Base Rate Fallacy & Media Disinformation

Filed under "I hate everyone", there are now media reporting on how the number of calls to poison control has spiked after Trump's bonkers comments on using disinfectants to cure COVID-19. A sample headline is "A spike in New Yorkers ingesting household cleaners following Trump's controversial coronavirus comments" which I think any reasonable person would interpret as implying a causal relationship between Trump's comments and the spike of cleaner ingestion. This is not true. This is incredibly misleading. There is indeed what you would call a "spike" in that 30 people called NYC's poison control for concerns about potentially ingesting household cleaners, versus 13 around the same time last year. There's no indication the calls were for intentional consumption of household cleaners. Reason Magazine also points out that news reports just now published are mentioning that calls to poison control centers have increased...for the month of March. Not only is there a one month gap, but it also makes sense that when people are home more often (say, for example, during a national lockdown), they're more likely to be exposed to household cleaners.

I know why this happens. Journalists are under intense pressure to generate content which will grab eyeballs, and something as salient as "Trump caused an increase to poison control calls" will inevitably grab their attention. I'm already on record as someone who has a very low opinion of Trump but this conduct by the media is infuriating. This seems like a case of self-inflicted well poisoning, and my impulse is to just yell at them and implore them to stop doing this because it indirectly makes me look like an alarmist jackass whenever I engage in criticizing the president.