[BostonCard]

One tournament.  This is one of the things that drives me crazy. There has been an awful lot of sporting events played and safely.  But they find one instance and that gets the publicity. I say that while at the same time believing that these tournaments should not be taking place.

That’s a textbook definition of news. A tournament linked to multiple Covid cases is news. All those other tournaments not linked to Covid cases are not news. Complaining about that is like complaining about media covering the hurricane instead of all those places that had nice weather; or the earthquake instead of all those places that didn’t have a quake. 

You are objecting here to the essence of news.

Isn't it still news to say "this tournament linked to multiple Covid cases; 250 other tournaments have not been?"

Ask yourself:  what do you find objectionable about reporting on those "bigger picture" facts? 
Context matters - and not just in Covid reporting, but in all kinds of reporting.  Take a hot-button issue like abortion.  What if a media outlet said "Facility X performed 5 abortions today, and it receives federal funding."  And then just ran a similar story day after day (with different numbers of abortions/day).  [The pretty obvious agenda of such reporting would be to halt federal funding for the facility].  I think it would be fair to say that such "reporting" would be factually accurate; however, it doesn't include a lot of context (as in, what other services are provided for by the facility - procedure-wise, counseling-wise, whatever).

When you don't provide context is where you open yourselves up to agenda-reporting.  At least that's my take.

LA county is going to a modified shutdown (though sports are apparently still ok).  San Mateo county entered into the purple tier, and as a consequence, my kids’ in person schooling, which was due to start Dec. 1 had the county stayed in red, is not happening.  In addition, indoor gatherings between more than one household are disallowed, and outdoor gatherings are restricted to three or fewer households and are disallowed between 10 pm and 5 am.  Indoor gyms, dining, etc. are all closed.

The next step is basically a lockdown like we had in March/April or capitulation that we don’t have it in us to keep the pandemic under control until a vaccine which should be granted emergency use authorization in a couple weeks and which should be widely available by April.

In that context, what the hell are we doing prioritizing professional and intercollegiate athletics.  It seems like an odd hill to die on given the larger things that are going on.

Maybe we will get the pandemic under control without further lockdowns, or maybe we will just give up, but so long as we are trying to limit the spread long enough that we can engage in a large scale vaccination effort, I suggest we prioritize the things that are most important.  If you think sports meet that criteria, you are certainly entitled to that opinion, but I suspect a lot of people think it’s misguided.

BC

[BostonCard]

One tournament.  This is one of the things that drives me crazy. There has been an awful lot of sporting events played and safely.  But they find one instance and that gets the publicity. I say that while at the same time believing that these tournaments should not be taking place.

That’s a textbook definition of news. A tournament linked to multiple Covid cases is news. All those other tournaments not linked to Covid cases are not news. Complaining about that is like complaining about media covering the hurricane instead of all those places that had nice weather; or the earthquake instead of all those places that didn’t have a quake. 

You are objecting here to the essence of news.

Isn't it still news to say "this tournament linked to multiple Covid cases; 250 other tournaments have not been?"

Ask yourself:  what do you find objectionable about reporting on those "bigger picture" facts? 
Context matters - and not just in Covid reporting, but in all kinds of reporting.  Take a hot-button issue like abortion.  What if a media outlet said "Facility X performed 5 abortions today, and it receives federal funding."  And then just ran a similar story day after day (with different numbers of abortions/day).  [The pretty obvious agenda of such reporting would be to halt federal funding for the facility].  I think it would be fair to say that such "reporting" would be factually accurate; however, it doesn't include a lot of context (as in, what other services are provided for by the facility - procedure-wise, counseling-wise, whatever).

When you don't provide context is where you open yourselves up to agenda-reporting.  At least that's my take.

LA county is going to a modified shutdown (though sports are apparently still ok).  San Mateo county entered into the purple tier, and as a consequence, my kids’ in person schooling, which was due to start Dec. 1 had the county stayed in red, is not happening.  In addition, indoor gatherings between more than one household are disallowed, and outdoor gatherings are restricted to three or fewer households and are disallowed between 10 pm and 5 am.  Indoor gyms, dining, etc. are all closed.

The next step is basically a lockdown like we had in March/April or capitulation that we don’t have it in us to keep the pandemic under control until a vaccine which should be granted emergency use authorization in a couple weeks and which should be widely available by April.

In that context, what the hell are we doing prioritizing professional and intercollegiate athletics.  It seems like an odd hill to die on given the larger things that are going on.

Maybe we will get the pandemic under control without further lockdowns, or maybe we will just give up, but so long as we are trying to limit the spread long enough that we can engage in a large scale vaccination effort, I suggest we prioritize the things that are most important.  If you think sports meet that criteria, you are certainly entitled to that opinion, but I suspect a lot of people think it’s misguided.

BC