Hypocrisy is; “the behavior of people who do things that they tell other people not to do.” It’s bad enough when people engage in hypocrisy but hypocritical journalism harms and misleads many.
The National Post article by Tom Blackwell is a case in point:
A fascinating new study offers some clues, adding to evidence that people who accept or reject COVID precautions actually think in different ways.
The research concluded that vaccine hesitancy is associated with being less oriented toward the future, and more likely to choose a smaller reward today than wait for a better one down the road.
Living for the moment: Study points to cognitive differences in people who are vaccine hesitant, Tom Blackwell,
Jan 18, 2022
Vaccine hesitant people are different from the rest of vaccinated Canadians in that they prefer a smaller immediate reward to a better outcome in the future. This portrays the vaccine hesitant as selfish, short sighted and lacking the cognitive capacity to think in the long term. A nasty characterization based on a ‘new study’ which is a preprint study. Preprint studies are not peer reviewed and have not been vetted by the scientific community
This National Post journalist is citing a preprint study which is a practice he specifically disapproved of in the past. In 2020, Blackwell pointed out that pre-print studies are problematic.
Instead of a sober exchange of peer-reviewed journal papers, research is often first published on “pre-print” websites or in news releases without review, then reported by journalists and spread through social media.
Authorities misinterpreting COVID-19 trial data with ‘disastrous’ results, Canadian researchers say, Tom Blackwell,
Sep 07, 2020
To make a negative characterization of an identifiable group on the basis of a pre-print study today (2022) when in the past (2020) the same journalist decried pre-print studies is to say the least hypocritical.
Blackwell goes on to lay the blame for the over-burdened hospitals and lockdowns on the backs of the un-vaccinated by citing another academic:
About 88 per cent of eligible Canadians are fully vaccinated, and finding ways to increase that rate is still important, said Dr. Kumanan Wilson, an expert on public-health policy at the University of Ottawa.
Evidence suggests two doses of vaccine may do little to curb transmission of the virus with the highly contagious Omicron variant dominating. But two or three doses still protects against serious disease, while the unvaccinated make up a disproportionate share of patients in intensive-care units. So vaccinating more Canadians would lift the burden on Canada’s “fragile” health-care system — and make lockdowns unnecessary, Wilson said.
Living for the moment: Study points to cognitive differences in people who are vaccine hesitant, Tom Blackwell,
Jan 18, 2022
Does the National Post not expect its journalists to check their stories against the actual data? Today the official Ontario stats for hospitalization and ICU numbers show that the vaccinated are the over-whelming majority of those hospitalized and a full 50 percent of those admitted to ICUs.
Of those in the ICU, 24 % are there due to Covid 19 and 54 % are there due to non-Covid 19 reasons. The ‘unvaccinated’ make up 50 % of the 24 % of people there due to Covid 19. Therefore the ‘burden’ the unvaccinated put on the health care system in the ICU is 12% (0.5 x 24 %) – this is definitely NOT overwhelming!
Would this National Post journalist have advanced the argument that the ‘unvaccinated’ are to blame for the over-whelmed fragile hospital system and lockdowns if he had bothered to check the actual data?
The official data shows that Covid patients (vaccinated or unvaccinated) never overwhelmed the entire system in Ontario.
It is time for the news media to apologize for the shoddy and misleading coverage of the pandemic. It hasn’t helped. A few days ago a European newspaper apologized to its readers and the public:
A Danish newspaper has apologised to its readers for not being critical enough in its reporting of government coronavirus case numbers.
In an article in the Ekstra Bladet tabloid last week headlined “We Failed”, journalist Brian Weichardt issued a mea culpa to the public on behalf of the media for not doing more to interrogate Covid-19 statistics.
‘We failed’: Danish newspaper apologises for not questioning government Covid-19 numbers, Frank Chung, January 14, 2022
Don’t you think it’s time for some accountability from the Canadian news media?
I do!
scrapbookwithtony 
Jan 18, 2022 @ 15:14:37
Very good
Sent from my iPhone
Jan 19, 2022 @ 09:10:53
I always thought this was the case but thanks to your facts, I now know it is the case. Many have been forced to take the jab to keep their job but many more who don’t take responsibility for their own health and rely on the “experts” are more likely to have existing health problems. This in combination with an experimental drug will land them in ICU.