A partisan reporter trying to score political points to the detriment of the public epistemic process

Its just another tit-for-tat between a partisan media and and dubious classical liberals.  It is both bad behavior but also an example of the loss of relevance of the mainstream media in ordinary citizen epistemic questing.  

In this instance, a CNN reporter wants to shame the Florida governor de Santis based on her perception of failure.  Her whole framing of her question is to ask a point scoring gotcha question rather than to understand and illuminate.  She is a political adversary rather than a reporter seeking information for her public.  

Ron DeSantis is the Governor.

Rosa Flores is the CNN reporter.  She has information that there have been long vaccine lines in Duval, Broward, Orange and Lee Counties.  She wants to know why there were those long lines.

"Governor, what has gone wrong with the rollout of the vaccine that we've seen phone lines jammed, websites crash –"

Flores is starting with an attack, presuming something has gone wrong.  She is not asking a neutral question such as 'Governor, it has been difficult to get through on the phone, the website keeps crashing, and there are long lines in some counties.  Why is that happening?'

De Santis begins his response.  "Demand is high."  Too quick off the mark perhaps, but he is providing an answer.  Flores interrupts to clarify her question.  DeSantis is impatient, sensing her gotcha attack.  There is some back and forth and then Flores repeats her question but with a small addition.  Hardly worth the time suck.

Reporter:  Governor, what has gone wrong with the rollout of the vaccine that we've seen phone lines jammed, websites crash, and also we've seen seniors waiting overnight for the vaccine.

The Governor turns the table on her.

Reporter:  We've seen seniors waiting overnight for the vaccine.

Governor:  Where was that at?

Reporter:  We've seen it in Duval, Broward, Orange and Lee Counties.
 
Governor:  Like in Lee, why did that happen?  Did you investigate why?

Reporter:  That's my question to you, governor. You're the governor of the state. I'm not.

Governor:   OK, but you didn't investigate why . . .  how that happened in Lee County, why there was a big line?  Did you investigate why?

Reporter:  Could you tell us why?
 
Governor:   Because we distributed vaccine to hospitals and hospitals said 'first come, first serve, if you show up, we'll do it.' They didn't use the registration system so there wasn't anything that was done and there's a lot of demand for it.  

Reporter:    So are you saying there is no plan from the State to make sure seniors didn't wiat outside overnight?

Governor:   The state is not dictating to hospitals how they run their operation. That would be a total disaster . . . These guys here are more competent to deliver health care services than a state government ever could be.

Clearly, the reporter is letting her partisan advocacy role get in the way of her reporter role.  There is a real and important question to be asked, but she is sacrificing that question for a gotcha question.

DeSantis is wily and makes sure that the attack is seen for what it is.   He puts her on point - you say you saw long lines, did you ask why there were long lines?  In other words, did you do any investigating that most people would expect of a reporter?  She clearly either did not do any investigating or she was embarrassed to admit she already knew the answer to her gotcha question.

The real question is a meaty one - Which method is better for ensuring rapid vaccine inoculation; going through state agencies or going through the existing medical infrastructure such as hospitals?  The governor has chosen to make the vaccine available to and through the existing medical infrastructure rather than attempt a wholesale state agency distribution system.

That is a consequential and legitimate question.  I cannot, and I suspect no one can, declare with unimpeachable evidence that the answer is one way or the other.

I am guessing that deSantis has the better argument.  State and Federal agencies have had a very bad track record for delivering anything expected of them this year - from straightforward and consistent advice on mask wearing, to approval processes, to forecasts of death rates, etc.  It has been one reputational disaster after another.   And even contemporaneously, New York's roll out of the vaccines seems to be a disaster in the making.

Will the existing Florida health infrastructure make some bad mistakes?  Quite possibly.  Will they do better than some centralized command and control plan as executed in New York? Quite likely.  

And given the disastrous CDC decision to distribute the vaccine based on race rather than on efficacy in lowering the death rate (a decision now reversed), why would anyone trust a state agency to make ethical or efficacious decisions.

The public should be provided an answer to the real question.  Which is something along the lines of 'We do not have a centralized planning mechanism to ensure that only the elderly get this vaccine first.  Our experience has been that central planning solutions are more expensive and also more likely to fail than if we use our existing health infrastructure.  For these reasons, we are going through the local health systems and are monitoring the outcomes and we will make adjustments as we see failures.'

It is a debatable decision and a debate worth having.  I am inclined to believe DeSantis made the better decision than the central planning decision Flores would have preferred.

But all that is subtext lost in a partisan reporter trying to score political points to the detriment of the public epistemic process.