Rivas, Williams, and Gay: They were told there wouldn’t be any math on the exam
And yet, this happened. Granted, the math was very very easy. But still, it was math:
New York Times editor Mara Gay and MSNBC’s Brian Williams showed off their superior math skills last night on The 11th Hour.
Mekita [Rivas], a writer at Glamour and The Washington Post, posted that Michael Bloomberg could have used the $500 million he spent on ads on the American people. She said he could have given everyone $1 million and have money to spare.
To make matters worse, Gay and Williams never caught the bad math. You know the producers and editors of the show saw the tweet, but no one said anything.
So we have members of the MSM from the Times, the WaPo, and MSNBC spouting an error so egregious and mindless and elementary (in the sense of maybe, third-graders should have gotten it right) that even if you’ve got a very low opinion of those news outlets it might seem hard to understand how such abysmally stupid and/or careless people could have been employed there.
Although Rivas has written on Twitter that she’s “bad at math,” this goes way beyond that, because it’s also about understanding basic English. There’s really not much math involved when you try to figure out how many people could receive a million dollars out of a pot of five hundred million dollars. “Five hundred” would have to be the answer, and if you get an answer like “every person in the US” you have to know – even if you’re bad at math – that something has gone very very wrong in your complex calculations.
My answer as to how they could be employed there – how this sort of thing could happen, and how Williams and Gay could discuss the tweet without mentioning or recognizing the terrible error – is that thinking is not one of the skills for which they were hired. Whether the mechanism be math or anything else, they are meant to be masters at parroting talking points that hurt the people who are the designated targets of the left. Bloomberg is one of those targets, and anyone who says something against him isn’t necessarily fact-checked even at the most basic level, if it displays the right attitude (in this case, that attitude is putting down the rich and capitalism, and dissing a person who used to be a Republican and is rather conservative compared to the 2020 Democratic field).
That’s the program and they’re sticking with it, although I assume there’s been at least some momentary and fleeting embarrassment from this particular incident. That will pass, but the propaganda will go on.
Sad. News presenters often just read the text, but still, they discussed the tweet, and if they’d thought at all, they would have known this was impossible. “If they’d thought at all” is probably the operative phrase.
By my rough calculation, Mini-Mike could have given 6 quarters to every man, woman and child in the U.S. instead of squandering the half-billion on political ads. This would be sufficient for everyone to purchase 8 bananas at Trader Joe’s, a far better expenditure of funds.
I’ve been fascinated by this all day. Exactly — Williams and Gay aren’t *that* bad at math — they would have to be totally innumerate to be so. If a Republican had made such an error, they would have been all over it before you could say jack rabbit. As Neo points out, it shows that they don’t think about the truth of what they say at all.
Mara Gay seems to have been one of the Times’ crew rolling out the 1619 project, which tells you a lot.
That begs the question are there enough bananas at all the Trader Joe’s, Kroger, etc. for all the people in the US to buy 8 each! Someone can have mine. I don’t like bananas.
I suspect this is due to a combination of innumeracy in the credentialed classes along with a sense of “this is too good to check.”
I had to wonder about the flow of that tweet from its origin to the MSNBC crew. I would think that it went through several people and was flagged for its media impact, I would assume, by some sort of group charged with gatekeeping what is to be blessed for airing. This reminds me of the foobar that happened at Der Spiegel when they published an issue about a Trump supporting town in Minnesota by a award winning journalist. When it was later investigated and the journalist was outed as a fraud by irate readers, Der Spiegel stated that his story got through their vetting process because, amongst other things, it seemed plausible to them.
Thanks for this one Neo. I saw it this morning.
While it is a very bad indicator for those named by Neo, especially Ms. Rivas, there are all those other network people: the producers, editors, and control room people who missed it too.
I suspect it is a little hard not to experience the deer-in-the-headlights mindset when you are literally under the hot lights. But what about those other jokers? Maybe it wasn’t in their job description for the control room folks, but still. Wow.
Bloomberg could do this……….if he could find 327 million Zimbabwean one million dollar notes somewhere.
Or, of course, he could send one dollar each to all 327 million Americans. But if the dollar bills were sent by USPS, it would cost Bloomie around $164 million for the postage. Generous gesture, yes. Life changing? Hardly.
Bloomberg’s $500 million did improve the lot of a whole cadre of political operatives and the bottom lines of many TV stations. So, he did stimulate a certain portion of the economy.
They say Bloomberg is worth about $60 billion. If he shared his total fortune with 327 million people, they would receive about $183.48 per person. Again, hardly life changing.
Don’t tell the progs about this. They KNOW that the billionaires have all the money that they need to implement their social justice programs. Reality isn’t their thing.
I particularly enjoyed John Noonan’s take: “Everyone (rightfully) dunking on the math here, but my God, let’s assume the math was right — no basic understanding of the inflationary effects!?”
Couldn’t stop laughing so much good fun. And for free! Doesn’t cost a dime.
Well they are just using Bernie Sandners, Elizabeth Warren, and AOC maths (hat tip to EU arithmetic). Same maths that work for funding Medicare for All, Green New Deal, and Free College Tuition. Joe Biden doesn’t do maths at all, he forgets which fingers and toes he is …..
In my long years of reading newspapers I’ve come to the conclusion that most news is sensation not information, reporters are fundamentally stupid, and they are all innumerate and need to take their shoes and socks off to count to eleven.
Nothing can embarrass Brian Williams.
Mara Gay = One of A.G. Sulzberger’s identitarian all-stars.
How many times have I been reminded of Ben Rhodes’s quote?
Quite a few times. (Though in the case of Ben “Creative Writing” Rhodes, it was a case of the blind commenting on the blind. Compare Ben’s national security qualifications to those of Henry Kissinger…)
In contrast to the abysmal quality of so many journalists today, I am reminded of four hometown high school peers who went into journalism. Three were National Merit Finalists. I don’t know about the fourth’s Merit scores, but as he has authored several books, he is bright enough.
Clueless? Nothing tops
Sum Ting Wong
Wi Tu Lo
Hol E ___k
Bang Ding Ow
What annoys me the most is that these people think the deplorables are stupid mouth breathers who are married to their cousins.
“That will pass, but the propaganda will go on.” – Neo
“The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on” sort of thing — that makes us the dogs, I guess, but most (not all!) people value the canine critters. The caravan in the proverb doesn’t necessarily have to be carrying good things.
* * *
parker on March 6, 2020 at 5:57 pm said:
What annoys me the most is that these people think the deplorables are stupid mouth breathers who are married to their cousins.
* * *
To wit, on the COVID in Iran thread:
Xennady on March 6, 2020 at 12:07 am said:
“Bubba thinks those toothpicks are for his teeth as he grabs 3 pieces with his grubby fists to chow down upon.”
It’s enraging to see how often these think-tank minions attack Americans as dirty savages.
This discussion was inspired by a deadly disease that very likely originated in either a so-called “wet’ market where our foreign betters chop up just about every species of mammal for consumption without any sort of sanitary considerations whatsoever, or in a virology lab that had safety protocols so lax that this deadly disease escaped by mere accident, killing vast numbers yet undetermined.
But no, Americans, we’re the problem.
**** you, Hoover.org, and all your globalist friends.
* * *
Mick on March 6, 2020 at 4:04 pm said:
I had to wonder about the flow of that tweet from its origin to the MSNBC crew….When it was later investigated and the journalist was outed as a fraud by irate readers, Der Spiegel stated that his story got through their vetting process because, amongst other things, it seemed plausible to them.
* * *
Good catch.
How far we have fallen in these latter days!
At least Dan Rather claimed his GWB-National Guard fantasy was “Fake but accurate.”
* * *
And there’s more!!
From a Tweet in the LI post Neo linked:
Neo had the final word in the comments:
Neo | March 6, 2020 at 10:04 am
“Stupid is as stupid does” — Forrest Gump
I love LI commenters sometimes.
Exiliado | March 6, 2020 at 9:38 am
And these people wake up every single day to go out there and tell us how much smarter than us they are, and they expect us to do, and say, and vote and live as they say, because you know, they’re so much smarter and stuff.
And it’s their job to do that.
And stuff.
Obie1 | March 6, 2020 at 12:03 pm
Well, if you subtract the 150 million who were killed by guns, the per person dollars go up.
Leslie Eastman | March 6, 2020 at 10:07 am
As this is a NYT editor, I would like to point out that if you consider the 1619 Project, the NYT is still better at math than it is history.
5under3 | March 6, 2020 at 11:52 am
All the billionaires in the US are only worth in the neighborhood of $3 trillion. If we confiscated every penny of their collective wealth, that would be less than $10,000 per person in the US, less than one year of current annual federal spending and less then 15% of the national debt.
That last one reminded me of Bill Whittle’s somewhat more accurate l33t math skilz:
https://billwhittle.com/eat-the-rich/
Regardless of math skills, although it is such an obvious correlation it is inexcusable at the most basic foundations of numeracy, any thinking adult would simply know it’s not true from common sense. Ignoring the size of numbers, or division based on the information in the story they knew it was just a fraction of his net worth, so why wouldn’t a rich man do something like that? If Mike Bloomberg could make every man, woman and child in America a millionaire simply by writing a check from a tiny fraction of his income he would be the stingiest human to live if he did not do that.
It’s not the failure at math that bothers me, it’s the ignorance of logic, the lack of reasoning. It’s not a calculation error, nor stage fright due to cameras and klieg lights, it’s a complete lack of any sense of reason or proportion.
Cap’n Rusty,
I wondered about that. In addition to the obvious puns, if that’s what they are, in the names which anybody should have caught, this was in a city full of East Asians. And Asiana is a South Korean firm. To the extent that the jokes sounded like Chinese, they didn’t sound like Korean. One writer said Korean sounds like “ham hock dip stick”.
How many people let this go past them? Somebody had to type it into the teleprompter as the last gatekeeper. Was he in on it? Give the talking head credit, maybe that was the first time he’d seen that graf and had to take it as given. But…how many let this most obvious joke pass?
Bringing this back to math…how many people saw this before the big shots tripped over it? How many, as neo said, didn’t even see it as words, as opposed to math (320 million goes into 500 million isn’t math)?
To the extent this happens, is there some underground of flunkies who want to let airhead news readers shoot themselves in the foot? They don’t have to make stuff up; they merely have to let the occasional opportunity pass unremarked. And, presuming this is the case–please, Lord–it works because they know how dumb the multimillionaire talking teleprompters are. And they’re right.
Wait — you can get 8 bananas for 6 quarters? Who knew?
And let’s not forget how much the “news media” reminded us over and over and over that Dan Quayle cannot spell potato(e)!
8 * 19¢ = $1.52
So no, you can’t get 8 bananas for 6 quarters at Trader Joes. Not at my local, anyway.
Fake News!
Feelings are truth: math is racist.
Too many “feel” like, for no other reason than that they are Americans (or humans?), they should get a million dollars.
Even if it’s other people’s money. (Especially?)
This is the American heart of socialism – all should be rich.
There’s a European heart, too – nobody else should be richer. Envy. Wanting to take away the good fortune or wealth of others.
Thanks to J.J. for the $183 math.
I couldn’t help but imagine if the US Treasury would write every voter a check for $1,000,000. The inflation would be very interesting to watch… best left to Venezuela or Zimbabwe.
Babylon Bee buzzes a new game show:
https://babylonbee.com/news/brian-williams-to-host-new-game-show-are-you-smarter-than-a-journalist
A reminder from CTH commenter – they should learn to do gumball math.
https://youtu.be/KCcFNL7EmwY
Some good news – Trump campaign has filed suit against CNN for false & defamatory statements against the Trump campaign.
https://pjmedia.com/trending/trump-campaign-files-multi-million-dollar-defamation-lawsuit-against-cnn-over-russia-collusion-claims/
In the case of alleged defamation against a public figure like the Trump campaign, the campaign would have to prove malicious intent and a reckless disregard for the truth.
The truth is that there was malicious intent, and there was reckless disregard for the truth.
Justice would be that CNN loses. Probably at the SCOTUS level.
Trump fights. Christian Capitalist Civilization needs a fighter to fight for so many good things. (Things are so good, those who want to be unhappy make up bad things to be unhappy about.) It’s a bit of a failure that so many folk choose to be unhappy.
Tom Grey. Yes, CNN is and did all those things. So they can’t afford discovery. I don’t know what the Trump campaign will settle for, but they don’t need to settle.
The Sandmannn setttlement was to avoid discovery. Presumably it was to keep the public from reading endless emails in the theme of “let’s screw this racist kid even if all he did was wear that stupid hat”
Minneapolis settled $50 million on the family of Justine Damond in the matter of a Somali cop shooting her. That’s a lot of money to avoid discovery that they shoved this guy through the cop thing despite red flags…for “diversity”.
“settle” has a meaning which includes the implication that the injured party has some reason, if only emotional closure, to “settle”. The Trump campaign has no such need.
The left have bullied through lawfare for decades.
It’s disruptive to the common good, and a below the belt tactic, but the right is waking up to the necessity. You have to engage the enemy on the field of battle and sometimes you cannot choose the field.
It’s democrat math. It’s how Bernie and Elizabeth know they can pay for all that free stull with a little tax on stock market speculation.
When I was an undergrad the education majors were notorious for being the dumbest kids on campus. We didn’t have a journalism school so I can’t make a comparison of who is dumber, but these J school majors don’t seem to be any brighter than teachers.
So we have members of the MSM from the Times, the WaPo, and MSNBC spouting an error so egregious and mindless and elementary (in the sense of maybe, third-graders should have gotten it right)
are we talking third grade in the patriarchal evil era or now in the modern feminist education system?
the modern one is the one manufacturing that kind of math understanding..
where the idea of proper spelling is racist… (seriously)
The Common Core makes simple math more complicated. Here’s why.
https://www.vox.com/2014/4/20/5625086/the-common-core-makes-simple-math-more-complicated-heres-why
and thats LEFT leaning press…
but then again, all this ignores what Cheryl Iserbyte and others say we dont discuss… and have said since the REAGAN administration… but one day, we will all be equally stupid the way we will all be equally wealthy..
its what the feminist, lgbt, and all that is about… isnt it?
Cant make us all into richard feynmans (evil white guy anyway), so what is the alternative?
the horror when i found out there were students entering medical school who could not do the basic math necessary to even prescribe.. or figure out dosage differences in active ingredients. (did you know they are the same for children’s Tylenol and adult Tylenol… its just one is in metric and the other in the other system? i remember sitting down with my pediatrician and doing the math together in my office… he thanked me as that would save a lot of poor families money, and he never realized it…(whether this is true today i do not know, my son is over 30, and i threw away the eye dropper ages ago) )
It’s been said before: “Journalist” is the wrong appellation for these people. We need a new term. I wouldn’t include “news” in this new label, since the word denotes knowledge w/ some associated accuracy. “Event” seems the better term. Event (What?) Event Talker, Event Chatter, Event Presenter?
Ah heck, Estoy, what’s wrong with “propagandists”? Seems a fitly English word to me.
Artfldgr,
A friend teaches nursing. She says most do not understand concepts like 1/2, 1/4. Most.
It is truly frightening.
These high-falutin tv people with their cipherin and yammerin. I wish I could be as smart as thems…….
What if Bloomberg actually HAD given everyone a Million Bucks?
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1235920036340142081.html
And so forth.
What’s even more amazing is the answer was right in the money amount they were saying. $500 million. Which even an MSNBC dunce should understand means 500 x (1 million). And they wonder why their irrelevance has become more and more obvious.
Does anyone else remember a bunch of people making the same mistake a couple of years ago when we had the billion-dollar lottery?
Aesop, just above: I know of a whole bunch of really smart people (some of them not nuts) who are teetering over the BIG precipice, and then there are so-called “Bleeding-heart Libertarians” (including Profs of Philosophy like Jason Brennan, Matt Zwolinski, Roderick Long *ugh*, …) who need to read and absorb this little point from your quote:
Thanks for the quote. :>))) And the link — the whole Tweet is very good. 😀