a different number each day - I can only imagine where that would lead them!!!

So - the full message - we need to get a bit real - we need to let 'experts' lead discussions and people to 'believe' them (put that in quotes because experts are often wrong, so their findings can be challenged - but by those who are qualified to do the challenging).  We need to let politicians and reporters admit to being wrong and we need those people to be willing to do so without losing face.