New Catallaxy

The demise of journalism has not been greatly exaggerated. Covid has finally and irrevocably done it in

I know, I shouldn’t be writing about Covid again. They (the political knaves in charge) would like to replay 2020 and 2021. Couldn’t help it. Last week it was Henry Ergas, today it was Covid-hysteric Greg Sheridan who riled me.

Apparently, a Sharon Lewis, head of the Doherty Institute, told him that “75 percent of those who died from Covid this year did not have their third dose of vaccine.” Then Catherine Bennett professor of epidemiology at Deakin University told him that “only 3 percent of deaths come from people who had the winter booster, that is, the fourth dose of the vaccine at the beginning of winter.”

First, why doesn’t Sheridan do some research rather than rely on hearsay? Why doesn’t he look at the statistics? If necessary, query the various health departments to get data? Instead, he does what? Talk to people he finds in the phone book. His mates. Sundry so-called experts?

Omicron he avers, with the authority of a foreign-affairs journalist, “would still be deadly for an unvaccinated population.” Why moonlight as a public-health expert? Why doesn’t he stick to foreign affairs? Is multitasking required by his employers?

I looked at the latest NSW Covid surveillance report for week ending 7 July. You know, to get some data. A total of 666 people were admitted to hospital with Covid during the week. Of these the vaccination status of 159 was unknown. Zero of those admitted were known to be unvaccinated. Yes, zero. Those with three or four doses numbered 363. How can that possibly be Greg?

Those admitted to ICUs numbered 52. Of these 26 had three or more doses; and 15 two doses. Just one had no dose. How can that be Greg?

Of those who died during the week, 77 out of a total of 116 had three or more doses. Now 19 had no dose. Which on its face seems anomalously high when compared with the much fewer number entering ICUs during the week in question? Even so, the vast majority of those who died (80%+) had two or more doses. How can that be Greg?

I was going to compare the NSW figures with comparable figures for the UK. But the UK Health Security Agency no longer publishes a table of hospital admissions and deaths by vaccination status. I wonder why not? I suppose the plebs would get the wrong idea.

Journalism is dead.

Peter Smith

42 responses to “The demise of journalism has not been greatly exaggerated. Covid has finally and irrevocably done it in”

  1. MatrixTransform Avatar
    MatrixTransform

    Journalism is dead

    j’ismists, garlic, and silver bullets …they are never truly dead

    5
  2. Bourne1879 Avatar
    Bourne1879

    Like you was not impressed with the Sheridan article. Based on the recent flood of Covid / get jabbed articles I took his column as another part of the propanganda campaign. As usual very little analysis of the data and failing to mention average age of those dying.

    21
  3. Winston Smith Avatar
    Winston Smith

    Peter Smith:
    We are now in the stage of official statistics being too unreliable to base planning on. Similar to the Soviet Union in the 7o’s and 80’s. Unable to centrally plan their economy because the data was a fiction.

    17
  4. Tom Avatar
    Tom

    Journalism is dead.

    Nope. It has just changed addresses. It’s no longer where it says it is.

    Good luck finding it.

    9
  5. Enyaw Avatar
    Enyaw

    666 , known as the Devils number , relative to the fact ..?? Who would know..? only the Devil ..and he wont tell !.

    1
  6. Riversutra Avatar
    Riversutra

    I looked at the figures and noticed under “no dose” there was no one admitted to hospital, one admitted to ICU and 19 deaths.
    Seems strange those 18 people, who must have been pretty sick ,didn’t even bother going to hospital .
    Could it possibly be that these people had died from causes related to old age and illness already present and then tested positive for Covid when already dead?
    Wouldn’t that mean the death numbers have been massively increased all along?
    Journalism isn’t the only thing killed by Covid, the Medical bureaucrats also threw facts under the bus.
    I understand few on a site like this would have ever believed the daily death totals (on par with the daily body count briefings the Americans did during the Vietnam war: see Five O’clock Follies) but the sheep sure did!

    30
  7. Dave of Gold Coast, Aust. Avatar
    Dave of Gold Coast, Aust.

    I think they are keeping the big lie alive. I saw the UK data Monday where the death rate per 1000 is now the highest amongst the fully vaccinated. 90% of Covid deaths were triple/quadruple jabbed. A new phrase has been coined called Antibody Dependent Enhancement, am trying to find the definition for this. Meanwhile the unvaccinated infected continues to drop. Sheridan should actually do research not parrot the party line and the leftist narrative.

    22
  8. Cassie of Sydney Avatar
    Cassie of Sydney

    “today it was Covid-hysteric Greg Sheridan who riled me”

    I call him Greg the Dribbler Sheridan. He isn’t just a Covid hysteric, he’s also an anti-Trump hysteric. But worse, Greg the Dribbler is completely lacking in any spine and jumps onto any prevailing zeitgeist because he imagines it wins him friends and “respect” (cough). Like Andrew Bolt, he’s unwilling to upset the apple cart so instead he becomes one of those rotting apples on the cart.

    This is a “journalist” who, early this year after the State of the Union address, described the Sniffer in Chief as a “good man” in a piece. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I read that. He would never ever have used such a description to describe Trump.

    I can’t take him seriously, I gave up taking him seriously in 2016 when his anti-Trump rhetoric was unhinged and whenever I see him on Sky I turn the volume down.

    37
  9. Bruce of Newcastle Avatar
    Bruce of Newcastle

    I call him Greg the Dribbler Sheridan. He isn’t just a Covid hysteric, he’s also an anti-Trump hysteric.

    Yep, Cassie, just wrote a comment about exactly that. But sadly it got internal server errored.

    I’ll put up a link to the Old Cat which was in the comment, since New Cats might enjoy it!

    Greg Sheridan vs. Donald Trump (21 Jul 2020, Wayback Machine)

    7
  10. Bruce of Newcastle Avatar
    Bruce of Newcastle

    Ah, that got through, so it wasn’t the link!

    The other thing I was going to say is how much of an echo chamber journalism is now, even journos like Sheridan who is regarded as a righty. I think the journalism schools have so degraded the profession that they all are infected by the same outlook to greater or lesser extent. And the media outlets they work for then go bankrupt because people stop reading the lies and fantasies they produce.

    I had recent conversations with both my elderly mum and elderly dad where they complained that the newspapers they had been reading all their lives, and the TV news they watch, are both now useless and ridiculous. Neither are political, but both have recently awoken to the state of news and the state of the world. I didn’t say anything but agreed, and said it’s all MSM outlets – which is why I no longer have a television.

    15
  11. Vicki Avatar
    Vicki

    The data is out there – but the Greg Sheridans just don’t want to analyse it. When the vaccination rate is so high, as in Australia,you need to look at the figures proportionately, which is rarely done. Or you need to check against data from OS where vax rates are lower.

    There are increasing articles (recently one in “Science” ) discussing the effect of the spike protein vaccines on immune systems. The evidence is suggesting that the stress on the latter is not only leaving them susceptible to repeated Covid infections, but to regeneration of cancers and auto immune diseases.

    24
  12. miltonf Avatar
    miltonf

    Has-gas and the dribbler are just shrills for the wef-globalist establishment

    9
  13. Vicki Avatar
    Vicki

    On the Open thread this morning Justice Dredd has a link to Steve Kirch’s excellent sub stack which lists the evidence for the deadly effects of the genetic vaccines – especially the figures for overall death rates ( non Covid) that have radically increased since the vaccines were begun.

    10
  14. miltonf Avatar
    miltonf

    This is a “journalist” who, early this year after the State of the Union address, described the Sniffer in Chief as a “good man” in a piece.

    Anyone who says that is either very stupid and ignorant (just type ‘the senator from mbna’ into Bing mfor example) or a liar or both.

    3
  15. Mother Lode Avatar
    Mother Lode

    Epidemiology should be quite a complicated subject – not least because of the statistical interpolations and extrapolations. Add to that a familiarity with the topic specific behaviour of viruses built up from historical events.

    Yet j’ismists write about it with glib unrestrained abandon, thinking they know as much as an expert because they blindly agree with someone a politician or an agenda driven organisation has declared an expert. They don’t understand anything more than any other person, in fact probably less because normal people are more open to their own fallibility.

    So we get half understood talking points from partisan sources as the latest news.

    I really wish j’ismists would go back to the ideal of being sceptical about everything a person tells them – but since their uni degrees have persuaded them that it is up to them to mold and shape the rubes, the uncouth hoi polloi, we will just keep getting more of their LARPing in the dying MSM.

    8
  16. Sandy K Avatar
    Sandy K

    Dave of Gold Coast, Aust. says:
    ” A new phrase has been coined called Antibody Dependent Enhancement”

    It’s been around for many years. Suggest you search on DR SUCHARIT BHAKDI who provides an honest, professional medical expose of what is going on re ADE.

    8
  17. Roger Avatar
    Roger

    Omicron he avers, with the authority of a foreign-affairs journalist, “would still be deadly for an unvaccinated population.” Why moonlight as a public-health expert?

    We’ve seen a lot of that over the last 2.5 years.

    We’ve also seen public health “experts” stepping outisde their scope of competency.

    For example, one of the media’s go to epidemiologists wrote her thesis in handwashing in the third world hospital setting. Yet she was being asked to opine on the efficacy and safety of vaccines…and was happy to do so!

    Where are the bio-ethicists?

    12
  18. Roy Avatar
    Roy

    “The evidence is suggesting that the stress on the latter is not only leaving them susceptible to repeated Covid infections, but to regeneration of cancers and auto immune diseases.”
    Right at the start of the covid issue when the world was scrambling to find a vaccine some scientists knew that the mrna ones being developed would awaken latent diseases and or make existing ones worse. Also if these shots really were vaccines then surely they would prevent one from contracting covid and passing it on.If I had to have 5 shots of a “vaccine” for a disease and still be able to catch it and pass it on , then wow I’d have to question that.

    9
  19. Woolfe Avatar
    Woolfe

    This is a brilliant article by eugyppius, media part of the alien

    https://www.eugyppius.com/p/government-by-vampire-zombie-squid

    4
  20. H B Bear Avatar
    H B Bear

    Sheridan’s Paywallian colleague, Snoozer-at-Large Paul Kelly has a laughable opinion column today. I won’t link it as it isn’t worth your time.

    5
  21. Bruce in WA Avatar
    Bruce in WA

    Read the media “reports” about the “death ship”, the “cruise from hell”, the “plague” ship, “sister ship to the doomed Ruby Princess” aka the Coral Princess. Just BS, all BS.

    How do I know? We’re on it.

    24
  22. Bruce in WA Avatar
    Bruce in WA

    Should point out 4 cases positive in 4 days from 1590 people. Most taking sensible precautions. We’ve tested 3 times so far and all negative. Masks and sanitiser in prolific use.

    3
  23. Old School Conservative Avatar
    Old School Conservative

    Bruce in WA (actually at sea) – I’m looking forward to a full expose of the media lies when you get to cheap internet.

    7
  24. Shy Ted Avatar
    Shy Ted

    Journos only get paid for what is published (in the real world). Owners, directors, managers and editors have the power over people’ futures and if you’ve got bills to pay or a lifestyle to maintain… Doesn’t excuse it.

    4
  25. Mother Lode Avatar
    Mother Lode

    Snoozer-at-Large Paul Kelly has a laughable opinion column today.

    The opinion or the column was laughable?

    Meh – both are probably right.

    3
  26. Cassie of Sydney Avatar
    Cassie of Sydney

    To her credit Sharri Markson, at News Corp, has investigated the Covid Lab theory, for her efforts she’s been smeared by the usual suspects at their ABC, The Malcolm Guardian and at Nine. But where are the investigative journalists? There are few, very few. Aaron Patrick is good and I highly recommend his book about Lord Turdbull of Point Piper….aptly called “Ego”. And in “Ego” Patrick looks into Turdbull’s involvement in the Higgins, Porter and Tudge cases. But the majority of “journalists” today aren’t journalists delivering news, they’re opiners who no longer even try to hide their ideological activism and thus they’re simply not interested in stories that conflict with their ideological narratives. This is why we have not seen any investigative journalism around the Pell injustice.

    I don’t believe Western democracies can survive without a media willing to look at both sides of the ideological side. The irony of the Washington Post’s slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness” isn’t lost on me…..because hard-left publications like the Post are actively contributing to the death of democracy in the West.

    21
  27. grumpy Avatar
    grumpy

    He only has to go to nsw.gov site and grab the most recent surveillance report.
    As at 2 July
    80% of 116 deaths had at least 2 doses
    78% of 52 ICU admissions had at least 2 doses
    75% of 666 hospital admissions had at least 2 doses

    Explain again how it is safe and effective and how it protects you from serious illness and death.

    8
  28. m0nty Avatar
    m0nty

    Peter Smith: journalism is dead, look at how Greg Sheridan says A is B! Now look over here, I went to a web site and looked up stats for C, and look, here it says C is D! That disproves Sheridan entirely!

    Hospital admissions != deaths, you idiot.

    2
  29. Petros Avatar
    Petros

    Just a suggestion for those with elderly parents and others who believe the print media, subscribe to the Epoch Times and have the print edition delivered to your parents or whomever’s abode. It opens their eyes to different opinions and also that the MSM is not telling them the full story on many topics.

    11
  30. Kneel Avatar
    Kneel

    “Epidemiology should be quite a complicated subject…”

    Indeed – it is an observational study, and like all areas of such study, it requires not just statistical knowledge, but also field-specific knowledge. You need this because you needs must do a multi-variate analysis on the data you collect – a uni-variate analysis is useless on such data, telling you nothing that is not apparent in the raw data.
    For medical data, you would need AT LEAST: age, sex, race, pre-existing conditions, and probably income status as well as diet and other lifestyle variables.
    Then, you might, maybe, be able to tease out risk factors or efficiacy of treatment – maybe. And even if you do manage to tease these out, it’s likely you will find only 0.4 (40%) or less “effect” you can assign to a single variable – in the vast majority of cases such as drugs and so on. Probably should expect much better for vaccines, but I am not sure of that (haven’t checked).
    It’s a very messy and complicated business, and data often changes considerably when sample numbers go higher (trial different to actual use).
    And like much of stats, the most useful parts are useful because they are not obvious, or even intuitive. Also like much statistical analysis, those on the “front lines” are often dismissive of the insights available when it is used correctly and carefully, preferring their own “first hand” knowledge – yet where they don’t have their own knowledge, and don’t have a dog in the fight, will use it as their “go to”. People are like that – even those who should know better.

    5
  31. Boambee John Avatar
    Boambee John

    m0ntysays:
    July 13, 2022 at 11:26 am
    Peter Smith: journalism is dead, look at how Greg Sheridan says A is B! Now look over here, I went to a web site and looked up stats for C, and look, here it says C is D! That disproves Sheridan entirely!

    Hospital admissions != deaths, you idiot.

    You’re not good on numbers, are you? Might be at least part of the reason you failed Economics 1.

    On a related (pseudo-medical) subject, when will you apologise for your hysteria (in both meanings of the word) about the now thoroughly debunked story about the 10 year old wape victim in need of an abortion?

    6
  32. Botswana O'Hooligan Avatar
    Botswana O’Hooligan

    Am in my eighties and have just come down in the last three days with a dose of the dreaded, so too my wife in her mid sixties and it’s no big deal, aches and pains, a bit of a cough and loss of appetite. We went for a walk in the bush this morning so it can’t be all that bad. We aren’t “jabbed” either and won’t be. It’s all a beat up to flog newspapers and stuff advertised on TV.

    19
  33. Chris M Avatar
    Chris M

    A total of 666 people were admitted to hospital with Covid during the week. Of these the vaccination status of 159 was unknown.

    Of course the quacks knew if they were jabbed, one of the first questions they ask. This ‘unknown’ category started in the UK and is now everywhere in the West, and it always a large number. An extremely useful category to shift a good bunch of the jabbed and help provided a more acceptable statistical balance.

    Another trick is to categorise the one and two dose as ‘unvaccinated’ because now its three or four right. Statistics, comrade.

    Check out this letter from NZ doctors regarding the sudden deaths, scroll down for the list. All those young people, very very sad.

    7
  34. Vicki Avatar
    Vicki

    Another trick is to categorise the one and two dose as ‘unvaccinated’ because now its three or four right. Statistics, comrade.

    Yes – this has not gone unnoticed – except, perhaps, by the “converted”.

    5
  35. Rosita Avatar
    Rosita

    My 95 year old unvaccinated (her choice ) mother in a nursing home, caught the virus. She felt sick during the lock down, but no hospitalization. She has pulled through, although she is tired. What struck us was the couple of residents who would not eat during the lock-down, and passed away. Can’t see family, nothing to live for. Luckily for us my mother has a computer, and we were able to skype her twice a day.

    8
  36. Bar Beach Swimmer Avatar
    Bar Beach Swimmer

    Tom:
    Nope. It has just changed addresses

    Its new address is NewCat (along with so many other blogs and alternative media sites)

    3
  37. Zipster Avatar
    Zipster

    The evidence is suggesting that the stress on the latter is not only leaving them susceptible to repeated Covid infections, but to regeneration of cancers and auto immune diseases.

    They knew in advance spike protein was toxic. They also knew that over-training the immune system on one part of the virus, the part which mutates the most was going to be a problem. The trials showed the vaccines were, well, crap.

    Yet the $$ signs kept lighting up in their eyes.

    10
  38. dover0beach Avatar
    dover0beach

    look at how Greg Sheridan says A is B! Now look over here, I went to a web site and looked up stats for C, and look, here it says C is D! That disproves Sheridan entirely!

    He did:

    Apparently, a Sharon Lewis, head of the Doherty Institute, told him that “75 percent of those who died from Covid this year did not have their third dose of vaccine.”

    and

    Of those who died during the week, 77 out of a total of 116 had three or more doses. Now 19 had no dose. Which on its face seems anomalously high when compared with the much fewer number entering ICUs during the week in question? Even so, the vast majority of those who died (80%+) had two or more doses. How can that be Greg?

    Apples for apples.

    Hospital admissions != deaths, you idiot.

    You, obviously, didn’t read to the end. You idiot, and trod on another rake.
    Still, monty now arm-waving in defense of Sheridan? LMAO.

    7
  39. Mother Lode Avatar
    Mother Lode

    On a related (pseudo-medical) subject, when will you apologise for your hysteria (in both meanings of the word) about the now thoroughly debunked story about the 10 year old wape victim in need of an abortion?

    What about the transgender girl in South Dakota who was forced to swim in the boys’ races at the school swimming festival? She broke her neck when she dove in because her lane of the pool did not contain any water, because the EPA no longer had authority to administer water in city schools.

    And the heart-wrenching look in her eyes lying quadriplegic in hospital, on blue sheets instead of pink ones, when she asked to be aborted…and the doctor said he couldn’t do it because of the SCOTUS decision!

    9
  40. dover0beach Avatar
    dover0beach

    ML, now put that on Biden’s teleprompter. He will read it!

    10
  41. jupes Avatar
    jupes

    Masks and sanitiser in prolific use.

    Sad.

  42. Chris M Avatar
    Chris M

    Vicki check this article: Australian Covid Data Biases and Manipulation – If This “Vaccine” Is So Great, Why Do You Need To “Fix” The Data?

    Data manipulation in NSW govt.

    3

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