Paul Krugman is a columnist with the New York Times. His columns, written from a liberal point of view, have nothing to do with Israel. He usually writes about economics and domestic policy. But a recent column of his about Obamacare caught our eye, and we wondered how it would sound with just some minor word substitutions.
So with all respect to Mr. Krugman, we present the Hamas version of his column. His entire column is included below. Our substitutions are in bold italics.
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A Note on the Dynamics of Misinformation
Very busy, so no substantive posting today. But I did want to share a thought from the past few days. I posted about the surprisingly good news, at least so far, on Obamacare premiums for 2015 the Gaza conflict— and as usual was met with a wall of rage from the right media. The idea that this thing might be working Israeli military actions may have been justified inspires a level of anger nothing else (except maybe climate science) matches.
No news there. Nor is it news that such people some journalists know things that ain’t so. But there’s something I’ve noticed from the combination of reactions to what I write and researching past coverage of Obamacare Israel. It goes like this: a lot of the untrue beliefs people have about Obamacare Israel come not so much from outright false reporting as selective reporting. Every suggestion of bad news gets highlighted — especially, of course, but not only by Fox, the WSJ, the New York Times. But when it turns out that the news wasn’t really that bad, these sources just move on. There are claims that millions of people are losing coverage Israel is intentionally killing civilians — headlines! When it turns out not to be true — crickets! Some experts claim that premiums will rise by double digits Israel committed war crimes — big news! Actual premium numbers come in and they’re surprisingly low Hamas used human shields— not mentioned.
The result is that most news consumers — who form impressions rather than trying to work out details — have the sense that it’s been all bad news. This is true even for people who don’t rely on Fox the New York Times — I (We) get asked about the scary premium hikes accusations of Israel deliberately killing civilians by people on the Upper West Side! And of course for those who do get their news from Fox the New York Times, well, they know, just know, that Obamacare has reduced the number of Americans with insurance and caused premiums to double Israel targeted schools, hospitals, and mosques for no reason, even though even their favorite news source isn’t saying such things. We need a term for beliefs based on reports that have been superseded; maybe fossils instead of zombies. Anyway, it’s striking.
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As you can see, there are some subjects that so enrage certain people that they ignore tangible evidence contradicting what they had been led to believe. When sources like Mr. Krugman’s own employer, the New York Times, contribute to the storm of disinformation, it become almost impossible to convince many that their preconceived notions are simply wrong.
Image: CC BY-NC-SA flickr/Mo
