Friday, February 18, 2011

The Economist’s Terrible Health Policy Coverage

Addressing "an error-filled piece on the Florida court decision, unsigned (as all Economist pieces are) and published three weeks ago" - redstate
Health Care Dead or alive? - Another blow for Barack Obama’s health reforms is struck by the courts The article in question.

Love this quote from Michael Crichton about the foolishness of trusting mass media. It applies to a number of situations:
Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward-reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.

In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.