Pandemic Brings Out the Best and the Worst in the Media
COMMENTARY
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By Mark Hemingway
The coronavirus crisis is a make-or-break moment for the American media.
According to Wednesday’s Gallup poll on the coronavirus response, “Hospitals Rated Best, News Media Worst.†The survey shows that 44% of the public says the media has been doing “a good job.†This is high considering how the press fares in normal times, but let’s be honest: It can’t be comforting to a press corps that has been persistently adversarial to Donald Trump that it ranks 16 points lower than the approval of the president’s own handling of the crisis.
Predictably, some of the media’s worst tendencies, such as myopic concerns about political correctness and electoral politics, have often defined coverage of a public health crisis. At the same time, however, many news outlets are finding their voice and rallying around coverage that is unifying and informative. It would be a shame if the errors and predictable bias drowned out many laudable, even heroic, media efforts.
First, a quick refresher on how the media botched the initial coverage: On Jan. 23, authorities in Beijing sealed off Wuhan, a city of 11 million in China’s interior, to contain the virus. Much of the media response was to downplay this harbinger of the deadly global threat to come. “Don’t worry about the coronavirus,†BuzzFeed wrote on Jan. 29. Worry about the flu.†On Jan. 31 – the same day the Trump administration imposed a ban incoming visitors from China – the “explainer†news site Vox was telling readers, “Is this going to be a deadly pandemic? No.†On Feb. 1, the Washington Post ran an article headlined, “Get a grippe, America. The flu is a much bigger threat than coronavirus, for now.†On Groundhog Day, the Post was saying, “Past epidemics prove fighting coronavirus with travel bans is a mistake.â€
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https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/03/27/pandemic_brings_out_the_best_and_the_worst_in_the_media_142791.html
