Less Defensiveness, More Honesty From the Press, Please
Yes, members of the press and Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. No, the media does not want to acknowledge that.
Over the weekend, Vice President Pence made the rounds on the Sunday Shows and from CNN to NBC, they grilled him on the President, his son, and other conservatives (myself included) “claiming” Democrats were weaponizing COVID-19 into a partisan matter.
Chuck Todd wanted names. Brian Stelter, on his CNN show “Fox News Sucks,” had several left-leaning voices attack Republicans for daring to claim Democrats were behaving in a partisan manner about the virus.
Here is Oliver Darcy from CNN claiming only people on Fox News are politicizing the virus.
Well, there are the various columnists at the New York Times who have taken to referring to the virus as the “Trumpvirus” and blaming the President for its spread.
There are the reporters who claimed Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had been silenced by the administration. There’s Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA) who went on TV to amplify the suggestion that Fauci had been silenced.
Media reporting about Anthony Fauci was so intense that even Joe Biden went on CNN and repeated that the experts were being silenced and no one at CNN corrected him. In fairness to the press, Fauci’s appearances did get canceled after the Vice President was put in charge, including some previously scheduled appearances. It is clear now this was to coordinate messaging, but that did not stop multiple Democrats and members of the press (see Re. Garamendi mentioned above) from suggesting there really was a muzzling despite what both Fauci and the White House said.
UPDATE: Having talked to several journalists, I have to concede here that the White House did botch the Fauci matter. He really did get taken off several shows and, in at least one case, was replaced with someone else. The White House claims it was to ensure message coordination and Fauci himself says he was not “muzzled.” But the White House handled that badly including leaving several programs hanging with no explanation. There was a legitimate reason for the press to presume Fauci was muzzled and, arguable, he was technically muzzled when yanked at the last minute from several appearances with no explanation.
There are the Democrats who claimed the President had cut the budget for the CDC and the National Institutes of Health. Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and others made those claims even though it wasn’t true. That forced the Associated Press to issue a fact check that defended the administration. The AP headline dares to suggest the Democrats are engaged in politicizing the virus: “Democrats distort coronavirus readiness”.
Democratic presidential contenders are describing the federal infectious-disease bureaucracy as rudderless and ill-prepared for the coronavirus threat because of budget cuts and ham-handed leadership by President Donald Trump. That’s a distorted picture. For starters, Trump hasn’t succeeded in cutting the budget.
Over the weekend, the President said the media attempts to blame his administration for the virus spreading in the United States was a hoax. Dana Milbank of the Washington Post relayed that the President had called COVID-19 itself a hoax. Several talking heads repeated that on television. The Politico ran a headline suggesting the same. It also ran a cartoon of a man committing suicide after his wife tells him the President’s team has “got this” regarding the virus.
According to the American media, only Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and Republicans are politicizing this. They give themselves and the left a pass.
Bonus: Here’s a columnist for the New York Times magazine saying “we are so screwed” because the Vice President led actual experts dealing with COVID-19 in prayer before beginning work.
But tell me no members of the media of Democrats are politicizing it. It is only Fox News doing it, according to the rest of the press.
Speaking as a writer for a tiny rural paper (motto: not yet owned by a hedge fund!), we're doing our best not to politicize it. But there are concerns: if folks end up quarantined, who pays the hospital bill? Money's tight here, and insurance comes with high deductibles. Will there be resources for our hospital staff, masks and sanitizer and whatever else? We're trying to find a way to talk about it without scaring our readers and without being accused of playing politics. I guess it's a matter of staying local, focused on our people. National news can be found at the outlet of their choice.