The title of the piece we'll examine is "The spectacular rise and fall of Aaron Rodgers." The author is Dean Obeidallah, and the updated version was published January 23 by CNN.
Here's what I won't be doing in this entry. I won't be supporting Aaron Rodgers regarding his use of homeopathy as a path to being "immunized." Homeopathy is junk. I would call it "junk science," but the words "science" and "homeopathy" do not belong in each other's company. There is no mechanism, besides placebo effects, by which homeopathy can work. Whatever The Big Bang Theory's Sheldon Cooper would say about homeopathy, my response will be just as harsh. Don't take my word for it, however. Go search the dozens of homeopathy-debunking articles in Michael Shermer's The Skeptic magazine during the last decade. In summary, I am not defending homeopathy.
I am also not defending Rodgers' squirrely use of the word "immunized" in response to presser questions. That was a dishonest attempt at ducking a question. Of course, the fact that nobody at the presser thought to follow up with "What exactly do you mean by 'immunized?'" speaks to the sophistication of the sports press corps (and yes, Sheldon, that was sarcasm).
I don't know much about the author, Dean Obeidallah, but he seems to be trying too hard in this piece. He butchers something obvious, which CNN editors should have caught immediately. The fact that they did not catch it, or caught it and allowed the piece to publish anyway, is damning. It's not like I read this a dozen times. The obvious botch was evident on my initial read. Obeidallah's journalistic whiff is the centerpiece of this entry, and I'll get to it in a minute. First, however, some comments on Obeidallah's approach to the piece.
Axe to Grind
I don't know what issues Obeidallah has with the Green Bay quarterback, and I don't know if they are personal or imposed by CNN management, but the entire piece comes across as a hatchet job. And I'm not an Aaron Rodgers fan (I mean, homeopathy -- c'mon, man). But the author is off the rails on some self-righteous quest to denigrate Rodgers.
The title, for one thing, is ridiculous. Just ridiculous. The author evidently feels that Rodgers should be measuring himself by social media love as opposed to his professional play. There has been no "fall" for Aaron Rodgers except for social media grief. Green Bay's loss to San Fran had little to do Rodgers' performance. He was fine. Not ultra-sharp, but fine. I say this as someone who has gambled on football professionally for 40 years. There was no Rodgers professional "fall" because the Packers simply lost a game.
Now, if Obeidallah is talking about some Rodgers social media "fall," well, unless Obeidallah has numbers to share regarding percentage of positive versus negative tweets, emails, and so on, then he's just spouting his opinion with not much to back it up. In terms of writing, nothing is easier than sampling social media and cherry-picking whatever you like to make a case for whatever you want to say. Plugging in this and that social media quote to make your case is lazy writing. It's junk "writing" like homeopathy is junk "science."
Propping up an article with cherry-picked quotes is easy and manipulative. If you have social media statistics, share them (not that Rodgers would give a damn). But don't select quotes and slap them together to invent a narrative. That's cheap, junk writing. Basically, the author is using his personal filter to quote the most useful-to-his-spiel social media content, and the author gets to wash his hands of direct responsibility under the guise of "I'm quoting others."
CNN's Journalistic Botch
Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, so I wouldn't have singled out this piece for analysis. Shrillness of tone and righteousness aren't that interesting to me. But what CNN allowed, which I will point out shortly, is either a Journalism 101 botch or cynically manipulative writing with an end justifying the means. I'm going to take the high road for a while and theorize a botch. If Obeidallah didn't catch himself, any CNN editor should have. This was a grade school journalism flub.
I'm going to quote the paragraphs in question, then examine them closely. Obeidallah says, "But instead, Rodgers fumbled badly in late December by again sharing misleading information about Covid. While on a radio show, Rodgers slammed NFL protocols designed to keep players safe as unmerited, saying, 'It makes no sense to me to continue to spread this narrative that nonvaccinated players are more dangerous or these superspreaders, which hasn't been proven to be true.'"
Okay, digest that, and we'll get right back to it. Obeidallah continues, "He (Rodgers) added, 'It's obviously not a pandemic of the unvaxxed.'"
Obeidallah then writes, "In reality, a CDC study last fall found that unvaccinated people were about 4.5 times more likely to be infected with Covid-19 and 10 times more likely to be hospitalized. The NFL's protocols were simply designed to save lives, not play politics."
Alright, I'm going to pause for a moment. I'm going to assume that many if not most readers, like CNN editors, find nothing immediately wrong with Obeidallah's comments regarding the Rodgers' quotes. I am going to do my best Dragnet's Joe Friday imitation and slowly walk through why this is a journalistic and writing fail.
Debunking Obeidallah
First of all, this piece was published January 23, 2022, which means that the dominant strains of Covid in the United States are Delta and Omicron. This matters for a number of reasons. Foremost, it matters because viral load for the vaccinated who are infected with these strains is roughly the same as viral load for the unvaccinated who are infected. This wasn't the case for the original strain. So an unvaccinated person, once infected with Delta or Omicron and in contact with someone, is no more likely to transmit the disease than a vaccinated person. There is some debate, still ongoing, about length of infectiousness varying with Omicron. The debate is whether the vaccinated tend to be infectious for a day or two less than the unvaccinated. The CDC has recently gone quiet regarding that argument. The motive for investigating the possible difference was that the United States had started sending people back to work after five days while most other countries stuck to the 10-day quarantine formula. The U.S. was trying to add leverage to the case for getting vaccinated while also arguing that the vaccinated were not terribly infectious after five days.
What's known is that an unvaccinated infected person has a viral load similar to that of a vaccinated infected person. Just because someone is vaccinated does not mean that, if infected, they spread the disease less. Thus, Rodgers is correct when he says that infected nonvaccinated are no more dangerous than infected vaccinated. This is correct. Vaccinations do not prevent you from transmitting the disease. The unvaccinated are no more superspreaders of the current dominant variants than the vaccinated.
I'll get into R-values another day, but the fact is that we have no public R-values for vaccinated versus unvaccinated infected. There's likely a reason for that, but for now I want to focus on this piece.
Here's the journalistic botch. Obeidallah quotes Rodgers, then follows with his, "In reality, a CDC study last fall found that unvaccinated people were about 4.5 times more likely to be infected with Covid and 10 times more likely to be hospitalized." That line by Obeidallah is a complete non-sequitur to Rodgers, "It makes no sense to me to continue to spread this narrative that nonvaccinated players are more dangerous or these superspreaders, which hasn't been proven to be true." Let me repeat this. Rodgers was correct. Obeidallah's response, to the extent it's meant as a rebuttal to what Rodgers said, is simply a non-sequitur. Rodgers never said anything at all about the likelihood of unvaccinated being infected or anything about hospitalization rates. He simply stated that infected unvaccinated were not more dangerous or more likely superspreaders than infected vaccinated.
There are nuances here that I'll briefly examine and then delve into in a later entry. For example, if it's true that unvaccinated are 4.5 times more likely to be infected, how does that affect the overall context? Well, the likelihood of people being infected or not infected is the result of many, many variables. If the vaccine efficacy rates, which are modest for Delta and Omicron, are correct, then other variables are responsible for the 4.5 times number, if indeed other studies have verified the 4.5. Also, since Dr. Fauci stated on January 13 that "just about everybody" in the U.S. would be infected at some point, that 4.5 times figure is largely irrelevant and may be a statistical snapshot of a particular time many months ago that no longer applies.
More Obeidallah Writing Choices
If Obeidallah had simply followed Rodgers, "It's obviously not a pandemic of the unvaxxed," with the CDC study info, then one could argue that Obeidallah had a point regarding that specific Rodgers line, but that point would rely on one's definition of "pandemic of the unvaxxed." Instead, however, Obeidallah pasted the two Rodgers quotes (one about "not superspreaders" and the other "not a pandemic of unvaxxed") back-to-back, which means that the Obeidallah CDC lines are placed as a rebuttal to both of Rodgers' quotes. This is not a small point.
Obeidallah and CNN's editors chose to place these lines as they did. Had they not meant to attack both of Rodgers' lines by referencing the CDC study, the first Rodgers line about superspreaders would have been placed somewhere else. By implying that the first Rodgers line was somehow debunked by the CDC study, Obeidallah was being dishonest. The CDC study did not contradict the first Rodgers statement in any way.
Obeidallah had every opportunity to mention viral loads for unvaccinated infected being similar to viral loads for vaccinated infected. He and CNN chose to not do that. When writers use non-sequiturs posing as rebuttals and they skip something like viral load info, well, that equals propaganda.
"Pandemic of the Unvaxxed"
The CDC study quoted by Obeidallah opens up the debate about what is meant by a "pandemic of the unvaxxed." The reality is that the unvaccinated may be at more risk for getting infected on any given day, but Dr. Fauci has said we're all going to eventually be infected, so that doesn't really clarify a difference long-term between vaccinated and unvaccinated. What's clear is that the unvaccinated are at much more risk of hospitalization. If you want to define "pandemic" as "who is hospitalized," then it's accurate right now to say it's a "pandemic of the unvaxxed." But if "pandemic of the unvaxxed" is supposed to imply that the unvaccinated are predominant spreaders of Covid, that is, as Rodgers says, unproven. And likely wrong.
Conclusion
I cannot believe that CNN's editors allowed the structure of Obeidallah's piece. The CDC study quotes are meant to anchor the Rodgers-is-obviously-wrong argument, but they are largely a non-sequitur to the gist of what Rodgers actually said.
What's missing from the piece are any discussions of vaccinated/unvaccinated viral loads, transmissibility sameness of vaccinated/unvaccinated with Delta and Micron, and any speculation regarding R-values. Why are these key elements of the discussion missing in action?
The piece is a Rodgers hatchet job, but I don't care about that. What concerns me are the decisions made as to what to say and not say about Covid. When you consider the choices as to what was said, what was skipped, and the tricky sequencing of particular sentences for effect rather than truth value, the overall result is propaganda.
Bob Dietz
February 1, 2022
