Erin Kissane

NYT: Health experts say it’s time to wear masks again https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/13/well/covid-flu-rsv-masks-tripledemic.html

Also the NYT: “The Last Holdouts,” framing people wearing masks as isolated oddballs https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/26/us/covid-masks-risk.html

Amid a ‘Tripledemic,’ It’s Time to Mask Up Again, Experts Say

A high-quality, well-fitting mask is your best protection against infection from the coronavirus, influenza and R.S.V.

Dec 27, 2022 at 5:14pmWeb
Show threadErin KissaneDec 27, 2022

A thing I think a lot of readers understand in a relatively sophisticated way—and that many journalists still reject—is that the *framing* on these culture pieces does a huge amount of work in setting and enforcing social norms. (It’s never more apparent than in the NYT, the Mean Girls of major papers.)

A lot working journalists whose conversations have been visible over the past decade or so seem to treat framing as a thing that can’t be objectively measured and (therefore) doesn’t exist.

Show threadErin KissaneDec 27, 2022
All that to say, I think responsibility for this stuff lies squarely with editorial leadership, which could serve us all much better by working with reporters in a disciplined way to resist what I generally assume to be unintentionally antisocial framing.
Show threadErin KissaneDec 27, 2022
[muting notifications, good luck out there]
Show threadRobert ThauDec 27, 2022
@kissane Hmmm... that antisocial framing is pretty damn prominent in headlines, which I'd expect that editorial leadership controls directly.
Show threadErin KissaneDec 27, 2022
@rst The headlines don’t happen by accident, but without a consistent framework that acknowledges moral responsibility, the pretense of objectivity turns everything to soup.
Show threadTaylor YuDec 27, 2022
@kissane how DO you hold editorial of a powerful media outlet to account for their negative externalities? it feels hopeless to me.
Show threadErin KissaneDec 27, 2022
@argonblue I’m under no illusions that I have the slightest effect on editorial leadership. I’d like to nurture a few ideas in the brains of their readers and future reporters, though.
Show threadJ. Nathan Matias 🦣Dec 27, 2022
@kissane fascinating! Curious to hear more about this sometime, since there’s a huge scholarly literature on framing effects
Show threadErin KissaneDec 27, 2022
@natematias It’s so deeply deeply weird! The dismissal of this stuff as “we make everyone mad/readers are unreasonable” is one of the main reasons I’m not in journalism anymore.
Show threadSara SimonDec 27, 2022
@kissane @natematias also a lot of parallels here to the flawed belief, pervasive at NYT & newsrooms like it, that "we're just asking questions" isn't a framing of its own
Show threadOrangetronicDec 27, 2022

@kissane genuine chuckle @ “,the Mean Girls of major papers”

ur spot on tho.

Show threadanothercultlandDec 27, 2022
@kissane I hate that all parts of these items were so predictable 🙄
Show threadErin KissaneDec 27, 2022
@anothercultland Yeah, it’s a huge bummer
Show threadMarcin PaprzyckiDec 27, 2022
@kissane In Sweden they never seriously wore masks (friend in Mask in Stockholm was shunned by old ladies -- for scaring them). Sweden is "OK. But, they were vaccinating like crazy and self-distanced (the way that Swedes can) and the state helped with days off to self distance / be sick... This approach was based on Swedish experts... which experts do we trust?
Show threadollie!Dec 27, 2022
@kissane fuck the nyt i am still wearing a fucking mask
Show threadSusan KiddieDec 27, 2022
@ollieowo69 @kissane N95 or better. 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽🎯🎯🎯🎯
Show threadollie!Dec 28, 2022
@SusanLeeLaw @kissane yup!
Show threadTom LeeDec 27, 2022
@kissane @waldoj I think there’s only a contradiction here if you consider the editorial task to be conveying a consistent perspective rather than consistently appealing to an audience. In this case the more-covid-cautious-than-average slice of the NYT audience is being doubly validated: “experts say you’re right” and “you are under siege”
Show threadErin KissaneDec 27, 2022

@tjl So an article about oddballs is meant not to affirm the less-cautious majority, but to feed the victim complex of the oddballs?

I have difficulty reading this kind of piece, particularly in that context of all the David Leonhardt ~guidance, and particularly given the response to articles in this vein by disabled and chronically ill people. Feels like ascribing a whole lot of 4D chess to something more easily explained quite simply, but I’m sure we each have our prejudices.

@waldoj

Show threadTom LeeDec 27, 2022
@kissane @waldoj not sure I would sign on to the “oddball” characterization—seems like they open with someone with a serious medical concern and note that the President and even doctors’ offices have decided to ignore them and move on. That’s not to say this editorial imperative isn’t also sometimes satisfied by trolling the audience. But in this case it’s validating them/us. Or at least it seems that way to me.
Show threadTom LeeDec 27, 2022
@kissane @waldoj (Fwiw I have a newborn and two older kids who have been/are in this year’s respiratory illness wringer so have been masking everywhere but will likely stop when baby is less vulnerable and kiddo illness season dies down so we become less likely to be a vector)
Show threadTom LeeDec 27, 2022
@kissane @waldoj not sure how much it applies but this all reminds me of the early Trump era where I and many others really yearned for people running prestigious news platforms to serve as sources of authority and moral clarity. But they really refuse to do it until it becomes completely impossible to do otherwise. They don’t know how, it makes them uncomfortable, and it’s not how they think of their job.
Show threadErin KissaneDec 27, 2022
@tjl I definitely can’t disagree with any of that. (And good luck of every kind to your family.)
Show threadJasmineDec 27, 2022

@kissane

I never stopped 🤷‍♀️

Show threadHistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴Dec 27, 2022

@kissane

#BothSidesHoax
#SignOfTheTimes

Show threadFritzDec 28, 2022
@kissane Greetings, fellow oddballs!
Show threadIdahoLarkDec 28, 2022
@kissane So frustrating. I continue to be among the few still masking in our community right now. I may be an oddball but am not isolated.
Show threadkira :3Dec 28, 2022
@kissane I don't want to hear from health experts who say it's time to wear masks "again," show me the health experts who say it was never time to stop wearing them
Show threadPatrick McLaughlinDec 28, 2022

@kissane

again?

Still.

Religiously.

And for the foreseeable future.

Show thread@daraghhayesDec 28, 2022
@kissane I heard an interview with David Wallace from NYT the other week and he mentioned how Covid wasn't affecting kids as much and that deaths were down and I just thought, "Wow, yet another reminder that I'm glad I cancelled my NYT subscription."
Show threadSueDec 29, 2022
@kissane
Agree
#CovidIsNotOver
Show threadtensaimonDec 31, 2022
@kissane masks still mainstream (default even) here in Japan...