I really cannot stand news startups like this: There are several of them, and they are all based on the concept of "see all sides of a story".

There are three fundamental problems with this focus ... [cont.] The first problem is that it presents all sides as equals, which is not and never has been true. I would actually characterize this as journalistic malpractice.

There is a quote that I always use to illustrate this.

https://x.com/baekdal/status/1222502868600659969

Let's talk about excess deaths...

Recently I wrote a thread about COVID which got a fair bit of attention (link at the end of the thread), and it has been 'interesting' to see how some have tried to defend what we are doing in Denmark.

1/... One example of this was about excess deaths. A person told me that the reason why the Danish COVID strategy was the right one was because of our very low level of excess deaths.

Okay, so let's look at that.

I posted a Twitter thread the other day, and it got a fair bit of attention. As I'm writing this, it has 279,000 views... but... does it?

You see, it's only the first tweet in the thread that has that many views. When I look at the following tweets, this happens: It is just a reminder to be careful about analytics. As you can see, the 'real audience' (aka the people who actually took time to read the thread) is more like 20,000 people ... just 7% of the initial views.

Mind you, 20,000 actual readers are still quite a lot.

So much of the "no reason to worry about COVID" mentality is based on a false sense of superiority. But let's look at the 85% vaccine coverage. Here is a graph of when we reach "full vaccine" in Denmark. As you can see, we reached that back in January.

So, following this argument, we should have seen a dramatic drop in cases after January... right?

One of the problems in my country (Denmark) is that everyone has decided that COVID doesn't exist anymore, and part of the reason is that if you just look at the data, it doesn't look that bad.

But this is deceptive, and let me explain why. The problem is that the data is skewed by how many who got infected during the 3rd wave.

So what happens if we instead restrict the Y-axis to when the first wave peaked. Well, we get this:

In other words, every single day, we have more case than during the first wave peak.

Uh... Microsoft. Why do your 'enter your birthday' select box allow me to choose a year into the future? I mean, how many people do you think have been born in 2026? Fuck no...

Look publishers, don't do this... okay!

If people have chosen to turn off third party cookies, don't just block the content, and require people to turn on all tracking to see it. Instead provide a link that people can click on. Or do what I do on my site. By default, the YouTube video isn't loaded (so no tracking), but then people can click to "Play this video from YouTube", thereby allowing the video to be loaded on a case-by-case basis.

Example: baekdal.com/newsletter/mem…

The power companies are making a fortune on the high prices of electricity, but they all claim: "our profit is not higher, it is at the same level."

This is a narrative that needs much closer scrutiny.

Think about it like this: Imagine you have a power company that has a revenue of 1 billion, with a profit margin of 35%. This then gives them a profit of 350 million.

The price then goes up by 100%, so now they make 2 billion, but now the profit can be calculated in two ways.

One thing that can kill a game for me is when they decide to force you to make decision that you don't want to make.

Expedition Rome is a great game... but it has elements that has made me almost uninstall it.

(spoiler warning) At one point, you are tasked with meeting someone, and you have no choice about it. Instead, the objective is to 'die with honor'... and there is nothing you can do to prevent this. You have to die to progress the story. It doesn't matter how good you fight.

Okay, update on my experimental solar panel battery setup. It actually works...

Let me explain... Earlier I tweeted about how having solar panel in the window, connected to a 20,000 mAh battery, and then charging all my devices ... did NOT work. The battery does not have 'pass through', which means that it cannot charge and discharge at the same time.

https://twitter.com/baekdal/status/1560194159029485568

Imagine that, if a bad person decided to start a political party, the press simply said: "This person is not worth covering in the news".

I know this sounds insane. But just think what that would mean. What if we did not help such people with tons of exposure? Imagine, for instance, when Trump ran for election that we had said: "This person is spewing hate speech and lies, let's not put him in the news". Or when Boris Johnson ran we said: "These things he is saying about Brexit is a lie, let's focus on people who tell the truth".

Here is another example of the insanity of the way news is being covered. Along one of the coasts of Denmark, they discovered elevated levels of toxins. So this is how that's covered:
1: Bathers are advised against direct contact with sea foam
2: No reason to worry about swimming Whut?!?!? I mean, seriously. What is the public going to do with this?

You have just provided them with completely conflicting information ... but the public has no ability to pick which one is accurate.

During this pandemic, I have come to learn about two different kinds of health experts (in my country). The first type of health experts are those used by the media, are very inconsistent, and who have no solution to preventing spreading the virus. It's just ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The other group of health experts is everyone else, who looks at the data, analyzes it, understand the numbers, the trends, the patterns, etc ... and who has been very consistent throughout this pandemic.

Erhm... so, how do you pretty much ensure that we get another COVID wave? Well, you encourage everyone to start spreading it as much as possible, at a time when the numbers are already going up ... while expressing 'hope for a COVID-free summer'. I mean... no... I just give up. We are guaranteed to get another big wave now.

And they even know this will happen. They said this:

BTW: Earlier this year, I predicted that it would be impossible for the Danish government to do anything effective about a fourth wave of COVID, simple because of how public sentiment has been trained to be against such actions.

We will now see how strong that effect is. I would also like to see an apology from all the experts and newspaper editors who told the public that 'just letting everyone get it' would mean that it was the end of COVID (which it clearly isn't).

Here we go again. Let me explain what will happen now. Regardless of what the Prime Minister will say tomorrow, the newspapers will instantly find experts who can provide a completely conflicting view on things ... and so the 'drama' begins.

Call this 'Coronavirus - season 4' And because we in the press will turn this into a new drama show, the problem with news avoidance will grow even further ...

As a media analyst, I have a problem with the way we often talk about 'news deserts' because it can mean very different things.

Some say a news desert is when the old traditional local print newspaper closes down.

But that's not the only way to define that. Another way would be to say that a news desert is when there is no local journalism taking place (as in no local coverage).

Then another way would be to say that no local news is being shared.

And finally, it could mean when a community no longer has access to news.

I see many argue that 'only the vulnerable' should be vaccinated. However, we have tons of data that prove that this strategy doesn't work.

Look at Denmark. In January, we had reached 80% vaccination in the population, meaning every vulnerable person had been vaccinated. So, if "only the vulnerable" needs to be vaccinated, then we can just reopen society and let everyone else do whatever they like... right?

Well, that's what we did, and the result was that the infection rate increased to insane heights, and we doubled the number of deaths (!!)

Okay, I know nothing about this story ... but... why aren't you asking, you know, the newspapers?!?!

No seriously. The newspapers published a story, then removed it... and you ask 'Downing street' where it went? Why are you not asking the Editor in Chief of that newspaper? I mean, the one person who knows why this happen is the Editor in Chief. The journalist who wrote it clearly doesn't know why. Downing street isn't saying anything. But that's irrelevant.

It's the Editor in Chief who knows what is going on. Ask him!

One of the big problems with streaming services is that their portfolio is so inconsistent that no channel really provides what you need.

For instance, Stargate? Nope... nope, and more nope. Or what about Indiana Jones? ... nope, nowhere.

People who have never suffered from actual stress, don't realize how debilitating it is. Let's say you have a simple job that only takes you 3-4 hours to do... but something about it is stressing you out. Now you get this: But, all the non-stressed people say. Just pull yourself together, then focus on it and the job is done. See, no problem?

Well, except... it doesn't work that way. "Pulling yourself together" is another form of stress, which is then added to the first part.