Reporting in a post-fact world

CHINLE

Being an introvert and essential worker, the pandemic has affected my life almost not at all, other than that a mask has become a daily accessory.

Before COVID-19 hit the rez, I got up at 5, walked the dogs, wolfed down a bowl of cereal, jumped in the car for my hour-and-10-minute commute to Window Rock, put in my 8 hours, drove another hour and 10 minutes home, scrounged up some dinner for myself, my husband and the pets, watched some Netflix and worked on my volunteer job as president of a local humane society before tumbling into bed exhausted.

Post-COVID, my days are identical, other than also trying to cheer up my depressed husband, who is most definitely NOT an introvert and misses his high school music students.

However, while the coronavirus has not affected my daily life, it has affected my thinking considerably.

I’ve covered, and been personally involved in, a number of disasters over the years, including floods, fires, accidents and an African civil war. Generally, the pattern of human behavior is pretty predictable. About 90% of people turn their attention to saving themselves and their families, with little regard for others. Some will even sabotage others if it is helpful to themselves or their loved ones. It’s almost like the animal part of the brain — the survival instinct — takes over.

Five percent — the Zoel Zhonnies and Ethel Branches of the world — figure out a way to help not only their own families but everybody else involved, and muster resources to continue. These folks are natural leaders and can often convince the folks who are on the fence between saving themselves and reaching out, to at least pitch in to a GoFundMe if not volunteer themselves.

Then there’s the other 5%. These are the folks who panic to the point that they are incapable of saving themselves or others. They basically use up more than their share of resources and get in everybody’s way.

Most of the disasters I’ve covered in the past were pre-social media, and also weren’t politicized. The panickers could be factored into the response effort and were generally saved along with the majority, if they didn’t do anything too self-destructive.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been complicated by the fact that the panickers have an outsized platform. While the so-called “mainstream” media — by which I mean reliable news outlets that have actual editors — focus on getting the facts out as quickly and accurately as possible, social media algorithms float the most dramatic posts to the top, whether or not they’re true. People whose brains are not functioning due to fear seize on the wildest conspiracy theories and can spread them to hundreds of people with one swipe, causing people who might normally be reasonable to act against their own best interest.

In previous disasters, the government has played a moderating role by getting out public service messages countering misinformation and letting people know how to protect themselves. This time, we had exactly the wrong person in the nation’s highest office. Rather than give people a positive example by wearing a mask, issuing national guidelines and staying away from public gatherings, President Donald Trump literally told people not to fear the virus and instead to fear immigrants, the Black Lives Matter movement and the imaginary Antifa. Wearing a mask — literally the only defense we have had against this virus when we have to go out in public — became a badge of liberalism rather than what it is, a common-sense survival measure.

Somehow the same people who were posting unresearched articles claiming the coronavirus was a manufactured weapon (against whom was unclear, since it had spread to every single ethnic group and country), were also posting other articles saying that to mask up was a sign of weakness.

Meanwhile, those of us in the media were working overtime to get the facts out as soon as they came in. But to the hysterical masses, facts were no longer relevant.

I tried to reason with some of my Facebook friends who had clearly gone over the edge, and learned pretty quickly reason is lost on people who are panicking. If you cite sources, they’re convinced the sources are part of the conspiracy. Links to stories from CNN or the New York Times are instantly labeled “fake news” from the “liberal mainstream media” that is only for “sheeple.”

I should acknowledge that social media also played a positive role. Alerted to the Navajo people’s plight, people from all over the world responded with money, personal protective equipment and many other forms of help. But from my perspective as a member of the old-fashioned regular media, Facebook and Twitter shifted the balance of public opinion toward the chasm of fear and chaos.

In the marketplace of public opinion, the currency of reality has become so devalued we couldn’t GIVE the real news away. And we tried — you’ll notice on our website every story related to coronavirus is free and visible to everyone.

We made graphs and kept up with the daily grim statistics, and still couldn’t convince people to keep themselves and their families safe.

Now there’s a vaccine out, literally the only thing standing between the human race and the near-complete devastation wrought by the physical and economic effects of the virus. And people are somehow convinced that, like the virus (yeah, figure that one out!), the vaccine is an evil plot to kill them.

What Pfizer, or Bill Gates, or anyone else supposedly involved in the conspiracy has to gain by killing millions of people around the world is never explained by the conspiracy theorists. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out Bill Gates wants you alive because dead people don’t buy computers, and Pfizer wants the vaccine to work because nobody is going to buy it if it doesn’t. But logic is lost on people to whom facts have become suspicious and irrelevant.

According to some polls, 40% of Americans say they won’t take the vaccine. Personally, I wouldn’t find it all that tragic if every stupid person in America opted out of the gene pool. The problem is, they are going to take a lot of good people with them before we can get every nurse, every cop, every janitor who has to clean up after them vaccinated.

They will take up ICU beds alongside people who took every precaution and got the virus anyway. If it comes to rationing care, and it looks like it will, an elderly person who has little chance of survival may be sacrificed so a more vigorous stupid person can survive.

As a human, this makes me angry. As a member of the media, it also makes me sad. We have lost the trust of the public and we have failed in our main mission, the purveyance of fact. This virus, the first worldwide crisis arguably since the last world war, should have brought us together. Instead, thanks in part to our government but also to us in the media for not being able to look away from Trump’s spectacular train wreck of a presidency, it has been one more thing widening the chasm.

After 40 years in this career, I am wondering if I should retire as soon as I can afford to. In a world where your high school buddy who uses the word “sheeple” is more credible than Dr. Fauci, in a country where a clear attempt to circumvent our democracy is supported by 18 state attorneys general and no one bats an eye, I as a purveyor of facts and meaningful information no longer have a role.

Perhaps I’m wrong, and we finally will get it together. Social media companies have started labeling outright lies, even when the president tweets them, so that’s a start. With the largest election turnout in history, we voted out fear and voted in hope. Our democracy survived the worst attack on it in recent memory, and my Navajo friends and neighbors helped.

I take heart in the 150-plus Navajos and Apaches who helped with the vaccine trials, and the fact that a woman of color will be vice president. I take heart in the Zoel Zhonnies and Ethel Branches of the world.

As I write this, President-elect Joe Biden is on TV delivering his acceptance speech, using reassuring and unifying language, sounding for all the world like a sane individual — a low bar, admittedly, but one we haven’t cleared in a while. I didn’t vote for him in the primary, but maybe good ol’ Uncle Joe is exactly what we need right now.

Maybe we have looked over the abyss and will back away just in time. The Navajo Times will be there to cover it all, and I will too, for a little while longer. One thing I can promise is that, as long as I am here, my loyalty is to the truth, whether or not people want to believe it.

---