You have to listen much more closely than we usually do to catch whatever truths are being whispered

On the fly, I poked fun at this original tweet with

Meaning that Republicans (10%) are three times more open to alternative ideas than Democrats (3%)? Interesting observation. https://t.co/WJc64wxwte

— Charles Bayless (@CharlesBayless) October 9, 2020

The original Pew Research is here and a wonderful example of people being able to read whatever they want to into data simply based on their priors.  Almost every finding has at least two plausible conclusions.  

Take as an example the graph in the tweet above.  

By headlining it as "Republicans who rely a lot on Fox News . . ." Pew frames the issue as if Republicans are the outlier and unusual.  But as noted above, in fact Democrats are the outlier.  A Soviet era level of 97% trust in Izvestia, Pravda and . . . I mean MSNBC, CNN, NPR, etc. is the unusual finding.  

As an aside, that brings to mind the old Soviet joke.  Pravda being Russian for "truth" and Izvestia being Russian for "news".  The rueful quip was "There is no truth in Pravda and no news in Izvestia."

But think about it a bit further and there is a different way of interpreting the very same data.  Perhaps equally plausible.

While all the news sources are nominally national, I would assume that MSNBC, CNN, NPR, NYT and Washington Post are probably far more read in certain states than others.  States like California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois, Connecticut, Rhode Island, etc.  Which are the states which have had the worst policy outcomes as measured by Covid-19 deaths?  New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois, etc.  

If you live in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois, Connecticut, Rhode Island and read those papers reporting on disastrous outcomes in those regions, isn't it reasonable that you would believe that the US has not controlled the outbreak as much as it could have?  

And what about states with relatively low death rates per million for Covid-19?  States such as South Dakota, Florida, Georgia, Texas, Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, etc.?  Is there a big audience for MSNBC, CNN, NPR, NYT and Washington Post in those states?  Probably mush less than those other states.  

And what would any news be reporting in those low death states?  Low deaths per million.  Which would likely support a view that indeed the US has controlled the outbreak as much as it could have.  

So maybe this says nothing about the sophistication or gullibility by party or by news source and much more to do with the degree to which different regions have experience disproportionately different outcomes.  

Data talks but usually you have to listen much more closely than we usually do to catch whatever truths are being whispered.