We are not out of woods yet
Fact-checking course being offered
The Front Page
Evening Update
Friday, April 2, 2021
By Ken Tingley
Nearly every day, I see another post on social media from a friend, relative or acquaintance who has just gotten their “first” shot or are about to get their “second shot.” No explanation is needed for this pandemic shorthand.
And yes, I took a selfie getting my first shot, too, and posted it on Facebook. The amount of joy and relief comes through over and over again in these posts.
The concern is that many of us will get a little more careless in coming months. Each day the newspaper chronicles a dozen or so more new cases. That indicates people are getting careless.
What is more disturbing are those that don’t seem to want to get the vaccine.
The Kaiser Foundation, a nonprofit and the forefront of health care thinking through its research, has been tracking attitudes about the vaccine since December.
“Really, if you look at who is just not going to get vaccinated, it’s mostly Republicans and white evangelical Christians,” senior vice president Jennifer Kates. A recent Kaiser poll showed almost 1 in 3 from each of those groups say they will “definitely not” get a shot.
In response, the Biden administration announced Thursday it will begin an advertising campaign encouraging people to get the vaccine. Hopefully, that will help.
The American Press Institute recently wrote that journalists have to make sure to tell the whole story about the vaccine by talking to experts in vaccine hesitancy.
“We have to be careful in making sure we tell the story in its totality,” said Houston anchorman Chauncey Glover. “We just can’t say experts say it’s safe. We have to say why experts say it’s safe. What goes into a trial? How does it become approved?”
Unfortunately, that is where we are these days.
Check some facts
Today marks the fifth annual International Fact Checking Day. I was unaware of the previous four, but I support it 100 percent.
The Poynter Institute, a journalism training center in St. Petersburg, Fla., is behind the effort and even has a “Seniors Fact-Checking 101” online course for seniors featuring award-winning journalists like Joan Lunden, Lester Holt and Christine Amanpour.
Book coming
I have put together a collection of more than 80 of my columns from my days in The Post-Star. It will be published in book form soon. Just got word this week that it is going to the proofreader in the next week or so, so stay tuned.
Hemingway coming
If your formative years were influenced in any way by the writing of Earnest Hemingway, remember that the Ken Burns’ three-party, six-hour documentary on the great writer’s life begins on PBS Monday night at 8 p.m. Here is the link.
Of course that is the same time block as the NCAA Tournament national championship game, but that is why we have VCRs.