Categories
actual science COVID-19 SRN Boos the News

Welcome to Seeing Red Nebraska Boos the News

We started Seeing Red Nebraska because of the deficiencies in news coverage in this state. To be clear: we believe that communities need to support local media and subscribe to their local newspapers. We also believe that the state has a couple (but probably not many more than that) solid journalists who do good work. We know the difficulties facing local media: the expectation that news should be “free,” the corporate buyouts, the low pay and long hours, the assault on the press by the illiterate dipshit in the Oval Office. We know. We sympathize.

But we also know that the news in Nebraska often sucks–not only because reporters have lots to cover and little pay, but also because for many many years the media has settled into a pattern of running with whatever narrative is most comfortable to those in power and their voting bloc. That’s why, between the Lincoln Journal Star and the Omaha World Herald, there were more than six times the number of stories about a liberal graduate student flipping someone off at a campus protest as there were about the fact that the governor employed an actual, literal Nazi who threw dog shit into the yards of gay people and almost certainly plastered immigrant purge posters around Omaha.

That’s why we started this blog–or “glorifed blog” as one local reporter called us after we criticized him for praising a man who murdered his wife. We want to give Nebraska a source for reading a take on state news and politics that is not determined by corporate publishers, conservative editors, and media worried about maintaining relationships with elected officials who want to kill us.

So we are delighted to announce a new recurring feature on our glorified blog: Seeing Red Nebraska Boos the News. In this feature, we will select a news item from a local mainstream news outlet and explain why it sucks.

For this inaugural edition of SRN Boos the News we will take this tidbit posted on social media by the Lincoln Journal Star, which we subscribe to and continue to subscribe to because they are our best hope despite bullshit like this:

Okay, so here are some facts. Besides steering clear of people, putting on a goddamned mask is the best thing you can do to slow the spread of a disease that has now killed 100,000 people in this country. Naturally, a local hospital has told people that they should wear masks. In response, the usual shitwits who somehow think patriotism means telling everyone else to fuck off and die (see also: guns) have declared themselves masters of conspiratorial science and are complaining vociferously that their freedom to breathe pork rind vapor onto the Hy-Vee produce stocker’s face is being violated.

There are a number of ways someone could present those facts, including “Despite the advice of medical experts, some refuse to wear masks to reduce spread of disease.” Instead, LJS decided to foreground the thesis that wearing masks is “politically motivated,” and then opened up the whole mask “question” to a debate, which itself turns a matter of sound public health policy into a political debate.

Wiping front to back: good hygiene or just more propaganda from the anti-vaginitis lobby? You decide!

Shoes in shared showers: antifungus or anti fun? Tell us what you think.

Condoms: preventing STIs and unwanted pregnancy or nothing better than petting a dog with a glove on? Vote as many times as you like!

Please, LJS. It is sometimes okay to take a side on matters of disease, whether that disease is COVID or Ricketts.

css.php