Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Someone asked earlier what South Korea did that was so effective?  Culturally, they actually believe experts in the field, prepped appropriately, and then listened to their advice.

Same with Sweden. Sweden basically said "hey, this is serious, you should work from home, you should social distance, you should do all these things voluntarily because we don't want to mandate them", and the Swedes said "yeah, that sounds like a good idea..."

Whereas here in California, unless you physically close the beaches you get them swarmed when the weather gets hot like last weekend. 

Sweden has no "lockdown" but people mostly act like there is a lockdown, whereas in California we have a lockdown that people aren't respecting.

I was reading a book about the history of NY that reminded me that in truth, reporting has always had its issues, just like everything else (it did used to be less loud).

Some interesting history about how an unelected power player was boosted by a newspaper corps that bought into his mythology and had the first crack in his empire because of a rather small tempest in a teapot story.

I recommend "The Chief", the biography of William Randolph Hearst. The man had a fascinating life. 

And yeah, he used his newspapers like a political weapon, after he had gained prominence in the newspaper business by being writing salacious stories appealing to readers' most base tastes, rather than trying to accurately report the news.

So no, none of this is new. What's most different today is how easy it is to bypass the media and get to original sources... But conversely how few people ever choose to do so. But I digress... 

Same with Sweden. Sweden basically said "hey, this is serious, you should work from home, you should social distance, you should do all these things voluntarily because we don't want to mandate them", and the Swedes said "yeah, that sounds like a good idea..."

Whereas here in California, unless you physically close the beaches you get them swarmed when the weather gets hot like last weekend.

Sweden has no "lockdown" but people mostly act like there is a lockdown, whereas in California we have a lockdown that people aren't respecting.

Yup. And this explains a lot of the frustration with "draconian" measures here. The measures are aimed at stopping behavior. If our populace was more inclined to follow "guidelines" rather than rules, we would rely more on those guidelines.

Please tell me you're being sarcastic...

Only a little bit...

Again look at the people arguing about cause of death being "with COVID" instead of "from COVID", which has occurred in this very thread. There is a group--which happens to heavily overlap with the group advocating for reopening sooner rather than later--that argues that deaths are being inflated by being attributed to COVID when they believe it's unwarranted.

So they don't trust the death numbers. 

Was it in Italy, where numbers were released a bit back that said the vast majority of people who died from the virus had 3 or more other issues? Do we have any numbers for that here? Florida used to list co-conditions and travel, but they no longer do.

But that's the point. You're arguing that THIS country should open up, based on I presume the assumption that this virus isn't as bad as claimed and that it's being overhyped by those in charge here [and the media] in order to force the economy to remain closed. I presume there is a belief amongst some that this is being done to damage POTUS' reelection chances?

Yet what I'm saying is that nearly universally across the globe, governments have instituted these policies at great economic cost to themselves. And that the most logical explanation for this is that the stay-at-home orders are actually warranted by their sincere study of the evidence. Because if the evidence was that this virus is not dangerous, I think several countries would be trying to take advantage of those who overreacted.

The fact that basically none have done so, only Sweden (and even then they're doing a lot more than they're mandating), suggests that a lockdown isn't based upon partisan politics and/or financial incentives from medicare.

Agreed. Those who are poorest and are getting an extra $2400/mo in unemployment aren't likely to be protesting.

But again, media portrayal of the protestors aside, a lockdown in the face of a global pandemic is either prudent public policy or it's not. There's no point to get into the debate of what "the media" says when we on this forum can discuss the actual evidence justifying or not justifying a lockdown.

Wow. I must just be a rotten communicator
Or- you’re putting words in my mouth. If someone thinks we should start to carefully open the country back up does not mean that they think the lockdown was not prudent public policy. It means that given the data the smarter play for the rest of the country to benefit the most in the long term, and their opinion, is to open things up more quickly than we are. Again the alleged reason for lockdown was to flatten the curve but you have to admit the goalposts keep moving.
and whether or not you agree I think it is fairly obvious to just about everybody that the media does have an agenda here and it does relate to trying to position this as a humongous negative against the current administration. Why else would they start censoring opposing opinions and only cover one narrative from one side?  And before you dispute that, I understand there are many following that narrative that have openly admitted publicly that that is their narrative and that is a strategy

I will add that it’s refreshing that you were talking about the world. Most of what you see and hear, again from the media and Talking Heads, only references other parts of the world if it points to their narrative. Otherwise they would have you believe that this is a United States problem only.

Wow. I must just be a rotten communicator
Or- you’re putting words in my mouth. If someone thinks we should start to carefully open the country back up does not mean that they think the lockdown was not prudent public policy. It means that given the data the smarter play for the rest of the country to benefit the most in the long term, and their opinion, is to open things up more quickly than we are. Again the alleged reason for lockdown was to flatten the curve but you have to admit the goalposts keep moving.

I'm not saying you're a bad communicator... But you've come off VERY aggressive in this thread. I will tell you honestly that I didn't get the sense that you were talking about carefully opening the country back up as much as it seemed like you thought we needed to end this lockdown NOW. Maybe I read into it though...

Yes, it was to flatten the curve. And the administration released their guidelines for opening up parts of the country, in phases, based upon meeting certain conditions regarding the actual case rates (showing declining trend over a 14-day period). To my knowledge, those conditions haven't yet been met. 

and whether or not you agree I think it is fairly obvious to just about everybody that the media does have an agenda here and it does relate to trying to position this as a humongous negative against the current administration. Why else would they start censoring opposing opinions and only cover one narrative from one side?  And before you dispute that, I understand there are many following that narrative that have openly admitted publicly that that is their narrative and that is a strategy

Note: I heard absolutely zero pushback when the administration released their guidelines for reopening. I heard absolutely zero pushback when my governor (Newsom) held a press conference announcing his framework towards reopening. The media wants to reopen the economy carefully too... Everyone's waiting for good news here!

There was a lot of negative pushback when the very day after his administration released quite reasonable guidelines for reopening the country, POTUS was tweeting "LIBERATE" to various states to embolden the protestors in states which absolutely had NOT met the conditions his own administration was suggesting were necessary to start reopening. There was a lot of negative pushback when he suggested doctors "look into" injection of disinfectant as a way to treat COVID. 

Trust me, the media doesn't have to make him look bad; he's doing that well enough without their help. 

I will add that it’s refreshing that you were talking about the world. Most of what you see and hear, again from the media and Talking Heads, only references other parts of the world if it points to their narrative. Otherwise they would have you believe that this is a United States problem only.

I don't really watch any media. So I don't really see and hear much of what they have to say. Most of it is worthless.