What the Murder Hornet Story Can Tell Us About the Media and the Pandemic

By putting “murder” in the title of this article I am almost certain to get your attention. Add to it the unexpected application to “hornet” and it now qualifies as the “man bites dog” story that illustrates what is news. Of course, you may be tired of murder hornet stories by now since the early May New York Times story on their arrival in Washington state. Google “murder hornet” and you will find 10 pages of recent references to media accounts. The social media buzz (pun intended) would likely count in the millions.

This story hits close to home. The New York Times report talks about Custer, Washington. I grew up there. It’s more a post office location than an actual town. I know the families of people mentioned in the story. I also know that since the discovery of these bees six months ago, there has been very little concern about them that I am aware of. But the Times piece and subsequent amped up media reports accomplished exactly what the reporters and news channels wanted: it got attention and eyes on screens. Scan the headlines and ask yourself: are these intended to scare people?

It’s old news about how the internet changed the news business and how almost everyone around the world gets news and information. As channels have proliferated beyond any imagination just thirty years ago, the dispersion of attention required greater and greater effort to capture reader/viewers. Lots of research has gone into this. Understandable if your business depends on eyes on screens to sell ads. Research shows a simple answer to the attention challenge: emotion. Emotion not only is what tells our brains what memories to store, it also tells us what to pay attention to. Emotion comes in a variety of forms including humor, charm, cuteness, and warm fuzziness. But, without question the greatest drivers of attention are what I have called FUDO in my books Now Is Too Late and Black Hats White Hats. Fear. Uncertainty. Doubt. Outrage.

The murder hornet story fits this category exceptionally well, especially related to fear and uncertainty. I have written about the extraordinary effectiveness of activists which I attribute in large part to their ability to harness the media’s interest in outrage. It’s not that difficult to generate outrage, particularly if you are not wedded to the idea of being honest. It is interesting that Saul Alinksy, the undisputed guru of activism, provides an entire chapter on the subject of why the end does indeed justify the means.

The relationship between the murder hornet stories and the pandemic will now be clear to most. What stories, what facts, what doctors’ pronouncements are likely to pass the scrutiny of today’s gatekeepers of what attracts attention? There is no question about a bias toward FUDO. Rational business demands it.

Here is a simple but telling example. CNN on April 18 carried a major health story with this headline: “Recovered coronavirus patients are testing positive again. Can you get reinfected?” Does that meet the FUDO test? What? Testing positive after recovering? How horrible. Can I get reinfected if I have already recovered? Oh my, that would be awful! And doesn’t that make this pandemic endless? Just reinfected over and over and over. Oh my!

Of course, if you read the CNN story down past the first five paragraphs you get to something that, while still very uncertain, is far less scary. The Korean officials say they aren’t sure the positive tests show the recovered patient is actually infected.

Now, go to the Korea Herald story of April 19, eleven days later. Headline: “Tests in recovered patients found false positives, not reinfections, experts say”. It turns out that the “reinfections” were not reinfections at all, but that testing reveals dead virus fragments. It should be noted that dead virus is what is used to create vaccines. Did CNN run a major story pointing this out? Did they try in any way to answer the question they posed with a reassuring and resounding: “NO! You can’t get reinfected according to Korean experts”? I did a search but couldn’t find a story like that.

There will be books written for years to come about the pandemic and some of those will refer to the role the media played. One thing will be noted is that a form of censorship appeared that will likely have serious repercussions for many years. I fault members of Congress for this as they have unreasonably held social media platforms accountable for content. Since the received wisdom about the pandemic is totally focused on the most extreme predictions of deaths, any suggestion that this received wisdom may be questioned has been deemed by channels and platforms to be fake news. That includes, sadly, Medium. Dr. Jonathan Geach along with several other physicians and health care professionals authored a piece suggesting that from a medical perspective the lockdown should be reconsidered. Medium removed the post. It was later restated with a disclaimer from Medium and what they deemed a less controversial title.

As the leading “news” channel, Facebook faces the most scrutiny and accountability. Zuckerberg’s response has been to be even more diligent in maintaining the accepted wisdom and politically correct positions, regardless of source or reasoning. It is my understanding that the channel is not allowed to be used to organize anti-lockdown protests. Certainly, it would allow pro-lockdown organizing. This makes no sense to me. It is like asking manufacturers of the metal newspaper racks to be responsible for what content is placed in them. Facebook, Medium and all others who enable providers of content to distribute it should be only held accountable for what has been determined by long standing legal precedent to be illegal.

Trust in our major news channels continues at an all time low. It is likely that when the pandemic story gets past the first draft of history that constitutes journalism, the bias toward FUDO will be further exposed. This does not bode well for improvement in our political discourse. The denied bias of channels such as New York Times and CNN bred the emergence and growth of Fox News. The politically correct bias and censorship of Facebook and other channels may spawn conservative reactionary channels. That would be a shame as it would cause further erosion of discussion and an increase in echo chambers.

For now, the best solution appears to be alerting news consumers to hidden bias in news, including the bias aimed at playing on and increasing FUDO. Then, encourage viewers to access a variety of sources including those that don’t conform to viewers’ own biases. It is from dialog with varying opinions and versions of facts that truth will most likely emerge.