A media wired for RFK Jr.

Gil Durán and Don Moynihan point out how the Secretary of Child Murder has been able to exploit journalistic conventions of printing the statements of public officials at face value, which does the job propagandists want done even you you debunk them later in the text:

"Never spread the lie in the headline" should be a hard rule of 21st century journalism. Research shows that repeating lies helps to spread them, and people read headlines more than they read stories.

[image or embed]— Gil Durán (@gilduran.com) Nov 29, 2025 at 5:10 PM

Unfortunately, in US journalism it is considered neutral to spread a lie, but it is considered "biased" to call out a lie. So, there is a structural asymmetry that rewards colorful lies with virality.— Gil Durán (@gilduran.com) Nov 29, 2025 at 5:16 PM

We will have more about the most unethical RFK Jr. media scandal shortly, as the review come in on what is apparently one of the worst heavily-promoted books ever written, but even a lot of the coverage of RFK Jr. on the part of reporters who don’t want to literally have his children has been pretty bad, even as whooping cough and measles make their triumphant return.

…to give a positive counter-example. Kerry Howley’s piece about what it’s like for people with actual expertise who want to save lives rather than cull them to work for RFK Jr.’s HHS is brilliant:

In a meeting he was running on the 12th floor of Building 21, Vaccine Guy’s phone started vibrating so much he checked it while someone else was talking. “I didn’t know you guys were changing the children’s schedule,” read one text. Vaccine Guy didn’t know what that meant: The vaccine schedule had not changed. He gathered there was some video on X he needed to watch immediately; he excused himself from the meeting to watch the video in the hall. “I couldn’t be more pleased,” said Kennedy in his trembling voice, as if through an oscillating fan, “to announce that the COVID vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women has been removed from the immunization schedule.” Vaccine Guy was astonished. Was this real? It was inconceivable that the schedule would change without anyone even consulting his staff.

After a pause, Vaccine Guy thought, Okay: He’s the secretary. He can make a directive even though it’s crazy. He began asking questions. Could he see the data on which the change was based? No, he could not. Could he have a directive in writing? No, the video was the directive. Generally speaking, he thought, we don’t update the national recommendations based.We’ll take it, said Vaccine Guy.

When the email came, it was a two-page memo with no data. The memo, Vaccine Guy realized, did not match the video. The video said “healthy pregnant women.” The memo said “all pregnant women.”

Kennedy, it was clear, did not have cool-blue energy. He was unbothered by ambiguity, unworried about details, comfortable with fast change. The distinction between pregnant women and healthy pregnant women might have felt small to him but was extraordinarily meaningful to people who spent all day with COVID-related data.

The accumulation of evidence on the vaccine was among the COVID Specialist’s proudest and most important contributions to science. It was her opinion that this change would kill people. Babies under 6 months could be protected by the vaccine only in pregnancy. At home, she lost it. She was on the wooden floor of her living room crying. Her husband picked her up off the floor and held her.