Extraordinary Claims Without Extraordinary Evidence [#136]
A real doozy of a week for weak indictments. The debate over the "anxious generation," and the latest troubles at NPR.
Hey all,
Apologies in advance for not providing my usual fare of recommended reads and listens, but it was a weird week. I saw a total solar eclipse from the clear skies of Southern Illinois (Carbondale, to be exact), and it was one of the most moving things I’ve ever experienced. It felt spiritual and I’ll write more on it during a regular edition of the Hu’s letter. Today, something different. Twitter functionally doesn’t exist anymore so I will write you a more-than-tweet-length missive summing up two of the public debates erupting in my corner of the mediasphere/internet.
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Right now, I’d argue he doesn’t have that.”
That was a quote about NYT bestselling author Jonathan Haidt, but it also could be about my former NPR editor Uri Berliner, who this week decided to publicly torch the newsroom he’s been a part of for 25 years.
Haidt first.
His claim of a social media-fueled anxious generation is selling lots of books, and amplified by respected magazines like The Atlantic. Problem is, many researchers who have devoted their careers to the topic of social media and youth are debunking his central thesis: That the use of smartphones and social media have caused a mental health crisis among teens.
Researchers largely agree there is a mental health crisis among young people in the US. (I’m currently reading a book that blames it on the mental health industry itself.)
But bear in mind the larger context:
“The cause of the crisis — and whether it's unique to Gen Z — is contested. “If anything, the mental health of older adults in the US is far worse,” Christopher Ferguson, a psychology professor at Stetson University, told Platformer in an email. “Middle aged white men are three to five times more likely to kill themselves than are teen girls. There's just no evidence for the common but largely mythical idea that somehow young people are more vulnerable to media effects than are adults.”
Platformer wrote an excellent post analyzing the debate and laying out the major questions that emanate from it. While I find it annoying my kids love their time on devices, I try to remember that screens are morally neutral.
hosted a thoughtful podcast episode about way using language like needing a “screen time detox” parallels harmful diet culture in that it demonizes something that is not all good, or all bad, and can lead to a restrict-and-binge cycle with our devices, and fails to teach kids healthy regulation skills. Anyway, check out the Platformer piece to get caught up.Gah, okay, now to Uri.
Uri and I worked together when I was the tech and culture reporter at NPR (before my stint in South Korea). He encouraged some of my more whimsical and memorable reporting, fought for my ideas (even if they involved getting his clothes styled by an algorithm), and we won an award together for coverage of the disastrous healthcare.gov launch. So the notion that THAT Uri is the same Uri behind this bad faith essay about NPR going “astray” with its coverage decisions and diversity efforts is appalling and heartbreaking. It’s made him into some sort of right wing hero, and undermined the trust and goodwill among so many of his colleagues.
The premise is "I'm a lib who worked at NPR for 25 years and it's too lib now." And to support this claim, he lays out a buffet of obvious, verifiable falsehoods. You’ll have to go to Twitter for probably the best rebuttal thread I’ve seen, which takes down all the unchecked claims one by one. Things like:
CLAIM: "The Mueller report found no credible evidence of collusion…”
FACT CHECK: False. Establishing “collusion” was explicitly not the objective of the Mueller investigation. Collusion is not a crime. The Mueller report stated clearly that it was NOT attempting to prove whether or not Trump colluded with Russia, but instead, determining solid proof of criminal conspiracy. New York Magazine:
“Nonetheless, Mueller found extensive evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. The evidence was summarized in a report by Just Security. It uncovered multiple secret meetings and communications between the two, including, but not limited to. Trump campaign officials met with Russian agents in Trump Tower and were receptive to the offer of campaign assistance; Russian agents shared with Trump their plan to leak embarrassing emails; Trump’s campaign manager shared polling data with a figure linked to Russian intelligence; Trump appeared to have advance knowledge of the timing of the release of stolen Russian emails; and the campaign and Russia coordinated a response to Obama administration sanctions punishing Russia for its efforts on Trump’s behalf.”
CLAIM: "I looked at voter registration for our newsroom. In D.C., where NPR is headquartered and many of us live, I found 87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans. None."
FACTCHECK: Misleading, at best. NPR staff live in DC, Virginia and Maryland. He only counts voter registration in DC, and how did he determine the party registration of the people he works with, anyway? Look people up, one by one, based on certainty they resided in DC? Moreover, DC voters can choose “no party affiliation,” which goes unmentioned, and those numbers are excluded. Virginia voters don’t choose an affiliation at all.
CLAIM: NPR has lost audience because of a leftward reporting bias. “In 2011, 26 percent of listeners described themselves as conservative, 23 percent as middle of the road, and 37 percent as liberal. By 2023, the picture was completely different: only 11 percent described themselves as very or somewhat conservative, 21 percent as middle of the road, and 67 percent of listeners said they were very or somewhat liberal… An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don’t have an audience that reflects America. ”
FACT CHECK: Flawed analysis. College educated people have moved away from the political right over the past ten years, which can easily explain the drop in conservatives listening to mainstream news. And, correlation is not causation! Media balkanization is largely driven by a highly profitable right wing media ecosphere at the same time mainstream media faces severe systemic shocks, and it’s no secret we’re in a rapidly polarizing public. This trend started in talk radio, and decades on, it’s been highly effective.
The larger point is the same as it was 13 years ago, when NPR faced a different, very public crisis and calls for defunding. But as Jon Stewart said back then, “They brought a tote bag to a knife fight!” What media thinker and critic Jay Rosen said back then is still relevant:
How can public media develop a strategy or simply a coherent response to the culture war in which it is entangled if it cannot admit to itself or reason publicly with the fact that only one side in the culture war wants to destroy it… and the other one doesn’t? What is public media’s culture war strategy? Not to have one?
As he wrote in the piece, “There are people out there who seek your destruction, and they are not evenly distributed."
What a time to be alive. I write as I am about to take off for Vancouver, where my other employer, TED, is going to have Bari Weiss give a talk. Her Substack publication is the very one that gave Uri a platform to write his largely baseless rant against his colleagues (who are STILL HIS COLLEAGUES)! Awkward.
What do you think about the debate around smartphones and teens? Should we regulate screen time at a societal level, as Haidt is calling for? And what is the proper response to a situation as messy as NPR’s? Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Y’all leave such thoughtful comments. I love our correspondence!
More from Canada next week, or after I’m back.
Exhausted,
E
It was not that long ago that high schools had “student smoking sections” — in my part of the US, this was a thing until the 1980s. Today, we would find such an idea ridiculous. I predict the next generation of parents will view their kids having unfettered access to smartphones as equally absurd. Gen Z and younger Millennial parents will be intensely protective of their children’s privacy. They’ll also know firsthand the perils of giving a 12-year-old a button that broadcasts to the entire planet. This was not something my cohort of parents understood as well 12 years ago. I don’t think there’ll be a complete Luddite U-turn, but I do think future generations of parents will be better equipped to handle — and more cognizant of the need to handle — the challenges of their kids living in a smartphone-enabled world.
Is Uri Berliner going over to the dark side yet another sign of rapidly approaching the End Times?
With Israel and Iran now in a hot war we seem to be about to have a moment in history. I’m reminded of a book from the 1970s I found on the shelves of a friend’s mother called The Late Great Planet Earth which purported to decipher scripture and concluded that the end times would kick off with a war between Israel and Russia/Soviet Union. Is that the West v. the Axis of Evil and China’s opportunity to take Taiwan (only after jiggling the electrode they have planted in North Korea to start some $4!+)? I suppose it's no less of a probability than California joining Texas in rebellion but as long as you’ve secured your spot in Vault 31 or 33 it will be OK? Maybe I should spend more time on social media and less on books, movies and streaming?