Comment by tootie | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tootie | Hacker News Reader

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I think this kind of take is really unfair and inaccurate. You can't ascribe any sort of misdeeds to "The Media" when that's a sweeping generalization of thousands of not just journalists, but commenters, comedians and assorted cranks.

The MSM was mostly fair and accurate in their reporting. "Horse paste" was mostly a meme or a joke. The NY Times and CNN didn't make jokes about horse paste. The CDC and similar orgs all gave accurate explainers of the use and misuse of Ivermectin (and Hydroxychloroquine).

While a lot of right-wing media like FOX and OAN was absolutely endorsing it. Here's a good one where Tucker Carlson has an Ivermectin booster on his show but apparently conflates it with Hydroxychloroquine.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/biologist-tucker-ivermectin-ef...

Not to mention the former president spreading absolute nonsense about HCQ, disinfectant, UV light and whatever else popped up in his twitter feed. This inspired a lot of clapbacks from satirists and unserious opinionators, but you wouldn't see any real news being that sarcastic.

If you had stuck with left-leaning and moderate MSM, traditional news sources during these past few years you would have been very well informed.

I've heard NPR referring to "the livestock medication Ivermectin", and this was not in a generic context, not related to people actually procuring the horse formulation.

It seems like there are often specific turns of phrase that just get widely adopted. What I cited above is one example. Another is "the deadly January 6th insurrection".

(Probably there's some right-wing phraseology around "stolen election" or "southern border invasion" or something like that. But I can't think of any specifically, so at least from my perspective they're less widespread or less sticky.)

Can you cite an example? A quick google search for 'NPR "the livestock medication Ivermectin"' leads to https://www.npr.org/2021/08/23/1030208101/mississippi-livest... which explicitly states it's a version -formulated- for livestock.

Sorry. I may not have the exact words correct, despite having used quote marks. My point was that it was NPR, which is very mainstream, and that they were taking the idea that Ivermectin is for animals (and implicitly not for humans) as a given. I do recall that I heard it on their Alexa flash briefing bit.

So, just to be clear NPR is essentially a federation of local public radio stations and not a single editorial board. That being said, WNYC's On The Media did a great breakdown of reporting miscues and the political word-twisting about Ivermectin. They've also done breakdowns on lab leak theory and a lot of other hot topics. Some misleading stories have been weasel-worded reports of reports, but also Tucker Carlson and his ilk are the ones willfully sponsoring disinformation.

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/how-iverme...

downvote for assertion without evidence. please provide a useful link or preferably delete your claim.

You realize you're being as misleading and unfair as 'the media' you wanted to criticize, right?

You realize that the word "media" appears nowhere in my comment, right?

My intention was to point out a general trend across all discourse, be that traditional media, or even between individuals.

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