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A Heartening Moment from Cable News
Let’s get this out of the way up front: all cable news networks are loud, dumb, and overproduced. To the extent that Fox is better than its competition, it’s because it’s loud, dumb, overproduced and fairly conservative (by the way, I exempt from this criticism Special Report, Red Eye, and Neil Cavuto’s show, all of which strike me as magnificently well done). Still, I regard the sound of cable news droning on in the background as tantamount to hearing the whirring of the drills from your dentist’s waiting room. I’ve long wanted to get the capital together to create a cable news network for people like me — one where Sam Elliot reads the news at a deliberate pace while sipping scotch in a leather wingback chair. Were the CNN moniker not taken, we’d call it the Coolidge News Network and our tagline would be “Sit down, shut up, and everything will be fine.”
With that in mind, I’m grateful anytime that a low-blood pressure impulse manages to find its way onto the airwaves. And, unlikely candidate though he is, Shepard Smith managed to do it yesterday:
Now, Shep’s rap here isn’t perfect (for one thing, I think it’s excessively reductionist to say that Ebola is what’s tanking the market), but it’s nice to see a talking head bringing a bucket of water to the fire rather than one filled with gasoline. None of this is to say that there aren’t real issues here — the scrutiny that the CDC and the Obama Administration have come under, for instance, strikes me as more than deserved. But there are rational fears and then there’s gratuitous hysteria. Too often, the model of cable news is to elide the distinction between the two. It’s nice to see the impulse cutting in the other direction for once.
Published in General
I’m sorry, but some of us are health care workers. We have no way of knowing whether an Ebola patient is going to walk into our facilities today, so it is not unrealistic for us to be worried. Also, the same CDC that says that the nurse should not have flown on that plane is the CDC that told her it was okay for her to get on that plane. So we are supposed to believe which statement? We are supposed to believe them when they say things are okay, or when they say that they are not okay?
I just wanted to say this is the greatest idea for a news show I’ve ever heard.
Can you find a clip of someone actually being hysterical about this? I do see it being reported frequently, but you got to realize the majority of people do not listen to news 24/7 like news junkies do. Stations have to report it frequently because they are catching casual listeners on the fly, and it is an important story.
I think this is pitched more to the general public than health care workers, who have an entirely different — and much more menacing — set of considerations. The worry there is justified.
As for the CDC, as I said in the post, they deserve the criticism they’re getting.
You would need more than the capital to create such a network. You would also need an unlimited supply of funds to keep it operating despite a near-total lack of paying viewers.
That’s how outlets like the BBC World Service operate…
If we can’t generate a market for a half-in-the-bag Sam Elliot breaking down the six-party talks, then the American moment has truly ended.
I like the way that NRO put it in today’s editorial:
Just because one believes there is very little reason for the average person to worry about Ebola, that does not mean one also believes that governments should adopt the same attitude.
I’m glad Shep has finally grown up. I can still remember him in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, standing on a bridge, practically wetting his pants and frothing at the mouth, hyperventilating about all the DEAD BODIES in the Superdome, and all the DEAD PEOPLE who were just lying on the road, and all the CHAOS EVERYWHERE. Granting that there was a lot of confusion and uncertainty in the hurricane aftermath, Shepard Smith was the absolute picture of spreading hysteria. And let’s not forget his reaction to the death of Michael Jackson. I doubt the assassination of a president would have been handled as such a great tragedy.
Both statements. The Go statement from from an incompetent Federal bureaucracy (I’m not sure there is any other kind). The Shouldn’t Go statement is from an incompetent Federal Bureaucracy in a “Hey, Not Our Fault!” CYA moment.
Completely agree.
I can’t believe Elliot would drink scotch over bourbon.
Yeah, that’s right. One good moment shouldn’t obscure the fact that he’s previously indulged in on-air hyperventilation on a Geraldoesque scale.
Maybe that would be part of the marketing.
“Tune in to see Sam Elliot grudgingly drink scotch instead of bourbon while reading the news!”
I never tire of reading that.
I like Steyn’s take:
Well then you must’ve missed #5 from this Ricochet post from November 2012.
I doubt you’ll be able to get Sam for the job, Troy. So I’m volunteering.
No travel, Maker’s Mark 46, and a small stipend is all I’ll need.
I would feel a lot better if the CDC and the White House was taking more steps to stop travel from the countries where the outbreak is currently spreading and also moving the patients we have here to hospitals that have the best facilities and equipment to keep the healthcare workers safe as well as to treat the victims. Until that happens, I think Shepard is understating the risk of spread. One man from Liberia has now contaminated two people. If every victim does the same, you have exponential growth of the outbreak. We need to take this very seriously before it does become widespread.
I would have gone with Brian Cox, but perhaps your choice is better for a domestic audience.
Smith states that Amber Vinson had no symptoms when she flew to Dallas.
Q.: Is a low-grade fever not a symptom?
Well we could start with a podcast aimed that way.
You mean with a dude drinking too much while trying to curate a meaningful conversation about important topics? I’ve been doing that podcast for years.
Your own example pretty much shows why this is so unlikely to happen in the United States.
One man from Liberia contaminated two people, but those two people have not (as far as we know) contaminated two more people each.
The sort of exponential growth you describe can only occur if there is no treatment.
Another example: Left untreated, a person with active Tuberculosis can infect about 15 other people per year (much higher than Ebola’s two people), and at around 66% that disease also has a higher fatality rate than Ebola, when untreated (though it doesn’t kill as quickly, which is why one patient can spread it to so many others).
There is no super-exponential growth of TB in the USA, because for the most part it doesn’t go untreated.
For the same reasons, fears about exponential growth of Ebola in the USA are unfounded, IMHO. That’s not to say there won’t be any more cases going forward, but rather it’s simply to say that there won’t be exponential growth.
Heck, depending on how you crunch the numbers, it’s arguable that there hasn’t even been exponential grown in West Africa.
Patient Zero is believed to have been a boy who died in Guinea in early December 2013. Assuming an incubation period of about 21 days, if there had been exponential growth then we would have seen over 30,000 cases by now instead of the 9,000 reported by the WHO.
Shep Smith is dead to me because of that. He was HORRIBLE. Why should I ever pay attention to him again?
Troy Senik: “If we can’t generate a market for a half-in-the-bag Sam Elliot breaking down the six-party talks, then the American moment has truly ended.”
For goodness’ sakes, Troy, I was drinking hot tea when I read that! How about a humor-trigger warning on these comments?
I didn’t care for Shep’s lecture at all. I thought he was over the top sanctimonious.
“The sort of exponential growth you describe can only occur if there is no treatment.”
How many Americans would have to be infected in the next month for you to be concerned? I’m not challenging your comment. I am trying to arrive at a reasonable measure myself.
For anyone who is not very concerned about Ebola yet, what would make you concerned?
We are constantly being told that the public has become hysterical over Ebola but I’ve seen no evidence of that other than from pundits who tell us to stop being hysterical.
Personally I am concerned because my children and grandchildren are physicians working in large hospitals and are therefore more vulnerable than the public at large. My progeny are extremely critical of the way things have been handled by the CDC to date, and I take seriously their observations.
Misthiocracy says : Patient Zero is believed to have been a boy who died in Guinea in early December 2013. Assuming an incubation period of about 21 days, if there had been exponential growth then we would have seen over 30,000 cases by now instead of the 9,000 reported by the WHO.”
Let us hope that is the figure. How could we know? I have read that the underreporting from W. Africa is significant and the true number of cases is likely to be double that figure, at minimum. There are understandable reasons that far flung communities in the bush don’t come forward with cases and deaths.
I’m looking outside at the panic in the streets, grocery store shelves are cleared, oh the horror, the horror of this ebola panic! Though I do believe the current death count of ebola itself is still higher than the death count for “ebola panic”.
Because you don’t often get the opportunity?