“A man who drinks two drinks every day on average has a one in 25 chance of dying prematurely from alcohol,” a recent, anti-alcohol article concludes. This is just spectacularly bad science disguised as health reporting. The New York Times, which doesn’t report much about New York anymore, is on a mission. Well, missions.
By David Stone, Editor Emeritus and European Bureau Chief
Bias
It’s well established that the Times editorializes in its so-called news content, shielding Trump, for example, in an decades-long effort to keep readers clicking. By now, objective observers understand that that the president is a malicious loon, but the Times has not caught on… or admitted it.
Yes, they criticize him, but the looniest stuff reported elsewhere rarely appears in the Times.
Another example, just from today’s newspaper, shows up when they only list a few, rather than all, of the real estate investors lining up to support Cuomo against Mandami. And they don’t list the companies they run, just in case you might be paying rent to one of them.
What makes the anti-alcohol editorial/article worse is that the Times knows how to do it right, but doesn’t. Their article, earlier this week, about JPMorgan Chase’s dalliances with Jeffrey Epstein was insightful as well as courageous. And their science writing from Carl Zimmer and Dennis Overbye, before his retirement, have been top notch for popular science.
So, What’s With the Anti-Saloon League Slant?
At issue is a move by the federal Dept. of Health and Human Services, retracting a policy paper arguing that every drip of any alcoholic beverage has negative health consequences. Any objective observer would see that as extreme, but anti-alcohol activists see it otherwise.
“They’re burying the report so the information about the health consequences is not widely known,” said Mike Marshall, CEO of the U.S. Alcohol Policy Alliance – “without evidence,” the Times would add in many other cases but doesn’t here.
Early this year, then Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said, “… that drinking directly contributed to 100,000 cancer cases and 20,000 related deaths each year.” Scary, right? But in perspective, which the Times conveniently skips, 3,090,582 died in the U.S. in 2023. And 222, 518 of them died from accidents alone, more than ten times what Murthy projected for alcohol related deaths.
And that’s “alcohol related,” not caused, with alcohol being only a part of the picture. Not so scary anymore, is it?
So, New York Times, where are all those articles about avoiding accidents? They kill a lot more people, don’t they? Where is your concern for those victims welfare?
Here’s another interesting factoid: Neither HHR Commission Robert F. Kennedy nor his boss, President Trump, drink alcoholic beverages. That’s sort of a reverse endorsement, IMO.
The Very Worst Example
Back to my early example: “A man who drinks two drinks every day on average has a one in 25 chance of dying prematurely from alcohol,” is how the Times choses to conclude this slanted article. Did they deliberately save the worst for last?
It’s hard to resist the joke: who is that man? But beyond the joke is the serious journalistic crime of extreme bad reporting. It’s especially egregious because the the sentence is delivered as kind of malicious punch line, right at the end.
First, one in 25 isn’t so bad. That a lousy 4%, hardly worth disrupting your life or even a pleasant dinner of pasta with white wine. But it’s worse because the Times includes nothing about this hypothetical “man.”
How many years has he spent enjoying those tasteful two-a-days? What’s his genetic heritage? Does he work out or even exercise moderately? Is he an overweight couch potato? Is he married? Does he have friends?
The truth is that the Times, for whatever reason, leaves out key mitigating factors. Maybe, it doesn’t know them? But that’s not an excuse for ignoring them.
I’ll close by twisting Thumper’s good advice: If you can’t tell the whole story honestly and without bias, maybe you shouldn’t post it at all. Or call it what it obviously is, an editorial pretending to be objective reporting.
The Other End of the Leash
The first thing winter reveals when it loosens its grip is not green grass. It is honesty.
