Something very strange happened yesterday. Some site or sites on Facebook reposted a post I wrote, saying that the CDC recommended an eight-week recess for schools. This was not my opinion. It was based on an article in the New York Times.
My original post began:
Erica Green of the New York Times writes today that the federal government has finally offered directions for schools faced with the global pandemic:
WASHINGTON — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised schools on Friday that closings for at least eight weeks might be the most effective way to contain the coronavirus. The Education Department released school districts from a slew of testing and accountability measures required by federal law.
The story in the Times still opens with this statement.
Our reader Laura Chapman did her own fact-checking and wrote a comment saying that the Times story did not fully represent what the CDC recommended. Here is the CDC guidance for schools.
As soon as I saw Laura’s comment, I read the CDC guidance and promptly posted the full CDC guidance.
I have since inserted the CDC guidance into the original post, in hopes of setting the record straight.
However, my original post was broadly distributed, and I don’t know by whom.
On a typical day, I get about 4,000-10,000 page views. That one post has received more than 700,000 views, and the number keeps growing. The correction has been viewed about 6,000 times.
I tried to correct the initial strong statement, but the original story far outran the correction with the text of the CDC guidance.
I was reminded of this quote: “A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on.”
When I googled, I learned that this quote has often been attributed to Mark Twain, but this too is fake.
And as some readers noted, attributions on the Internet are not reliable anyway.
Whom can you trust in these times? At least for now, actual scientists, like the CDC.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
You can’t kick yourself for their mistake. After all, didn’t our “Lord and Master” call it “the failing New York Times?”
To probably fake quote a more recent pop icon “With great power comes great responsibility.” NYT’s power is much greater than any of ours. Possibly complain to their editors and get them to issue a correction?!?
For the record, I think I was not the only reader who said that the NYTimes missed the mark in reporting CDC guidance. I think I provided a link to the CDC. guidance. In any case the rapid uptake of Diane’s first post from the NYTimes compared to her normal traffic is a terrible reminder of the way misinformation travels and corrections do not.
Today is the frst day of my new routine with a temperature check and staying housebound as much as possible. Be safe and be kind, especially to workers who are likely to be out of a paycheck or job.
Laura,
Thank you for posting the link to the CDC guidance. As you can see by reading the letter from Erica Green, she thought no correction was necessary and that her account was accurate. It’s not an easy call. When I read the CDC statement, I did not think that it unequivocally declared that schools should close for at least eight weeks. It seemed to me that it offered a variety of options, depending on circumstances. But the more I reflect, the more I think that schools are unlikely to reopen for many weeks. So she may have been right. This is a pandemic, we don’t have the supplies we need to deal with it, testing for it has been sluggish, and the government response has been confused and halting. We are operating in a new world, and no one knows when the disease will peak or end.
Have you read: “My Life in Italian Isolation”
Her last sentence: “Maybe doctors are right. We are in a warlike situation.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/11/my-life-in-italian-isolation-coronavirus-125465
Diane: “This is a pandemic, we don’t have the supplies we need to deal with it, testing for it has been sluggish, and the government response has been confused and halting.”
This writer agrees with you.
How the Coronavirus Pandemic Fuels Trump’s Autocratic Instincts
By Masha Gessen, The New Yorker
15 March 20
The biggest gift the coronavirus pandemic may give Trump is the opportunity to envelop an ever greater number of people in his reality
Donald Trump has a limited repertoire. When it comes to governing, he does five things: perform grand gestures, obfuscate and lie, engage in self-praise, stoke fear, and issue threats. The first four of these were on display in the President’s Wednesday-night address on the coronavirus crisis. The grand gesture was his announcement that he is banning travellers coming in from Europe. The obfuscation and lying came when he boasted of “responding with great speed and professionalism” and promised more widespread testing, effective antiviral therapies, and that insurance companies would waive all co-payments for treatments…. None of this is true…
After weeks of dismissing the threat of a pandemic and of continuing to obsess about his own personal grievances, he finally sounded grave. This was, in other words, one of those times when Trump sounded Presidential to some people, because he didn’t sound entirely deranged…
Writing in The Atlantic, the conservative commentator David Frum enumerated the things Trump failed to do in his speech. He offered no guidance for local authorities on issues such as public events and school closures. He gave no accounting of what has gone wrong with the federal response so far. He gave no specifics on the government’s plans for helping people who will certainly face extreme financial hardship as a result of the crisis. In other words, the only attribute of political leadership observable on Wednesday was Trump’s ability to read from a teleprompter. Meanwhile, our lack of an actual functioning President has slowed down local responses. Trump’s habit of obfuscating has translated into classifying essential information, which also handicaps the country’s ability to deal with the virus. And, of course, his grand gesture of closing European air travel sent the markets tumbling, exacerbating what will surely be the catastrophic economic consequences of the coronavirus.
The immediate consequences of peak Trumpism in the public sphere are equally predictable and eminently observable: insufficient information, false information, and muddled information about the pandemic. Fox News has largely echoed Trump’s Twitter messaging, downplaying the seriousness of the COVID-19 threat. A different sort of misinformation has spread in the form of letters and social-media posts written by pseudoscientists, including one full of useless advice attributed, falsely, to someone at Stanford. (I have also seen this letter in Russian, attributed to a Russian infectious-diseases doctor.) Then there is the false information spread by Trump himself and seconded by Vice-President Mike Pence, who went on CNN to continue muddying the waters where Trump left off. Finally, there is the muddled information that emerges from pointedly restrained coverage, such as that practiced by the Times, which creates false equivalencies between Trump’s lies and scientific facts. Take this headline: “Trump Suspends Most Travel from Europe to Try to Limit Virus.” That is a close-enough paraphrasing of what Trump said. But does Trump really believe that that is what he is doing? Does the Times believe that he believes it? If not, then why transcribe his statements as fact? (“No one thinks this policy has anything to do with public health,” Gregg Gonsalves, the epidemiologist, Yale professor, and MacArthur Fellow, wrote on Facebook, in all caps.)…
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-the-coronavirus-pandemic-fuels-trumps-autocratic-instincts?utm_source=onsite-share&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=onsite-share&utm_brand=the-new-yorker
I don’t think that necessarily qualifies as “fake news”.
It is quite possible (and probable) that the Times honestly got the CDC guidance wrong.
And I suspect that people regularly repost things that you post without checking and probably don’t check afterward for corrections.
Does not mean anyone is purposefully spreading false information, which I would say is the definition of “fake news”.
I agree. I think “fake news” includes an intent to deceive or mislead.
perhaps we need new categories of distinction
Fake news: news produced by fake journalists; purposefully deceptive
Flake news: news produced by flake journalists; incompetently deceptive
In any case, an 8 week closure of schools seems responsible to me. If we don’t do this NOW, who knows how many people will die because of an overwhelmed medical system.
Schools are closing for two weeks. I don’t see how that will help at all. In two weeks, it is very likely that the coronavirus will be much worse than it is today.
I don’t have the answer as to what schools are supposed to do.
What are schools in Spain, France and Italy doing? They might provide some guidance?????
The medical system will definitely be overwhelmed. This country is not at all prepared and the delays caused by an inept administration is going to be deadly.
The NYTimes people are professionals–they are supposed to be careful about such things. But it certainly is a cautionary tale. And BTW, that quote attributed to Mark Twain does SOUND like something he would say. CBK
I agree that it certainly sounds like something Mark Twain might have said.
Besides, it is quite possible that what some “internet quote expert” has claimed was misattributed to Mark Twain is something that Mark Twain actually said.
Of course, you can’t believe everything you read on the internet, but that applies to quotation attribution sites too.
And, it really does not matter whether Mark Twain said it or not. Who really cares? — other than the “quote police” who apparently we’re around Mark Twain with a tape recorder for his entire life and therefore are sure never said was is claimed.
The whole “debate” about attribution is absurd.
Poet I think the point is that the quote is, indeed, quotable . . . for the truth it conveys.
I’m just watching CNN and they have “commissioned a new film about disinformation.” Good idea. All of us need to remember the difference between just thinking or hearing something, and (a) having evidence for it and/or (b) knowing our source, their believe-ability, and their track record for being authentic and diligent about conveying truthful information.
I’m thinking of an acquaintance of mine who STILL just believes everything she hears and (bordering on madness) thinks that if she MERELY THINKS X, then X must be true. Mere plausibility MUST TRANSLATE to being TRUTH. Nothing seems to detract her or to inspire whatever discernment might be sleeping (or apparently dead) in her soul. CBK
“The internet can give you a million quotations. A book can give you the right one.” —Abraham Lincoln
The tweet’s the thing, wherein we’ll catch the conscience of the King — Omlet
If the Quote police are going to get nitpicky, so am I
“Mark Twain ” never said or wrote a damned thing because Mark Twain was not a real person.
“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the—it’s the beginning of—this end is the beginning of this end and that end is the ending of that one—fool me once, shame one this end—fool me twice, shame on the beginning.” —George W Bush
“Won’t get fooled again” — The Why
There’s a commissioner of baseball, Why. And by the way, Who’s on first base.
LCT Noooo . . . Who is on third base. Oh . . . wait . . . . CBK
I Don’t Know who’s on third.
Left I told you, Who is on third. CBK
Erica Green stands behind the accuracy of the original article. Read the CDC guidance.
And then acts outraged when you correct your post on the basis of a more careful reading (thank you, Laura Chapman) of the CDC info?!
A name for the general nonsense behind “testing for accountability” ——– Naive Empiricism
Blind Naive Empiricism
Blind, naive, naked Emperoricism
I saw your initial post and then the correction. I had shared the original so I deleted it. No big deal. These things happen on the internet. However, this morning the Ohio Governor Mike DeWine interviewed on cable news and he said he would not be surprised if Ohio schools did not reopen this year. We had trips planned with our grandkids in both April and June. They live in Ohio and we now anticipate the venue for our trip will close in April and they’ll have all summer school to make up missed months.
I planned a trip to Mexico City with my grandson during spring break and had to cancel it. I sympathize.
We can’t go anywhere.
I’m glad Governor DeWine acted quickly.
No one knows how long this crisis will go on.
Protect yourself, your children, your family, your community, strangers.
We are all in this together.
There is inevitably going to be some confusion given what is going on. A lot of confusion. Sometimes chaos. And, of course, the internet world we live in amplifies all that. But aside from the people being crooks, outright jerks or otherwise acting dishonorably, we’ve got to cut each other some slack. And, ourselves, too.
I was just standing in the parking lot of the supermarket down in our small town talking to a longtime friend -a mother of one of my son’s classmates from when he was in elementary school many years ago. (We needed to make our Sunday trip for the NY Times and milk. The usual.)
My friend was taking a break from working inside the market. They’d been hit hard yesterday, she said, the parking lot was completely full. But shelves in the market today are basically restocked. The manager had posted limits on certain items….eggs, for example.
Meanwhile, the local pizza place across the street has sent out word that they will be offering free pizza and sandwiches to local kids who need it for lunch. (This is a family with very close ties to Italy. And, the owner’s wife survived cancer a few years back. They have always been there to help out and are doing so again.)
Yeah, this is how we beat this thing.
Cheers for that. Art, humor, and kindness will save us.
Absolutely.
I was just thinking about the minor screw ups I’ve made the last couple days because I’m so tired and preoccupied. For example, I got home from the store and forgot to put the milk in the fridge for a while.
My wife came in from her night shift and was hunting all around for the backpack she took out of the car seconds before Where could it be? We looked everywhere. (Turns out under the coat she had just taken off.) She has a job caring for young adults…and can’t stay home at least at this point. She’s more exhausted than ever.
Its gonna happen. Mistakes. All we can do is try to be careful. And, listen to people who have good, factual advice for us.
LIST TO MYSELF: Dumb Things I’ve Done in the Past that I Want to Avoid Doing Now.
-Fall out of a tree
-Spray Christmas snow in my own eyes (did it in July, yes, July when I was in 7th grade. And, that was a nasty chemical in that fake snow can 45 years ago.)
-Put the spare tire on the car the wrong way
-Paint myself into a corner. (Wish I could say I did it back in junior high)
The list goes on and on…
And, you know, It actually crossed my mind a couple weeks ago when I saw this crisis emerging that I could use a few potential weeks off from school to shingle the roof. (It’s three stories up by the garage on my house.)
No. Really, no. Bad idea.
Take it easy, folks.
John . . . a good time to catch up on all that reading. It also shows the value of having real books. CBK
I just downloaded a free copy of the Decameron. Love Gutenberg Press
You only passed on information that you knew to be correct. Thank you for the clarification. John, I love your “dumb ideas” postings—we all have them. I left a bag of groceries in my car that could not be salvaged.
I tend not to believe information from the Washington Post and New York Times. Mark Levin’s book “Unfreedom of the Press” opened my eyes regarding the bias opinion, propaganda, group think and partisan political thought so prevalent in journalism today. Integrity and objectiveness is a thing of the past, and in the case of the Times—perhaps was missing far longer than we care to admit. Thank you and stay well, Dianne
Diane, how many posts have you published and how many views has your blog had?
I think that the Deformers, and/or Putin’s agents, and/or ALEX, and/or the Walton machine, et al … has someone watching your site 24/7 reading everyting carefully to find a misstatement, any slip, that they could take advantage of in an attempt discrediting you and your site.
After several years, thousands of posts, and tens of millions of views, they had to wait a long time to find what “they perceived to be the slip they had been waiting for to act.”
These deformers must have been very desperate because (no matter what that reporter said to you in her letter) “8 weeks” is a better time out, than “2 or 3 weeks” to disarm COVID-19 and provide time to come up with a vaccine.
Lloyd,
I have posted nearly 25,000 posts, received nearly 600,000 comments (read every one), had nearly 35 million page views since starting the blog. I have made some mistakes. When I do, I correct them as soon as possible. I have no hesitation admitting error, and it is easy to fix, since I’m online, not in print.
In the media (print and broadcast), when a mistake is discovered, the practice is to post a correction and/or an apology. However, many major media outlets often bury the admission and do not place it on the front page where it belongs. The same audience that read the original piece that needed correcting doesn’t get a chance to see the correction.
Yesterday, I witnessed you going far beyond what the media does when a similar issue comes up and you repeatedly posted links to the correction. You posted these corrections and links many times, probably too many to count.
Diane
This is what trust is all about. We trust you. And, no doubt, every person reading and responding to your posts for years has made their share of mistakes; misquotes by accident; definitely misquoted; or gotten and cited some bad information. It happens.
But just like you, your readers are teachers, leaders, researchers and professionals. They, like you, are trusted. And you know, a mistake is sometimes a mistake. Not phony. Not fake. Not contrived. No motive. A mistake. We trust you.
On the contrary, this president and his loyalists (some of whom love to take shots in these replies – say whatever they want whenever they want to appease the audience. Then “walks it back” – claims “oh, he didn’t really mean that” – scapegoats (v.) – or my favorite, “the experts are wrong.” DACA. Changed his mind. Bump-stocks. Didn’t really mean it. Ukraine. Never said it. Bad guy fill in the blank. Never met him.
And, noted often in responses, this is why we teach critical thinking (even though the gop thinks it is a socialist conspiracy) – why we teach science (remember science) – and Postman and Weingarten’s borrowed from Hemingway “crap detecting.” Professional critical friends do critical reading.
p.s. And, as the poster says “You can’t believe everything you read on the internet” – Abe Lincoln.
Thank you, JH.
JH Way to go ABE! CBK