South Dakota is suffering dreadfully from Covid right now, and Gov. Noem's refusal to support control measures has contributed substantially. In today's @WSJ she has published an editorial claiming that her state is actually doing well.

This is false. https://www.wsj.com/articles/south-dakotas-balanced-covid-response-11607381485?mod=opinion_major_pos5
Opinion | South Dakota’s Balanced Covid Response

They’ve called me ‘reckless’ and a ‘denier,’ but our numbers are much better than those of Illinois, New Jersey and New York.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/south-dakotas-balanced-covid-response-11607381485?mod=opinion_major_pos5
In the editorial, she misleads readers by playing fast and loose with numbers, and cherrypicking data.

Here, for example, she points to a large percentage increase on a small baseline rate in California—ignoring that ever so things are still far better than in South Dakota.
I wrote _Calling Bullshit_ with @jevinwest to help people spot and refute this kind of new-school bullshit based on numbers and statistics instead of rhetorical flourishes and weasel words.

@AaronBlake digs deeper in the Gov. Noem's editorial below. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/12/08/kristi-noem-hails-south-dakota-coronavirus-success-story-using-badly-cherry-picked-numbers/#click=https://t.co/UviLdLdhXR
Analysis | Kristi Noem hails South Dakota as a coronavirus success story — using badly cherry-pic...

In fact, South Dakota has seen one of the worst — if not the worst — outbreaks, including currently having the highest death rate in the country.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/12/08/kristi-noem-hails-south-dakota-coronavirus-success-story-using-badly-cherry-picked-numbers/#click=https://t.co/UviLdLdhXR
I've never published an OpEd with the @WSJ. When I published with the @NYTimes, however, the OpEd went through extensive fact-checking.

I can see how cherry-picking gets by. But how do outright lies—like the comparison between per capital cases in IL and SD—get through?
Printing blatant disinformation is dangerous on a completely different scale than printing the exceptionally poor takes that seem to be core to the @WSJopinion brand.

(TBF, the actual news reporting in the Journal can be very good.)

Time for some soul-searching, @WSJ.
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